Manufacturing Growth: What is the path to prosperity in Africa?

What prevents sub-Saharan Africa from escaping poverty through the development of significant manufacturing industries? The first category of constraints are those external to firms, about which we have economic theories: scarcity of physical capital, taxes, poor infrastructure, lack of human capital, corruption, trade costs. A second category are those internal to firms, about which we know little, and have even fewer theories. Unfortunately the constraints on the growth of manufacturing in Africa are shown below to mainly stem from this second category of internal constraints of which we know little. The ability of economics to offer advice is thus limited. Progress depends on better understanding the internal dynamics of enterprises.