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In this chapter, the author sets out on a journey to unlock the mystery behind Africa’s development by putting this complex issue in perspective. He traverses history and zooms in on the great ‘African paradox’, the persistent discrepancy between Africa’s perceived goals and the non-conformant reality: nation-building vs. a weak sense of nation; development vs. dependency; globalization vs. lack of industrial development. Using an illustration that conceptualizes Africa’s paradoxical development path, the chapter elaborates on the nature and consequences of the dilemmas as well as the international dynamics involved.

This chapter focuses on the role of foreign aid and takes issue with the intellectual circles’ habit of criticizing aid and blaming donors. In order to get to the heart of the matter, the author asks a simple but a thought-provoking question: ‘Who is to be blamed?’ He moves beyond the pros and cons of aid to highlight the real dynamism that underlies this issue, to make plain that, while the limitations of foreign aid are obvious, aid is only a means to an end. Concepts like ‘reciprocal compliance’ are used to show the interactive nature of foreign assistance in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This chapter is aimed at objectively assessing various possible reasons for Africa’s poverty and underdevelopment. It reviews the conventional or popular explanations for Africa’s prolonged predicament, as well as other factors possibly negatively impacting Africa. The topics addressed are colonial legacies, ethnicism and neo-patrimonialism; institutions, governance and democracy, the role of government; natural conditions like climate and geography, and other factors including corruption and globalization. The author sizes up the existing views or discourses from critical perspective and, in the process, sheds new lights on what are commonly misunderstood.

In this chapter, the author shifts gear to a whole different level of ‘mind over matter‘, postulating that there is such thing as the principle, overarching root cause of Africa’s underdevelopment: the people’s ‘mindset’. He draws on the Korea’s experience, and the parallels between the Korean experience and the circumstances of Sub-Saharan African countries, to make the case appealing and pertinent. The problematic mindsets or the ‘syndromes’ that are counterproductive to development are identified and explained. These include the dependency syndrome, ‘backtracking syndrome’, ‘what’s-in-it-for-me syndrome‘, lack of action and implementation, the commission culture, etc. This chapter offers a rare look into the mindset issue from an analytical context.

This chapter takes a step further in the methodical ‘building-block’ approach aimed at deriving ultimate solutions for Sub-Saharan African countries’ development. At the outset, the nature of Africa’s underperformance, especially in comparison to Asian countries, is characterized as the question regarding ‘intent’ and ‘internalization’ of development. Then, the ‘missing links’ of Africa’s development, the basic but crucial elements for development that are generally weak or deficient in the Sub-Saharan African countries are introduced: a sense of nation or national identity; ‘development-mindedness’; and the strong role of the state. A key analytical concept highlighted and detailed here is ‘development-mindedness’ or ‘KPOP’, which stands for ‘knowledge’, ‘practising’, ‘owning’ and ‘passion’.

In this chapter, the author offers much-needed positivity in the discourse on Africa’s development by elaborating on the reasons to be optimistic and hopeful. But this is conditional and the message is clear: African nations must have objective views of themselves and work on their advantages and potentials. The author stipulates seven reasons to be positive in this regard. Here, various physical, natural conditions and ‘human factors’ are assessed and put in perspective. The rationale behind the argument is that in essence, Africa’s problems are fundamentally human in nature rather than structural; hence, these can be overcome with efforts. The tasks of donors are also examined in view of their relevance to Africa.

Here, the case of Korea’s development is examined applying the same ‘building-block’ approach. This chapter scrutinizes Korea’s evolution in a time-linear and multi-dimensional fashion, taking us through its historical background, liberation and state-building, and its ‘economic miracle’ period and beyond. The author then recaps the overall achievements of South Korea and presents the ‘schematic itinerary of Korea’s development’ which epitomizes Korea’s path of economic and socio-political transformation. A key feature of Korea’s development is described in terms of compressed development both in the economic and socio-political realms.

In this chapter, the author produces a much-needed conceptualized Korean development model featuring all the crucial elements characterizing Korea’s development—foundational, psychological, economic and socio-political—in an organized structure. He dissects South Korea’s transformational path into different stages, both in the economic and the socio-political realms, and indicates their principal driving forces or logics, namely ‘economic discrimination’ and ‘development-mindedness’. The model is derived from the ‘building-block’ process of understanding Korea and also incorporates human factors like Koreans’ ‘egalitarian spirit’. This conceptual model captures the essence of South Korea’s compressed economic and socio-political development.

This chapter and the ensuing chapters constitute a crucial part of this work where the Korean model of development is applied to Sub-Saharan Africa. The ideas discussed here form the integral part of the ‘building-bridge’ approach, which aims at linking Africa to Korea’s development model. At the outset, the lessons of the fundamentals of economics and industrialization are cited. This is followed by reflections on Korea’s past circumstances and Africa’s current situation. It concludes with an assessment on the relevance of the Korean developmental model for Sub-Saharan African nations.

This section presents comprehensive policy recommendations for Africa. The overarching theme is ‘the need for drastic turnaround’. An important question asked here is: ‘What induces people to act?’ The mechanism of incentives and sanctions, and how they should be framed to make societies developmental, are elaborated upon. The chapter assesses the present structure of economic development in Africa and points out the essential principles or elements that are lacking. Out of this, a new development formula for Africa is deduced. The author also touches upon government reform and economic policies. In closing, he stresses the need for education in ethics and mindset change.