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on Africa |
| By: | Khan, Haider |
| Abstract: | The main purpose of this paper is to explore African Development Strategy as part of a non-neocolonial Global South. For this purpose, I propose a fairly comprehensive strategy for development as freedom for Africa. Accordingly, I try to find a way to integrate useful markets with the key characteristics of the Enabling Developmental State for the 21st Century in order to build a growing ecologically sustainable economy with equity in terms of capabilities. This is both for theoretical clarification and for aiding the strategies of popular democratic movements. A few tentative steps are taken here to serve this dual purpose. Proceeding from a critical capabilities perspective that is fully grounded in social reality of deepening structural and ecological crises of the World Capitalist System, we discover that such a perspective leads to the need to include among the characteristics of the Enabling Developmental State for the 21st Century its capacity to build an ecologically sustainable egalitarian development strategy from the beginning. The specific theoretical approach I follow has been developed during the last few decades by ecological scientists and social scientists. My own particular version can be called Evolutionary Ecological Global Political Economy or EEGPE for short.In addition, democracy must be deepened from the beginning. For Africa in particular, a new cooperative community of African nations following their own rhythm to reach their own dynamic trajectories towards development as freedom will be possible if they cooperate regionally on the basis of equal sovereignty and mutual respect. One precondition is to pragmatically unite for a common economic strategy. For this a decolonization of the African mind is also necessary. I conclude with some further thoughts on extending the model to an information theoretic based fractal model of development.A mathematical model of integrated financial and real sectors on abstract function space is presented in the appendix that can be extended for this purpose. |
| Keywords: | Non-neocolonial Global South, Enabling Developmental State for Africa, Egalitarianism in Afrian Development, Ecological Crisis in Africa, World Capitalist System, Counterhegemonic movements, Nonlinearities, Multiple equilibria, Entropy and Information Theory |
| JEL: | O2 O5 O55 |
| Date: | 2024–02–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:120309&r=afr |
| By: | Bakari, Sayef |
| Abstract: | In the context of this study, we aim to assess the impact of domestic investments and carbon dioxide emissions on economic growth in 48 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1990-2022. By employing an estimation methodology based on static gravity models (fixed and random effects) as well as the Panel GMM model (fixed and random effects), our results significantly and positively indicate that domestic investments and CO2 emissions influence economic growth. We recommend that policymakers and stakeholders in Sub-Saharan African countries take these findings into consideration when formulating economic policies. The positive and significant implications of domestic investments and CO2 emissions on economic growth underscore the importance of promoting policies that encourage appropriate levels of domestic investment and sustainable management of CO2 emissions. |
| Keywords: | CO2 Emissions, Domestic Investment, Economic Growth, Sub-Saharan African Countries. |
| JEL: | E22 O47 O55 Q56 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:120370&r=afr |
| By: | Grütjen, Klaus |
| Abstract: | On 16 September 2023, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger - all three states led by military regimes - decided to establish a new regional organisation, the Alliance of Sahel States (Alliance des Etats du Sahel - AES). This move was prompted by the worsening of the crisis within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 2023, a crisis that reached its peak to date with the announcement by the three AES members on 28 January 2024 of their withdrawal from ECOWAS, a regional organisation set up back in 1975. In a socio-political context in which the role and functions of the state, the extent of state powers and the way in which they are exercised are increasingly being called into question, new forms of political and social organisation are developing. These are also influenced by the current geopolitical developments in the changing world order. At the same time, states and societies and the ongoing regional integration processes are facing major new challenges. Within ECOWAS, conventional ideas of state and society, values and structures are coming up against growing tendencies towards a new understanding of statehood and sovereignty. In the West Africa/Sahel region, new processes of nation-building and state-building are under way, underpinned by efforts to renew social cohesion and to integrate the 'vital forces of the nation' - a concept cited increasingly frequently in these countries - as comprehensively as possible. These developments call for a realignment of German and European foreign and development policy. The political and social conditions and expectations of the partners in the West Africa/Sahel region are currently undergoing profound transformation. They need to be aligned with the content and interests of the value-based foreign policy advocated by Germany - in line with the principle of a 'partnership between equals'. Any appraisal of the future developments and integration of the dynamics that determine them must take account of the various integration processes, which are particularly diversified and run in parallel in this region. Adopting a comparative perspective, this paper provides an overview of the various regional organisations in the West Africa/Sahel region. It analyses the potential of each of them in terms of their development prospects and sustainability. In addition to the critical relationship between ECOWAS and the AES, it also examines the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), the Integrated Develop-ment Authority of the Liptako-Gourma Region (Autorité de Liptako-Gourma - ALG) and the G5 Sahel, which is currently being dissolved. If the partnership between Germany and Europe on the one hand and the West African and Sahel states on the other is to be continued, it will be vital to adopt a pragmatic approach and maintain a political dialogue with all the partners. The states in this region are extremely important to Europe's future development. Moreover, it is only through communication based on mutual respect underpinning cooperation in the economic and development sectors that the growing influence of political powers such as Russia and Iran - whose ideas, interests and values are not in line with the Western Atlantic model of democracy governed by the rule of law - can be curbed effectively. |
