African Manufacturing Jobs Could be Threatened by US Based Robots, Report Says (bbc.com)

Within less than two decades it will be cheaper to operate robots in US factories than hire workers in Africa, a new report warns. From the report: Falling automation costs are predicted to cause job losses as manufacturers return to richer economies. Some analysts say poorer countries could be less impacted by this trend, however the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) suggests otherwise. But its report adds African nations have time to prepare for the change. "African countries must not shy away from manufacturing, but instead prepare by increasing access to internet, investing in technical skills and promoting technological innovation," said Karishma Banga a senior research officer at ODI. "If done well, automation can present important opportunities for African countries by improving labour productivity in manufacturing," she said. It has been suggested that poorer countries will not as be affected by automation because they have less money to invest in it.

Comments

Re:This is actually good news

[mikael]

We've tried for decades. As the charities say, they want someone else to pay their lunch for them.

  To solve the food crisis, we send them aid in the form of corn and grain seeds so they plant crops and have a self-sustaining agriculture. They either eat the grain or sell it for fast cash, then wait for the next airplane to deliver more aid.

We can build self-maintaining water treatment works. These systems work on long-wave radio and satellite communications. Everything is designed to be animal proof. Satellite and radio antennae are high up, grounded to protect against lightning and lined with a box mesh to stop primates getting anywhere near. Any faults are broadcast upstream and a repair team is sent out. Systems have fault-tolerant redundancy built in. There isn't any way these systems could fail. Except that the operator in the control room would change the satellite channel to watch local soap operas and take the system off-line to do so.

If we try and build roads, anyone with any equipment will suddenly have breakdowns and needs money to buy spare parts. If you provide your spare parts from warehouse, there will be break in and suddenly those spare parts turn up on the market.

The only thing that can be done and that's what the Chinese do, is pay them to rent their land.