African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1227: Chapter 236: The Fourth Five-Year Plan

The economic performance of East Africa from 1910 to 1915 was not inferior to the previous decade; during the first two Five-Year Plans, East Africa had accumulated for decades, leading to a period of steady but significant progress, and the third plan coincided with a favorable historical opportunity.

With the advent of 1916, East Africa’s ”Fourth Plan” was officially launched and implemented, targeting some issues encountered after the initiation of the new economic policy.

The Fourth Plan is characterized by features of non-comprehensive planning, entirely different in significance, to some extent reflecting the transformation of the economic role of the East African Government.

The execution of the new economic policy in East Africa led to a parallel development of planning and markets during the Third Plan, undoubtedly this sudden shift in the economic domain had a significant impact on the national economy.

However, leveraging the historical opportunity of the Great War, the Third Plan still achieved a smooth landing, yet this does not mean that the exposed issues should be ignored due to economic prosperity.

Especially the lack of macroeconomic regulation means for the free market, leading to the unchecked growth of East Africa’s free market, uncovering numerous social and economic issues.

Thus, the transformation from Five-Year Plans to Five-Year Strategies signifies a major change in the governance model of the economic domain by the East African Government.

In Ernst’s words: ”Coordinated and unified development of planning and market, while utilizing the dual advantages of government and market, is a significant characteristic of East Africa’s future economic development.”

The main points worth noting in the Fourth Plan compared to the Third Plan, besides changes in the ideological core and guiding principles, equally highlight the guidance significance for national economic development.

In the era of a completely planned economy, the East African Government was the all-encompassing figure ’able to manage everything’, but now it focuses mainly on guidance, leading functions, even adding contents of ’service’.

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Rhein City.

Following the launch of the Fourth Plan, the East African Government once again entered a busy phase, along with the Great War as a window period, elevating the intensity of work by the East African Government to a higher level.

Ernst: ”At present, our construction achievements in the eastern, central, and western regions are remarkable, forming an economic core centered around the Central Railway axis.”

”However, we must not neglect the economic development of other regions nationwide, so during the Fourth Plan, the government will focus on the Great Lakes Region and southern areas to develop regional economy and build a new economic map of East Africa.”

The Great Lakes Region and southern areas are respectively the regions with the best agricultural and industrial foundational conditions in East Africa.

The Great Lakes Region is characterized by large cultivated areas, favorable rain and heat conditions, relatively flat terrain, and has always been the most important farming area in East Africa.

While the south, basically referring to former South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, and other regions, is endowed with the richest mineral resources in East Africa, yet aside from coastal areas, has not been fully utilized and developed in the past.

In fact, if East Africa had chosen the southern area for development early on, it would undoubtedly greatly reduce the cost of industrial and economic development.

”The Great Lakes Region is the agricultural reservoir of the Empire, bearing the crucial task of national agricultural development. Over the past decades, it has been the most critical agricultural area in our country, the ’iron rice bowl’ for all citizens, but for the economy to develop comprehensively and coordinately, the Great Lakes Region cannot rely solely on agriculture.”

”Therefore, during the Fourth Plan, developing the Great Lakes Region is an important task for the government, especially in cities along the lakes such as Kampala and Kisumu.”

”Focusing on the Great Lakes Region as the core, creating a new economic pole in East Africa to drive high-quality and high-speed development of the northern economy.”

Kampala, Kisumu, Mwanza are all significant cities along the coast of the Great Lakes Region, especially Kisumu and Mwanza were once veteran economic powerhouses in East Africa. However, in recent years, with the economic focus of East Africa on the central zone, they have somewhat fallen behind the main body.

Ernst continued: ”Around the Great Lakes Region, creating an economic belt along the lakes, fully leveraging the advantages of water transportation to realize material distribution.”

The advantages of the Great Lakes Region are evident, holding the largest lake in East Africa, the water transportation is very developed, along with the national canal plan in East Africa, and the construction of railways and highways, it can be said that the Great Lakes Region has become an important inland transportation hub area in East Africa.

