| Summary: | <p>This thesis explores the utilisation of industrial hubs in Nigeria and their crucial role in fostering manufacturing and entrepreneurial capabilities required for economic development. Despite the increasing number of clusters and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in Nigeria, significant gaps still exist in our understanding of their performance and the implications for an economic development strategy that prioritises their growth. To address this issue, extensive qualitative research was conducted on the Lekki Free Trade Zone, a Chinese SEZ, and the Yaba tech cluster, one of Africa's most dynamic tech clusters. The research aimed to provide insights into the operations and performance of these hubs by analysing learning and knowledge transfer mechanisms in the SEZ, the role of entrepreneurs and non-state actors in building institutions in the cluster and the state’s role in these processes.</p>
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<p>The study makes the following arguments. First, SEZs offer local workers and firms learning opportunities, but several obstacles, including the absorptive capacity of local workers and firms, motivations, and characteristics of SEZ firms, and the SEZ policy and incentive framework, have hindered knowledge transfer between the SEZ and the domestic economy. Second, the cluster's entrepreneurs and non-state actors have enabled the emergence of an entrepreneurial ecosystem by building critical entrepreneurship institutions to address resource gaps in human capital development, entrepreneurship support, and finance. Finally, state interventions in the ecosystem are more effective when there is active collaboration and engagement between the state and ecosystem actors, as opposed to top-down approaches where such engagement is minimal. The thesis draws from multiple data sources, including semi-structured interviews with various stakeholders, documentary sources and non-participant observation.</p>
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