Sub-Saharan Africa: External Debt, Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction

2004 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
James Akperan Adam
Author(s):  
David E. Bloom ◽  
David Canning ◽  
Kevin Chan ◽  
Dara Lee Luca

Enrollment rates for higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa are by far the lowest in the world at 6%. Yet because of conventional beliefs that tertiary education is less important for poverty reduction, the international development community has encouraged African governments’ relative neglect of higher education. This article challenges beliefs that tertiary education has little role in promoting economic growth and alleviating poverty. First, we review recent evidence that higher education can produce significant public and private benefits. Next, we analyze the relationship between tertiary education and economic growth. We find evidence that tertiary education improves technological catch-up and, in doing so, may help to maximize Africa’s potential to achieve more rapid economic growth given current constraints. Investing in tertiary education in Africa may accelerate technological diffusion, which would in turn decrease knowledge gaps and help reduce poverty in the region. We also review new developments and trends in the higher education scene in Africa. Le taux d’inscription dans l’enseignement supérieur en Afrique sub-saharienne est de loin le plus faible du monde, atteignant seulement 6%. Pourtant, parce que l’enseignement supérieur est perçu comme moins important que les enseignements primaire et secondaire pour lutter contre la pauvreté, la communauté internationale a encouragé les gouvernements africains à moins y prêter attention. Cet article conteste l’idée que l’enseignement supérieur joue un rôle peu important dans le développement économique et la lutte contre la pauvreté. Tout d’abord, nous nous intéressons à de récents résultats qui montrent que l’enseignement supérieur crée des bénéfices publics et privés. Ensuite, nous analysons la relation entre l’enseignement supérieur et la croissance économique. Nous montrons que l’enseignement supérieur permet de rattraper le retard technologique et, ce faisant, pourrait aider l’Afrique à maximiser sa capacité à accélérer sa croissance économique dans les conditions actuelles. Investir dans l’enseignement supérieur en Afrique pourrait permettre une diffusion plus rapide des avancées technologiques, qui pourrait à son tour réduire la disparité de savoir et participer à la réduction de la pauvreté dans la région. Nous passons aussi en revue les nouveautés et tendances dans l’enseignement supérieur africain.


2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-126
Author(s):  
Joseph Fosu

AbstractDeveloping countries that are integrating quickly into the global trading system are among the fastest growing economies in the world. The impressive economic growth combined with significant reduction in poverty levels in recent years in China and India seem to demonstrate that increased international integration has the potential to spur growth capable of reducing poverty levels in poor countries. In contrast Sub-Saharan Africa appears to have been marginalized. The textile and apparel industry provides ample illustration of the daunting problems that make it difficult for countries in the region to successively engage in the global economy. Being unable to take advantage of the global market economy to promote economic growth and poverty reduction, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa continue to rely on official development assistance (ODA) from rich nations. The challenge for Sub-Saharan Africa is to help spur economic growth by becoming well integrated into the global economy in order to share more fairly in its benefits.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Gamel Abdul-Nasser Salifu

The consequences of conflictual views on modelling the economic impact of remittances on agribusiness entrepreneurship and economic growth, has been present for a long time in the economic literature, albeit in a somewhat scattered way. This has attracted wide-spread criticism for agribusiness inititaives and its failure to address rural unemployment within the context of youth participation in the global food markets. This paper provides a summary of the global evidence published in the thematic area of international migration-remittance and sustainable development with emphasis on the financialisation impact of remittance on agribusiness entreprenuership and economic growth. The paper selectively reviews over 100 documented cases that offer insights into the methodological approaches for empirical modelling of remittance studies around the world. The paper bridges different stands of literature in economic and business management sciences and exemplifies the new complementaries between remittance, agribusiness and supply chain developments. Much as the paper advances no particular theory for modelling the economic impact of remittances on agribusiness entreprenuership and growth, it clearly offers insights into picking the appropriate methodological approaches for empirical estimation of the net effects of remittances on agribusiness entrepreneurship and rural youth employment in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The paper pinpoints ample evidence and brings a case for use of randomized experimentation approaches in Sub-Saharan Africa prone to the vagaries of weather- shocks and climate change. The paper further elaborates the nexus between remittance and contemporary development themes of poverty reduction and inequality, investment and savings, labour supply participation and economic growth. The experimental evidence reported around the globe showed that remittances have positive effects on poverty reduction but negative ramifications for labour supply, education, and economic growth. The analysis made a startling discovery which demonstrated that although, remittances reduced labour supply participation in developing economies; it significantly increased consumption of luxury goods in migrant households and made no positive contribution whatsoever to economic growth. This sorepoint courts new attention on resolution of the dilemma of remittance on economic welfare and advances an immediate redress of the emerging crises of methodological misuse in Development economics. Specifically the paper finds penalties with choice of methodological approaches for modelling the economic impacts of remitance on agribusiness entrepreneurship and economic welfare and advocated the inculcation of political economy perspectives in order to intergrate the multidimensionality of the complicated linkages of remittance to agribusiness entrepreneurship, rural youth employment and sustainable economic growth.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herring Shava