| Keywords: | Sahel, ECOWAS, regional integration, autocracy, peace and security, Western Africa |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:idospb:289485&r=afr |
| By: | Daniel Ofori-Sasu (University of Ghana Business School); Elikplimi Komla Agbloyor (University of Ghana Business School); Dennis Nsafoah (Niagara University); Simplice A. Asongu (Johannesburg, South Africa) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the effect of regulatory independence of the central bank in shaping the impact of electoral cycles on bank lending behaviour in Africa. It employs the dynamic system Generalized Method of Moments (SGMM) Two-Step estimator for a panel dataset of 54 African countries over the period, 2004-2022. The study found that banks lend substantially higher during election years, and reduce lending patterns thereafter. The study shows that countries that enforce monetary policy autonomy of the central bank induce a negative impact on bank lending behaviour while those that apply strong macro-prudential independent action and central bank independence reduce lending in the long term. The study provides evidence to support that regulatory independence of the central bank dampens the positive effect of elections on bank lending around election years while they amplify the reductive effects on bank lending after election periods. There is a wake-up call for countries with weak independent central bank regulatory policy to strengthen their independent regulatory policy frameworks and political institutions. This will enable them better strategize to yield a desirable outcome of bank lending to the real economy during election years. |
| Keywords: | Political Economy; Political Credit Cycles, Electoral Cycle; Central Bank Regulatory Independence; Bank lending Behaviour |
| JEL: | D7 D72 G2 G3 E3 E5 E61 G21 L10 L51 M21 P16 P26 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exs:wpaper:24/002&r=afr |
| By: | Aopare, Janet; Anane, Augustine; Sarfo Mensah, Rexford |
| Abstract: | There is a growing concern on how pharmaceutical products are managed in the market when they are damaged or reach end of life. As the society becomes informed, Pharmaceutical industries are experiencing the challenge of complying with many regulatory requirements from various regulatory institutions. Reverse logistics sometimes referred to as “product-take-back” is seen as one of the concepts as the wider concept of green supply chain management that can possibly address this problem. The study seeks to examine the effects of reverse logistics on organizational performance in the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Companies in Ashanti region. A descriptive cross-sectional study was used to obtain empirical evidence to help address the existing gap. The study considered all Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Companies in the region and therefore census sampling was done. The study sample consisted of 30 managers of Pharmaceutical industries. Thirty (30) top managers of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Companies were recruited using a simple random sampling technique. With the aid of the Open Data Kit (ODK) software designed for Android OS, data was collected using mobile phone device. The results indicated that reverse logistics forms part of the strategic positions of most pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in Kumasi (83.3%), and it has a positive effect on performance (r=0.44, p=0.015). Assurance of information quality systems (r=0.60, p=0.00) and promotion of collaboration among the actors of the supply chain (r=0.74, p=0.00) have positive effect on the performance of pharmaceutical companies. To ensure higher returns on investment in pharmaceutical manufacturing companies, stakeholders should encourage and welcome efforts that seek to guarantee and foster information quality systems, collaboration among supply chain actors, and the adoption of reverse logistics systems. |
| Keywords: | Reverse Logistics, Organizational Performance, information quality systems, supply chain actors, strategic positions |
| JEL: | M1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2024–01–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:120513&r=afr |
| By: | Cedrick Kalemasi Mosengo (University of Kinshasa, the DRC); Christian Zamo Akono (University of Yaoundé 2, Cameroon) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this study is to assess the effect of informal employment on the occurrence of overeducation in developing countries, focusing on the specific case of the DRC. Using employment data, we determine the incidence of overeducation and we isolate the role of informal employment as a determinant of overeducation. To measure overeducation, we mainly use the normative (adequationist) approach. We find an incidence of overeducation in the order of 33.3% in the DRC labor market. The econometric results based on recursive bivariate Probit suggest a positive and significant effect of informal employment. The results found are robust even when using the statistical approach as an alternative measure of overeducation. These findings suggest a set of measures likely to reduce the incidence of overeducation on the labor market. These should focus on the formalization of informal sector employment and policies to improve labor market matches. |
| Keywords: | Skills mismatch, Overeducation, Undereducation, Informal employment |
| JEL: | E26 E24 I21 J24 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:24/008&r=afr |