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on Africa |
| By: | Tuki, Daniel |
| Abstract: | Although the incidence of conflicts between Fulani nomadic pastoralists and sedentary farmers in Nigeria have risen significantly during the last decade, no study has, to the best of my knowledge, examined how these conflicts influence distrust of members of the Fulani ethnic group and the larger Muslim population, nor the conditions under which these conflicts, which are primarily about competition over land and water resources, morph into religious conflicts. Using novel survey data collected from Kaduna, the state with the third highest incidence of pastoral conflicts in Nigeria, this study fills these gaps. The regression results show that exposure to pastoral conflicts cause distrust of members of the Fulani ethnic group and Muslims; although the size of the effect is much larger for the Fulani compared to Muslims. This shows that the population in Kaduna tend to conflate the Fulani with Muslims. Religious polarization was found to catalyze the process of resource conflicts turning religious. |
| Keywords: | Pastoral conflict, Farmer-herder conflict, trust, Fulani, Religion, KadunaState, Nigeria |
| JEL: | D74 O13 Q34 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbmit:spvi2023101&r=afr |
| By: | Anouk S. Rigterink (Durham University); Tarek Ghani (Washington University St. Louis); Juan Sebastian Lozano (Princeton University); Jacob N. Shapiro (Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | Explanations for the well-established relationship between mining and conflict interpret violence near resource extraction sites as part of conflict over territory or government. We provide evidence that competition between artisanal and industrial miners is also an important source of natural resources related conflict, from qualitative case studies at mining sites in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe and a large-N analysis. For the latter, we use machine learning to estimate the feasibility of artisanal mining across the continent of Africa based on geological conditions. We find the impact of price shocks on violent conflict is roughly three times as large in locations with industrial mining where artisanal mining is feasible as it is in places with industrial mining but no potential for artisanal mining. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that 31 to 55% of the observed mining-conflict relationship is due to violent industrial-artisanal miner competition. This implies new avenues for conflict-mitigation. |
| Keywords: | Democratic Republic of Congo; Zimbabwe; DRC; Civil War; Insurgency; Terrorism Violence |
| JEL: | Q34 D74 L72 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:esocpu:35&r=afr |
| By: | Thibault Lemaire; Paul Vertier |
| Abstract: | Global commodity prices spikes can have strong macroeconomic effects, particularly in developing countries. This paper estimates the global commodity prices pass-through to consumer price inflation in Africa. Our sample includes monthly data for 48 countries over the period 2002m02-2021m04. We consider 17 commodity prices separately to take into account both the heterogeneity in price variations and the cross-correlations between them, and to depart from aggregate indices that use weights unrepresentative of consumption in African countries. Using local projections in a panel dataset, we find a maximum pass-through of 24%, and a long-run (18 months) pass-through of about 20%, higher than usually found in the literature, which typically uses aggregate indices. We also consider country-specific regressions to test whether estimated pass-through are related to countries’ observable characteristics. We find evidence that the pass-through is negatively correlated with the GDP per capita and the quality of transport infrastructure, and positively correlated with the share of food and energy in the consumption basket and the share of taxes on goods and services in government revenue. Net oil exporters, countries with larger energy subsidies and with a more independent central bank tend to have a lower pass-through. We further show that commodity-specific pass-through are correlated with the share of corresponding goods in the consumer basket. |
| Keywords: | Commodity Prices, Food Prices, Energy Prices, Inflation, Pass-Through, Africa |
| JEL: | C23 E31 F44 O11 Q02 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:906&r=afr |
| By: | Omar Shahabudin McDoom |
| Abstract: | I examine whether and how the means through which a civil war ends affects the success of a country's state-building strategy after conflict. I show that two distinct modes of conflict termination—military victories and negotiated settlements—lead to differential long-run state-building outcomes and offer an explanation of the mechanism behind the divergence. In a military victory, the coercive balance-of-power at the end of war favourable to the victor enables it to dictate the post-conflict institutional design and skew power formally in its favour. |
| Keywords: | Civil conflict, Political settlements, Statebuilding |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2023-29&r=afr |
| By: | Pauline Castaing (World Bank Group); Antoine Leblois (CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier) |
| Abstract: | The Great Green Wall is a crosscountry initiative to improve the environment of desertification areas in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper refers to the implementation of Great Green Wall projects in Nigeria to document the local impact of environmental restoration on children's food security and health. Our identification strategy uses two types of variation to capture these effects. The spatial variation comes from the heterogeneous exposure of the children to these new environmental restoration programs. The temporal variation comes from sudden changes between 2013 and 2016. Taking the height-to-age z-score as main outcome of interest, we find a significant and robust health improvement for children living next to community-based orchards whereas proximity to shelterbelts generates mixed impacts. Gains in health (+0.5 standard deviation in the height index) coexist with higher dietary diversity score for children living near orchards. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Restoration, Food security, Nigeria, Nutrition, Impact evaluation |
| Date: | 2023–02–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpceem:hal-03958274&r=afr |
| By: | Kwabena Adu-Ababio; Aliisa Koivisto; Andreya Kumwenda; Gregory Chileshe; John Mulenga; Mutemwa Mebelo; Ian Mufana; Yenda Shamabobo |
| Abstract: | Improving tax collection is essential if developing economies are to avoid over-reliance on external donor funds and loans. Revenue authorities in the Global South have recently adopted new policy tools to improve domestic revenue mobilization through taxes. One such new policy is a withholding system for value-added tax (VAT). In this study, we investigate the impact of adopting a system for withholding value-added tax on VAT collection in Zambia. While similar systems are in place in many countries, empirical research into their impact is still limited and inconclusive. |
| Keywords: | Value-added tax, Tax compliance, Tax administration, Africa |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2023-21&r=afr |
| By: | Musakwa, Mercy T |
| Abstract: | This study examined the causal relationship between poverty and foreign direct investment inflows in Zimbabwe using data from 1990 to 2020. The study was motivated by the need to determine which factor influence the other between FDI and poverty. This would contribute to identifying possible solution to the challenge of low foreign direct investment and high poverty levels in Zimbabwe, despite the government open-door policy for foreign investors. The human development index and household consumption expenditure were used as poverty proxies. Using the autoregressive distributed lag to cointegration test and ECM-based causality test, the study found a unidirectional causal flow from poverty to foreign direct investment in both the short and long run, regardless of the poverty proxy used. The study confirms the importance of preconditions to foreign direct investment inflows. It is recommended that policy makers in Zimbabwe complement the open-door policy for foreign investors with policies that address preconditions such as poverty, infrastructure, education and health, to stimulate high levels of foreign direct investment. |
| Keywords: | foreign direct investment; poverty; human development index; household consumption expenditure; Zimbabwe |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uza:wpaper:29798&r=afr |