Enhancing regional sustainable industrialisation and poverty reduction post-COVID. The case of the common market for the eastern and southern Africa region

Industrialisation is important for attaining economic development in an economy as well as other macroeconomic objectives, such as economic growth and low levels of unemployment. This research aimed to examine how the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa can use industrialisation for effective poverty reduction. The research adopted the panel autoregressive distributed lag model. Data were sourced from the World Bank from 1994 to 2022. The results demonstrated that social security, remittances, industrial development and development aid are crucial factors that can be leveraged to reduce poverty in the COMESA region. It was established that if industrialisation increases by 1%, poverty will decrease by 19% in the long run. It was suggested that trade barriers be removed, and modern technology be harnessed to ensure the value-benefit of the beneficiation of raw materials for effective poverty reduction.