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on Africa |
| By: | Lysenko, Tatiana |
| Abstract: | Sovereign credit ratings are crucial to Sub-Saharan Africa's financial landscape, yet debates continue over their accuracy, fairness, and impact. While access to global capital has widened SSA’s financing options, it has also exposed the region to high borrowing costs and sudden shifts in investor sentiment. In light of these challenges, SSA sovereign ratings have been subject to intense scrutiny. This paper analysis highlights the major role of structural factors in anchoring SSA sovereign ratings at the lower end of the global scale. |
| Keywords: | Credit Rating Agencies, Sovereign Credit Ratings, Sovereign Debt, Sub-Saharan Africa |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpm:notfdl:2513 |
| By: | Mussie, Kirubel Manyazewal |
| Abstract: | Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly promoted as a tool to enhance clinical decision-making and thus, improve quality of healthcare. While much of the emerging scholarship on AI and healthcare in Africa has focused broadly on opportunities and systemic challenges, what remains underexplored is the specific application of AI to clinical decision-making. This paper contributes to addressing this gap by offering a conceptual and critical analysis of AI in clinical decision-making in African contexts. Drawing on philosophical accounts of medical reasoning and relational moral frameworks such as Ubuntu, the paper draws on the moral ecology of care and shows that algorithmic systems can reconfigure epistemic authority, redistribute responsibility, and risk marginalising context-sensitive and relational dimensions of care. The paper further argues that AI systems are better understood as socio-technical mirrors that reflect and amplify existing human values, institutional arrangements, and power asymmetries. Moving beyond the algorithm, it proposes a shift toward relational and context-sensitive AI governance, including the development of relational impact assessments, the redistribution of responsibility across the AI lifecycle, and the co-production of knowledge with local stakeholders. While focusing on African clinical contexts, the analysis offers broader insights for global debates on AI ethics and clinical decision-making. |
| Date: | 2026–04–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:5r37j_v1 |
| By: | Marc Rockmore; Daniela Rudstein; Ryan Vaughan; Breanne Cave |
| Abstract: | The 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act sought to enhance peace and security in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by introducing, beginning in 2014, disclosure and reporting requirements for firms utilizing conflict minerals. Despite its policy ambitions, the Act’s long-run impacts remain insufficiently understood, as prior studies either concentrate on the pre-2016 period or lack an appropriate pre-treatment comparison. This study estimates the effects of the Dodd-Frank Act through 2022, while addressing potential endogeneity associated with mining operations and survey team visits, as well as confounding influences from improvements in data collection. The analysis reveals that the Act did not reduce violence in the DRC; rather, it contributed to the geographic diffusion of conflict across territories with gold mines. In contrast, no measurable effects are observed on the incidence or intensity of violence in territories containing “3T” mines—the other minerals targeted by the Act. These heterogeneous effects likely reflect strategic shifts among armed groups, who increasingly contested control over gold mines owing to gold’s portability and limited traceability. |
| Keywords: | central africa, conflict, democratic republic of the congo, dodd-frank act, international trade policy, minerals, natural resources, unintended consequences |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:452 |
| By: | Ndiaye, Abdoulaye; Kessler, Martin |
| Abstract: | With public debt at around 130% of GDP, Senegal'92s options are limited: there are no good solutions. This paper reviews the constraints and difficult choices the government faces in managing the debt crisis. We explore two possible paths. In the first approach, the government seeks to avoid restructuring at all costs. In the second approach, the government aims to negotiate with its bilateral and private external creditors to restructure its debt under an IMF program. We argue that while there are considerable pressures to repay, the economic literature teaches us that the costs of delaying a restructuring are higher. |
| Keywords: | International Lending and Debt Problems, Public Debt, Senegal |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpm:notfdl:2601 |