3D Priting : Shaping Africa’s Future

By Aleksandra Gadzala

According to the global consulting firm McKinsey and Company, one out of our workers worldwide may be African by 2030. The global center for gravity of labor-intensive manufacturing is expected to shift to poorer economies with lower labor costs-including those in sub-Saharan Africa- and the African region could emerge as “the next factory of the world”. Yet, this is not certain. The adoption of technologies associated with “Industry 4.0” – the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, and three-dimensional (3D) printing-in China and high-income economies in Europe and the United States is reducing the importance of low labor costs in determining overall production location and may , in the long term, lead to a reshoring of global supply chains.