scholarly journals Higher Education and Economic Growth in Africa

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David E. Bloom ◽  
David Canning ◽  
Kevin Chan ◽  
Dara Lee Luca
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
International Development ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Développement Économique ◽  
Education And Economic Growth

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.

AVU's Experience in Increasing Access to Quality Higher Education through e-Learning in Sub-Saharan Africa

2010 ◽  
pp. 165-179
Author(s):  
Bakary Diallo ◽  
Sidiki Traoré ◽  
Therrezinha Fernandes
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Developing Nations ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Governmental Organization ◽  
Tertiary Institutions ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Open Education Resources

Universities and other tertiary institutions in developing nations around the world are facing major challenges in meeting the demand for increasing access to higher education (HE): limitations imposed by inadequate funding, poor infrastructure and sometimes lack of political vision, added to the demographic explosion, make it almost impossible for some of these developing nations to ensure access to all to higher education solely through the conventional face-to-face mode. In this context, the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are providing an alternative to face-to-face education. Moreover, they have the potential to significantly increase access to quality higher education, improve management of tertiary institutions, increase access to educational resources through digital libraries and open education resources, foster collaboration and networking between universities, foster collaboration between the private sector and tertiary institutions, enhance sub-regional and regional integration and facilitate the mobility of teachers and graduates. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the African Virtual University (AVU), a Pan African Inter-Governmental Organization initially launched in Washington in 1997 as a World Bank project, works with a number of countries toward reaching the goal of increasing access to quality higher education and training programmes through the use of ICTs. The AVU has been the first-of-itskind in this regard to serve the Sub-Saharan African countries. In this chapter, the AVU’s twelve years experience in delivering and improving access to quality higher distance education throughout Africa will be discussed. The AVU has trained more than 40,000 students since its inception; this is the proof that it is possible to achieve democratization of tertiary education in Africa despite many challenges.

scholarly journals Tertiary Education and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: The World Bank Report

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Saint
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
World Bank Report ◽  
Creative Solutions ◽  
The World ◽  
Catch Up ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Economic Constraints

Citing case studies in Africa and Asia, the World Bank's Report "Accelerating Catch-Up: Tertiary Education in Sub-Saharan Africa" argues that economic growth in these developing countries hinges on the human capitol fostered in secondary and tertiary education. Economic constraints and various structural and programmatic challenges threaten the ability for success in these institutions and creative solutions will be necessary to bolster growth.

Sub-Saharan Africa: The Challenge of Integration into the Global Trading System

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-126
Author(s):  
Joseph Fosu
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Trading System ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Poverty Levels ◽  
Textile And Apparel Industry

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.

scholarly journals Picking the Right Arrow for the Target: Modelling the Economic Impact of Remittance on Agribusinesss Entreprenuership and Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Gamel Abdul-Nasser Salifu
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic Impact ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Labour Supply ◽  
Rural Youth ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Youth Employment ◽  
Economic Welfare ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Sub Saharan

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.

scholarly journals Business Harvesting Strategies for Entrepreneurs

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herring Shava
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Extant Literature ◽  
Income Inequalities ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Harvesting Process

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.

scholarly journals A Comparative Analysis of Effects of Education on Sub-Saharan Africa’s Economic Growth

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 187
Author(s):  
Akinola Gbenga Wilfred ◽  
Gerry Koye Bokana
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Least Square ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Output Level ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Education Policy Implementation ◽  
Positive Impacts

This study aims to analyze and to compare the effects of various levels of education on the economic growth of some selected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) between 1980 and 2015.It is hypothesized in the study that various levels of education have significant positive impacts on the economic growth of some selected sub-Saharan Africa countries over the stated period. Fixed effect Least Square Dummy Variable (LSDV) and a robust version of System Generalized Methods of Moment (SYSGMM) are adopted as model estimating techniques. Results from the LSDV model indicate increasing positive impacts of various levels of education on the economic growth of the thirty selected SSA countries. This trend of significance is corrected in the dynamic model, but with negative effects on the lower levels of education on growth while higher education output which negatively impacted on growth is reversed. The study systematically compares the effects of education on growth when higher education is included and when it is excluded both at the enrolment and output level in the regression model. We found different results at each instance for the various levels. Therefore, the major conclusion of this study is that higher education human capital at the output level appears to be the most significant of all the levels of education. However, this advantage enjoyed by higher education could have been as a result of cumulative effects from other levels of education over time. We, therefore, conclude that higher education should be supported with strong education policy implementation, as this could have a positive impact on SSA economic growth.

scholarly journals THE IMPACT OF MICROFINANCE BANKS IN RURAL AREAS OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
pp. 80-90
Author(s):  
Isabelle Musanganya ◽  
Chantal Nyinawumuntu ◽  
Pauline Nyirahagenimana
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Bank Loans ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Impact

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.

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