"Africa's landlocked countries are not oriented toward their neighbors. Both their infrastructure and their policies are oriented either to be completely inward-looking or toward the world market. Neighbors are just in the way of the world market, not themselves the market. And this shows up in the growth spillovers.
In Africa, if the neighbors grow [...] it doesn't spill over. To date it has not mattered very much: usually in Africa the neighbors of the landlocked have barely been growing, so there has been precious little growth to spill over. But as things stand, even if the more fortunate countries started to grow, it would not help the landlocked."
-- "The Bottom Billion' by Paul Collier, p. 57 - 58
So what can a landlocked country do?
- Increase neighborhood growth spillovers
- Improve neighbors' economic policies
- Improve coastal access
- Become a haven for business services for the region (as Lebanon did)
- Don't be air-locked or e-locked
- Encourage remittances
- Create a transparent and investor-friendly environment for resource prospecting
- Rural development
- Try to attract aid
Other quotes from The Bottom Billion:
- Voting with your feet
- Reciprocity
- Five international charters
- Polarizations
- Public inaction
- Reformers do not have it easy
- The role of economic growth
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