Especially the resources of grain, rubber, timber, minerals, etc. in the Great Lakes Region, were previously first transported by water before being sent to other parts of the country or globally via railway or road.

Regarding the shortcomings of the Great Lakes Region, presumably the mineral resources, though this does not mean the mineral resources are not abundant, rather it’s the lack of foundational resources for early industrial development such as iron ore and coal mine.

The mineral resources of the Great Lakes Region mainly exhibit characteristics such as variety and wide distribution. For instance, in former Uganda, more than fifty varieties of mineral resources have been explored, including oil, mica, feldspar, limestone, phosphate, iron, vermiculite, tantalum, vanadium, copper, cobalt, tungsten, etc.

This is just one area of Uganda; one can imagine the richness of resource varieties in the Great Lakes Region, but to utilize these resources, certain industrial foundations must be possessed.

In the early East Africa, the Great Lakes Region was always East Africa’s largest gold mining area, and the relatively scarce tungsten resources in East Africa were mainly located in the region and Hesse Province.

Undoubtedly, the Great Lakes Region greatly contributed to the early development of East Africa, as it is the most important agricultural region in East Africa and also the earliest place for gold mining development in East Africa, providing substantial funds for the initial industrial development of East Africa.

”The overall idea for the industrial development of the Great Lakes Region is to first complete construction projects like the Empire Dam and port reconstruction, then relocate residents from inundated areas, reintegrate local resources, forming an economic and industrial belt around the Great Lakes Region focusing on shipping, metal smelting, fisheries, electric power, etc.”

The significance of shipping is self-explanatory; the Great Lakes Region is vast and has always been the most developed inland water transportation area in East Africa.

The metal smelting naturally utilizes the rich metal mineral resources in the Great Lakes Region, while it is also one of the regions with the richest fishery resources in East Africa. As for electric power, this touches upon the abundant hydropower potential in the Great Lakes Region.

This is deeply connected to the climate and terrain of the Great Lakes Region.

The Great Lake is the former Lake Victoria; from the map, it is actually a large lake located in the middle of the East African Rift Valley.

This results in a distribution of mountains in the east-west direction of the Great Lakes Region, while the north-south directions are relatively flat, and rivers originating from these mountains are the main source of water in the Great Lakes Region.

The Great Lakes Region is also an important rainy area in East Africa, adjoining the Congo Basin, while its rainfall is slightly inferior to the Congo rainforest, it is still very sufficient.

What’s most noteworthy is the seasonal distribution of precipitation in the Great Lakes Region, evenly spread with lush rainfall, further enhancing the potential for the development of local hydropower resources.

Therefore, the East African Government intends to fully utilize local terrain and climate to build several hydropower stations, thus providing abundant cheap electricity to the Great Lakes Region and East Africa’s eastern and northern regions.

And the industrial and economic development in the Great Lakes Region will undoubtedly strongly drive economic development in the northern regions of East Africa.

In fact, geographically, the Great Lakes Region in East Africa belongs to the eastern area, but its geographical position is close to the northern part of East Africa, making it the most suitable place for large-scale development close to the north at the current stage.

This is quite important, as regions surrounding the Great Lakes Region in the former era like Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda were relatively well developed economically in Africa.

However, looking further north to regions like South Sudan, Central Africa, Somali, basically they fell into categories without lower limits in the African big region.

Though under East African rule, these regions must be vastly different from the past era, undoubtedly, under the same conditions, the development of the Great Lakes Region would certainly be more successful than other northern regions.

And the northern part of East Africa actually includes territories like former Chad, Sudan, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo Gold, Ethiopia.

Either too small in area, or adverse climate, or overly complex terrain, like territories in former Sudan occupied by East Africa, only small plains in Jezira have agricultural conditions, while the majority are desert areas lacking water sources, and areas in Ethiopia occupied by East Africa, are surrounded by mountains, making development difficult, with Cameroon and Gabon being covered by dense rainforests.