scholarly journals The Occurrence of Conflicts and the Social Divide Do They Affect the Economic Growth of Sub-Saharan African Fragile Countries?

Author(s):  
YAMBEN Michel Freddy Harry

The article is an empirical analysis of the relationship between social divide, the occurrence of conflict and economic growth. By examining the impact of the social divide and conflict on the economic growth of six countries in sub-Saharan Africa as well as the effects of predicted variables conflict and economic growth on the social divide, we use ARDL models from the econometric perspective to study the link between conflicts and growth then the Generalized Moments Method (GMM) to solve the endogeneity problem of our main variables and, this from dynamic panel data relating to the period 1980- 2008. The results reveal that conflict destroys economic growth and conversely, economic growth creates new social divides that increase the opportunity for conflict and depress activity. The intensity of the conflicts in these countries seems to be able to project fragile economies more quickly on trajectories which lead them less towards their level of long-term equilibrium growth. Indeed, conflict assessment should be a central concern of development economists for the sake of economic recovery. Finally, the poor performance in terms of growth cannot be blamed on the conflicts whose exacerbation is the cause, but must lead decision-makers to reflect on the structural causes.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1780
Author(s):  
Chima M. Menyelim ◽  
Abiola A. Babajide ◽  
Alexander E. Omankhanlen ◽  
Benjamin I. Ehikioya

This study evaluates the relevance of inclusive financial access in moderating the effect of income inequality on economic growth in 48 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for the period 1995 to 2017. The findings using the Generalised Method of Moments (sys-GMM) technique show that inclusive financial access contributes to reducing inequality in the short run, contrary to the Kuznets curve. The result reveals a negative effect of financial access on the relationship between income inequality and economic growth. There is a positive net effect of inclusive financial access in moderating the impact of income inequality on economic growth. Given the need to achieve the Sustainable Development Targets in the sub-region, policymakers and other stakeholders of the economy must design policies and programmes that would enhance access to financial services as an essential mechanism to reduce income disparity and enhance sustainable economic growth.


2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 20-40
Author(s):  
Akem Forkusam

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has become the top priority for international funders and they are now increasing their cross-border funding to microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the region. This foreign funding is considered an additional source of capital for MFIs in the region who are facing difficulties in meeting the demand of the poor. However, these funds are provided by public and private funders who each have different motives. The paper examines the impact of these different sources of funding on microfinance performance and mission drift in SSA, which is the world’s poorest region. The study utilizes data from 212 MFIs in 30 SSA countries accessed over a three-year period (i.e. 2007, 2009, and 2011). The findings show that cross-border funding does not affect either the social or financial performance of MFIs when time and country effects are accounted for.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Ato Forson ◽  
Rosemary Afrakomah Opoku ◽  
Michael Owusu Appiah ◽  
Evans Kyeremeh ◽  
Ibrahim Anyass Ahmed ◽  
...  

PurposeThe significant impact of innovation in stimulating economic growth cannot be overemphasized, more importantly from policy perspective. For this reason, the relationship between innovation and economic growth in developing economies such as the ones in Africa has remained topical. Yet, innovation as a concept is multi-dimensional and cannot be measured by just one single variable. With hindsight of the traditional measures of innovation in literature, we augment it with the number of scientific journals published in the region to enrich this discourse.Design/methodology/approachWe focus on an approach that explores innovation policy qualitatively from various policy documents of selected countries in the region from three policy perspectives (i.e. institutional framework, financing and diffusion and interaction). We further investigate whether innovation as perceived differently is important for economic growth in 25 economies in sub-Saharan Africa over the period 1990–2016. Instrumental variable estimation of a threshold regression is used to capture the contributions of innovation as a multi-dimensional concept on economic growth, while dealing with endogeneity between the regressors and error term.FindingsThe results from both traditional panel regressions and IV panel threshold regressions show a positive relationship between innovation and economic growth, although the impact seems negligible. Institutional quality dampens innovation among low-regime economies, and the relation is persistent regardless of when the focus is on aggregate or decomposed institutional factors. The impact of innovation on economic growth in most regressions is robust to different dimensions of innovation. Yet, the coefficients of the innovation variables in the two regimes are quite dissimilar. While most countries in the region have offered financial support in the form of budgetary allocations to strengthen institutions, barriers to the design and implementation of innovation policies may be responsible for the sluggish contribution of innovation to the growth pattern of the region.Originality/valueSegregating economies of Africa into two distinct regimes based on a threshold of investment in education as a share of GDP in order to understand the relationship between innovation and economic growth is quite novel. This lends credence to the fact that innovation as a multifaceted concept does not take place by chance – it is carefully planned. We have enriched the discourse of innovation and thus helped in deepening understanding on this contentious subject.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 3280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chindo Sulaiman ◽  
A.S. Abdul-Rahim

