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on Africa |
| By: | Verwimp,Philip; Maystadt,Jean-Francois Paul Claude |
| Abstract: | Most reports on refugees deal with the immediate needs of displaced people. This paper seeks to go beyond the emergency phase and explore the challenges surrounding protracted refugee situations. The paper examines the refugee situation in Sub-Saharan Africa from a long-term angle, from the perspective of refugees'own agency as well as from the perspective of the host community. The paper aims to shed light on the economic lives of refugees in their host communities. Starting with an overview of the situation of refugees in Sub-Saharan Africa, the paper draws on findings from the literature to debunk some entrenched beliefs about refugees. The discussion of refugee crises in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda draws some lessons. The decision to return is discussed and it is argued that the decision depends on the socioeconomic condition in the host country versus the country of refuge, integration versus return policies in place, the individual set of skills of each refugee, and his or her subjective perception of the political climate in both countries. |
| Keywords: | Education For All,Post Conflict Reconstruction,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Population Policies,Street Children |
| Date: | 2015–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7517&r=afr |
| By: | Simplice Asongu (Yaoundé/Cameroun) |
| Abstract: | An April 2015 World Bank report on attainment of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) extreme poverty target has revealed that extreme poverty has been decreasing in all regions of the world with the exception of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), in spite of the sub-region enjoying more than two decades of growth resurgence. This study builds on a critic of Piketty’s ‘capital in the 21st century’ and recent methodological innovations on reverse Solow-Swan to review empirics on the adoption of common policy initiatives against a cause of extreme poverty in SSA: capital flight. The richness of the dataset enables the derivation of 14 fundamental characteristics of African capital flight based on income-levels, legal origins, natural resources, political stability, regional proximity and religious domination. The main finding reveals that regardless of fundamental characteristic, from a projection date of 2010, a genuine timeframe for harmonizing policies is between 2016 and 2023. In other words, the beginning of the psot-2015 agenda on sustainable development goals coincides with the timeframe for common capital flight policies. |
| Keywords: | Econometric modeling; Capital flight; Poverty; Africa |
| JEL: | C50 E62 F34 O19 O55 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:15/048&r=afr |
| By: | Simplice Asongu (Yaoundé/Cameroun); Vanessa Tchamyou (Yaoundé/Cameroun) |
| Abstract: | Purpose - The paper assesses how entrepreneurship affects knowledge economy (KE) in Africa. Design/methodology/approach – Entrepreneurship is measured by indicators of starting, doing and ending business. The four dimensions of the World Bank’s index of KE are employed. Instrumental variable panel fixed effects are applied on a sampled of 53 African countries for the period 1996-2010. Findings –The following are some findings. First, creating an enabling environment for starting business can substantially boost most dimensions of KE. Second, doing business through mechanisms of trade globalisation has positive effects from sectors that are not ICT and High-tech oriented. Third, the time required to end business has negative effects on KE. Practical implications – Our findings confirm the narrative that the technology in African countries at the moment may be more imitative and adaptive for reverse-engineering in ICTs and high-tech products. Given the massive consumption of ICT and high-tech commodities in Africa, the continent has to start thinking of how to participate in the global value chain of producing what it consumes. Originality/value – This paper has a twofold motivation. First, given the ambitions of African countries of moving towards knowledge based economies, the line of inquiry is timely. Second, investigating the nexus may have substantial poverty mitigation and sustainable development implications. These entail inter alia: the development of technology with value-added services; enhancement of existing agricultural practices; promotion of conditions that are essential for competitiveness and adjustment of globalization challenges. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship; Knowledge Economy; Development; Africa |
| JEL: | L59 O10 O30 O20 O55 |
| Date: | 2015–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:15/044&r=afr |
| By: | Paolo Brunori (University of Bari); Flaviana Palmisano (University of Luxembourg); Vito Peragine (University of Bari) |
| Abstract: | In the last decades inequality of opportunity has been extensively studied by economists, on the assumption that, in addition to being normatively undesirable, it can be related to low potential for growth. In this paper we evaluate inequality of opportunity in 11 Sub-Saharan Africa countries. According to our results, the portion of total inequality which can be attributed to exogenous circumstances is between 30% and 40% for the generality of countries considered. We also find a positive association between total consumption inequality and inequality of opportunity and we study the di?erent sources of unequal opportunities. Finally, we address a number of methodological issues that typically arise when measuring inequality of opportunity with imperfect data, which is the typical case in developing countries. |
| Keywords: | Consumption inequality, Equality of opportunity, Sub-Saharan Africa |
| JEL: | D63 E24 O15 O40 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bai:series:series_wp_08-2015&r=afr |
| By: | Simplice Asongu (Yaoundé/Cameroun); Lieven De Moor (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium); Vanessa Tchamyou (Yaoundé/Cameroon) |
| Abstract: | This study unites two streams of research by simultaneously focusing on the impact of financial globalisation on financial development and pre- and post-crisis dynamics of the investigated relationship. The empirical evidence is based on 53 African countries for the period 2004-2011 and Generalised Method of Moments. The following findings are established. First, whereas marginal effects from financial globalisation are positive on financial dynamics of activity and size, corresponding net effects (positive thresholds) are negative (within range). Second, while decreasing financial globalisation returns are apparent to financial dynamics of depth and efficiency, corresponding net effects (negative thresholds) are positive (not within range). Third, financial development dynamics are more weakly stationary and strongly convergent in the pre-crisis period. Fourth, the net effect from the: pre-crisis period is lower on money supply and banking system efficiency; post-crisis period is positive on financial system efficiency and pre-crisis period is positive on financial size. Policy implications are discussed. |
| Keywords: | Banking; Financial crisis; Financial development |
| JEL: | F02 F21 F30 F40 O10 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:15/045&r=afr |
| By: | Vanessa Tchamyou (Yaoundé/Cameroun) |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the role knowledge economy (KE) in African business in 53 countries for the period 1996-2010. The four KE components of the World Bank are employed, notably: education, innovation, economic incentives & institutional regime and information & communication technology. The business indicators are classified into: starting, doing and ending business. Principal components analysis and panel instrumental variable fixed effects approaches are employed as empirical strategies. The findings which are broadly consistent with intuition and the predictions of economic theory suggest that KE policies will substantially boost the starting and doing of business in Africa. This is relevant in fighting unemployment and improving African competitiveness in global value chains. Policy implications for the relevance of each specific KE dimension in African business are discussed with particular emphasis on the theoretical underpinnings of the study. The investigation is original in its contribution at the same time to the scarce literature on African KE and the growing challenges of improving the business climate of the continent by means of KE. |
| Keywords: | Knowledge Economy; Doing business; Development; Africa |
| JEL: | L59 O10 O30 O20 O55 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:15/049&r=afr |