Many industries across Southern and East Africa remain structurally constrained, characterised by limited growth, economically struggling firms, insufficient job creation, weak regional integration, and limited participation in global value chains. Addressing these challenges is central to CCRED’s research on domestic, regional, and global value chains. Through extensive regional and comparative analysis across multiple sectors, CCRED identifies key bottlenecks to industrial upgrading and growth, examines barriers to inclusive participation, and assesses constraints to deeper regional integration and global competitiveness.
This work highlights how stronger domestic and regional value chains can serve as important stepping stones for firms and industries to build capabilities, improve productivity, and participate more effectively in global value chains. The research informs the design of targeted, evidence-based interventions that support inclusive economic development, industrial upgrading, and joint regional industrialisation through more efficient, competitive, and resilient value chains.
Key projects
Key projects under this research pillar include the following, each generating important insights into regional integration, industrial upgrading, inclusion, and sustainable development pathways:
2024–2026 Women Creating Wealth in Agricultural Value Chains, undertaken in partnership with the Graça Machel Trust and funded by the European Union.
2021–2025 Fair for All: Inclusive and Sustainable Gender-Transformative Value Chains, a collaboration between CCRED, the Graça Machel Trust, and the Women on Farms Project, funded by Oxfam South Africa (OZA)
2020–2024 Power and Inequality in Production Systems (PIPS), funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research – Social Sciences
2019–2021 Innovation and Inclusive Industrialisation in Agro-processing, a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh, the University of Johannesburg, and the Economic and Social Research Foundation (Tanzania), funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Global Challenges Research Fund
2017–2019 African Industrial Development and Integration Research Project (AIDIRP), commissioned by the former Department of Trade and Industry (the dti), coordinated by Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS), and implemented by CCRED
2017–2020 Southern Africa – Toward Inclusive Economic Development (SA-TIED), funded by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER)
2015–2017 Regional Growth and Development in Southern Africa, funded by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER)