Industrial policy-making in mineral-rich developing countries

This dissertation investigates policy-making in mineral-rich developing countries with a focus on policies that seek to promote the value add to mineral products before export (also known as beneficiation policy). Firstly, it explores how mineral value chains may be conceptualised to frame the debate around beneficiation policy and enable a holistic contextualisation of such policy. Secondly, it presents two novel/adapted analytical frameworks that support the appraisal of the potential strategic value of different downstream processing activities. The first framework uses corporate sustainability disclosures to as- sess the potential triple-bottom-line impact of hosting a focal activity within a particular jurisdiction. This framework is applied to the case of platinum in South Africa in order to illustrate how it may be applied. The second framework provides an input-output lens with which to leverage the product space analysis method to determine how difficult it would likely be to target an industry and what the potential capability development and economic growth effects of this industry could be. This framework is applied to the case of steel in South Africa. The case is used to reflect on the optimality of following a downstream linkage-based (beneficiation) industrial policy logic. It is found that a so-called ‘leap-frogging’ approach to policy development may be more optimal. Finally, this dissertation presents a framework to enable the appraisal of the factors driving the location of a particular activity to understand how such an activity could be targeted. This supports the attainment of a first ap- proximation of the cost and feasibility of the required interventions to attain this activity in a mineral-rich developing country. This dissertation therefore contributes towards consolidating and extending the academic literature that has a bearing on improved industrial policy-making in mineral value chains of mineral-rich developing countries. Furthermore, it aims to provide practical tools for policy-makers in order to support improved developmental outcomes. It is also envisioned that the tools and approaches developed in this dissertation could be leveraged far beyond just the mineral-related industries which were the focus of this study.