Moreover, social policies such as education could be implemented to create a skilled workforce that will diversify the economy and make them less dependent on natural resources. The use of these policies combined with certain levels of trade has proven to be effective for the Asian tigers. These policies range from tariff protections to state subsidies in strategic areas such as agriculture, infrastructures, manufacturing, and technological research. Ha-Joon Chang offers a list of interventionist industrial, trade, and technology (ITT) policies which he argues were used by now-developed countries during their catch-up stage. Moreover, governments could endorse economic policies that are viable within their scope to promote development. Governments have to offer transparency and accountability. Seen in the political and social structures that Burgis analyses in his book, it is arguable that the first step to achieve development has to come from good governance.

and it is incredibly difficult to change that structure”.

Burgis offers empirical data which shows that similar numbers can be found across all sub-Saharan Africa as noted by the author, “the colonial powers set up a machine to extract resources…. For instance, oil accounts for 98 per cent of Angola’s current exports, while minerals account for 95 per cent of Guinea’s exports. This in turn created an economic dependency on natural resources, impeding economic diversification. This resulted in the international division of labour, where the Global South was forced to specialize on the export of primary commodities. Colonial rulers such as Cecil John Rhodes or King Leopold II changed the economic and social structuresof the colonies through the setting of extractive institutions: “those that do not provide any rights to the majority of the population so that they can extract resources or labour from them, or monopolize the most lucrative business”.

The book places African underdevelopmentas emerging from European colonialization. Burgis understands development as a project rather than a natural phenomenon, that is to say, the global economic and political system did not just happen, but rather was created.

The looting machine book