This study estimates the impact of wood fuel consumption on economic growth in 19 sub-Saharan African countries over the 1979-2017 period. The study employs dynamic macro-panel estimators, which comprises pooled mean group (PMG), mean group (MG), and dynamic fixed effects (DFE). The estimated result reveals that PMG is the most efficient estimator among the three estimators based on the Hausman h-test. The results from PMG model reveal that wood fuel consumption has significant negative impact on economic growth. Also, when an interaction term between labor and wood fuel consumption was included in the model and estimated, the coefficient of wood fuel consumption yields negative and significant coefficient. This suggests that the interaction term has a negative and significant effect on economic growth. These results unveil that wood fuel consumption negatively and significantly affect economic growth, both directly and indirectly. The policy recommendations from this study are as follows: (1) Governments of these countries should provide adequate and affordable modern fuels to the populace; especially rural dwellers to decrease the use of wood fuel for cooking and heating (2) policy makers should intensify awareness campaign on the risk and danger wood fuel poses to economic growth so as to discourage its use and (3) policy makers should provide adequate solar powered stoves and solar-powered room heaters as cheap substitutes to the use of wood fuel for cooking and heating. These recommendations will assist in negating the negative effects of wood fuel consumption on economic growth of the region.


Author(s):  
Ladifatou GACHILI NDI GBAMBIE ◽  
Ousseni MONGBET

<p>Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries have benefited for more than fifty years from international aid in the form of loans and/or donations. Nevertheless, they seem not to benefit from these massive financial resources (ODA) they receive because their economic and social situation is not very good. This study aims to assess the impact of ODA on economic growth in SSA and to see if its effect on growth is conditioned by the quality of the economic policy. The estimates are conducted on a dynamic panel of twenty-three SSA countries running from 1985 to 2014. With macroeconomic data from the World Bank's CD-ROM (World Development Indicators, 2015), the Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) system from Blundel and Bond (1998) was used. The results show that the impact of ODA on growth is not significant. Subsequently, when squared aid (ODA2) is included in the estimate, ODA becomes significant, meaning that a substantial amount of assistance is required to be effective in raising the economic growth rate of the SSA countries. In addition, the effectiveness of ODA is conditioned by the quality of the economic policy. This seems to be bad in SSA, hence the negative impact of the aid on economic growth.</p>


Author(s):  
Dagim Tadesse Bekele ◽  
Adisu Abebaw Degu

Finance-growth nexus is among the main debatable issue in economics and policymaking. So, this research tried to look at the effect of financial sector development on the economic growth of 25 sub-Saharan Africa countries by using panel data for time 2010-2017. Precisely, three dynamic panel data models which look the effect of financial sector depth, access and efficiency on economic growth were estimated by two-step system GMM estimation. In this research, credit extended to the private sector per GDP, commercial bank branch per 100,000 adult population, and Return to assets were used as a proxy for financial sector depth, access, and efficiency, respectively. Accordingly, the results revealed financial sector depth, access, and efficiency have a positive and statistically significant effect on the economic growth of these countries.  It is therefore recommended for the concerned bodies that broadening the depth of financial institutions by giving more credit for the private sector is essential. Besides, the financial institutions will have to be expanded to increase their accessibility to the mass and have to take some measures which promote their efficiency. 


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