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on Africa |
| By: | Bandiera, Oriana; Buehren, Niklas; Burgess, Robin; Goldstein, Markus; Gulesci, Selim; Rasul, Imran; Sulaiman, Munshi |
| Abstract: | Women in developing countries are disempowered: high youth unemployment, early marriage and childbearing interact to limit their investments into human capital and enforce dependence on men. We evaluate a multifaceted policy intervention attempting to jump- start adolescent women’s empowerment in Uganda, a context in which 60% of the population are aged below twenty. The intervention aims to relax human capital constraints that adolescent girls face by simultaneously providing them vocational training and information on sex, reproduction and marriage. We find that four years post-intervention, adolescent girls in treated communities are 4.9pp more likely to engage in income generating activities, corresponding to a 48% increase over baseline levels, and an impact almost entirely driven by their greater engagement in self-employment. Teen pregnancy falls by a third, and early entry into marriage/cohabitation also falls rapidly. Strikingly, the share of girls reporting sex against their will drops by close to a third and aspired ages at which to marry and start childbearing move forward. The results highlight the potential of a multifaceted program that provides skills transfers as a viable and cost e¤ective policy intervention to improve the economic and social empowerment of adolescent girls over a four year horizon. |
| JEL: | J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:102465&r=all |
| By: | O. A. Ogunba |
| Abstract: | Purpose: The aim of this study is to determine costs and benefit of incorporating green features in commercial building with a view to enhancing green building development decisions in Nigeria.Design/Methodology: The study distributed questionnaire to a variety of stakeholders to identify features that makes buildings green in Lagos, Nigeria, determine the cost of identified features, determine the benefits of having green features in the buildings, and determine whether benefits outweigh the costs of green building in Nigeria. The non-financial costs and benefits were quantified and priced using environmental valuation techniques. Capital costs and benefits were brought to their annual equivalent while future costs and benefits were annualized. The Net present value and profitability index were employed in cost-benefit analysis.Findings: The findings indicate that the initial purchase and installation costs of green features in green buildings the study area are fifteen per cent higher than that for conventional buildings but the discounted green costs in use require 25 to 35 per cent less energy and 39 per cent less water annually than conventional buildings. These translate into substantially less electricity and water bills. In addition, green buildings involve higher discounted benefits from productivity and health. Discounted cost benefit analysis showed that green buildings involved positive NPVs over conventional buildings from only eight years into the life span.Practical Implications: The study concluded that medium to long term developers should begin to consider investing in green building in Nigeria given that the benefits outweigh the costs fairly early into the building life span.Originality/Value: The value of the paper is in providing much needed information for enhanced green property investment in Nigeria and Africa. |
| Keywords: | Benefits NPV; Costs; Green Building |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:afr:wpaper:afres2018_140&r=all |
| By: | Ayandele, Olusola; Popoola, Olugbenga A PhD |
| Abstract: | Family is the most basic institution of society with several socialization functions. Previously, the traditional “normative” family in Africa was a large household made-up of the extended family. Later, globalization processes led to the institutionalization of the nuclear family arrangement as the “typical” married-couple family setting. Currently, the agents of globalization have popularized and made single-parent families (having child/children without being married), and a two-parent cohabiting family (living with one’s partner without being married) lost some social stigma in many African societies. Single-parenthood and cohabitation are becoming “trendy” family structure in many African societies. Guided by the structural functionalism approach, the influence of globalization on the African family structure was discussed. Data from Demographic Health Surveys, World Family Map and various studies from some sub-Saharan African countries were used to examine the prevalence of the married-couple, cohabiting-couple, and single-parent family structures. Since the family is the most prominent family structure in Africa, the society, governmental and non-governmental agencies, education and religious institutions, as well as clinical and social services, should be attuned to the currently diverse “new normal” family systems to ensure that families thrive. |
| Date: | 2019–10–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:africa:bepkr&r=all |