Entrepreneurship plays a pivotal role in our societies, such as employment creation. This is a key to addressing income inequalities leading to poverty reduction and economic growth. As a result of this critical role, the campaign is on establishing more entrepreneurial entities, and there is very little concern regarding harvesting an entrepreneurial entity. Entity harvesting is equally important as setting up a new entrepreneurial venture and this chapter explores this issue. During the harvesting process, the entrepreneur recovers value through the sale of an entrepreneurial entity or its assets. Having spent several years building and adding value to the business, the entrepreneur must design an entity harvesting strategy that would provide maximum returns on the investment of time, effort and money. Several reasons may compel the entrepreneur to harvest the business and this chapter provides some of these reasons based on extant literature and primary data collected from small- and medium-sized entity (SME) owners in Sub-Saharan Africa. Further, the chapter outlines various entity harvesting strategies preferred by SME owners in Sub-Saharan Africa and circumstances at which they deem appropriate to apply such.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 146
Author(s):  
Udi Joshua ◽  
David Babatunde ◽  
Samuel Asumadu Sarkodie

The quest for the attainment of economic development is sought after by all global economies, which by effect is expected to transcend to improving livelihoods and standard of living. However, several factors hinder the process of achieving sustained economic development, especially in developing countries. In this regard, assessing the extent of economic expansion orchestrated by foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in vulnerable economies such as Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), particularly in the face of the significant fall in global FDI inflow, is worthwhile. In essence, this study ascertains the impact of FDI inflows and external debt on economic growth amidst decline in FDI inflows and excessive foreign borrowings. The mixed order of integration from the stationarity test underpins the adoption of autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach for data covering the period 1990 to 2018. The empirical results found FDI inflows play a crucial role in achieving economic expansion in the region. On average, FDI inflows, external debt, and foreign aids are more useful in expanding the economy compared to trade openness and exchange rate. Thus, this study recommends the need for SSA to open its economic borders for external capital, viz. FDI. A peaceful economic and political environment is a pre-condition to attract and maintain potential foreign investors. Stability in exchange rates is critical in achieving growth in FDI and other foreign resources. However, caution is required, especially in administration of external resources. Particularly, contracting external debt must strictly be driven by economic reasons rather than political motivation. Borrowed funds could be injected mainly into productive streams with the highest investment returns to boost economic development.


Author(s):  
Isabelle Musanganya ◽  
Chantal Nyinawumuntu ◽  
Pauline Nyirahagenimana

Many researchers consider microfinance as a tool for poverty reduction. Even more, especially in post-conflict African countries, micro-financial institutions are seen as an opportunity of reconciliation. Lending from microfinance institutions to that from traditional banks and examine their respective effects upon economic growth has been practiced in some sub-Saharan countries. Considerable progress in research has been found that microfinance loans raise growth comparatively to that of traditional banks. A lot of number of researches carried out in sub-Saharan countries even in other developing countries outside of Africa did not find strong evidence that bank loans raise growth. There is, however, some evidence that bank loans do increase investment, whereas microfinance loans do not appear to do so. Differently, other researchers highlighted clearly that microfinance can provide its contribution on poverty reduction and better access to finance needed for startup micro-entrepreneurs along the world. These results suggest that microfinance loans are not primarily invested as physical capital in developing countries, but could still augment total factor productivity, whereas banks may have been financing non-productive investments. Herein, we highlighted the impact of microfinance banks on developing countries economic growth. We also indicate how microfinances system incorporated in rural areas boosted the lifestyle of poor people in Sub-Saharan Africa.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document