HOW POLICY SHAPES INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES? COMPARATIVE INSIGHTS FROM ASIA AND AFRICA.

The economy, unemployment, and job creation of South Africa heavily depend on the growth of the agricultural sector. With a growing population of 60 million, there are approximately 4 million small-scale farmers (SSF) number, and about 36,000 commercial farmers which serve South Africa. The agricultural sector in South Africa faces challenges such as climate change, lack of access to infrastructure and training, high labour costs, limited access to modern technology, and resource constraints. Precision agriculture (PA) using AI can address many of these issues for small-scale farmers by improving access to technology, reducing production costs, enhancing skills and training, improving data management, and providing better irrigation infrastructure and transport access. However, there is a dearth of research on the application of precision agriculture using artificial intelligence (AI) by small scale farmers (SSF) in South Africa and Africa at large. The preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) and Bibliometric analysis guidelines were used to investigate the adoption of precision agriculture and its socio-economic implications for small-scale farmers in South Africa or the systematic literature review (SLR) compared various challenges and the use of PA and AI for small-scale farmers. The incorporation of AI-driven PA offers a significant increase in productivity and efficiency. Through a detailed systematic review of existing literature from inception to date, this study examines 182 articles synthesized from two major databases (Scopus and Web of Science). The systematic review was conducted using the machine learning tool R Studio. The study analyzed the literature review articled identified, challenges, and potential societal impact of AI-driven precision agriculture.

Africa's economy, an emerging economy is gradually being re-positioned in the global economy as a focus of investment. Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) have helped to shape the economy of Africa. An overview of Africa's economy was examined; top 20 Africa's largest economies were highlighted; major sectors perceived as paths to growth of Africa's economy were examined – Agriculture, Banking, Consumer goods, infrastructure, mining, oil and gas, and telecommunications. The chapter also enunciated the concept, ‘diversified economy' in relation to oil exporters, the transition economies and the pre-transition economies. It is therefore concluded that Multinational Enterprises will continue to contribute to the growth of Africa's economy, especially as more indigenous enterprises are being launched by African countries. It is therefore recommended that African countries should continue to diversify her economy to take advantage of large labor potential and natural resources endowment.

Africa's economy, an emerging economy is gradually being re-positioned in the global economy as a focus of investment. Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) have helped to shape the economy of Africa. An overview of Africa's economy was examined; top 20 Africa's largest economies were highlighted; major sectors perceived as paths to growth of Africa's economy were examined – Agriculture, Banking, Consumer goods, infrastructure, mining, oil and gas, and telecommunications. The chapter also enunciated the concept, ‘diversified economy' in relation to oil exporters, the transition economies and the pre-transition economies. It is therefore concluded that Multinational Enterprises will continue to contribute to the growth of Africa's economy, especially as more indigenous enterprises are being launched by African countries. It is therefore recommended that African countries should continue to diversify her economy to take advantage of large labor potential and natural resources endowment.

This paper examines socioeconomic factors influencing regional economic competitiveness among South African provinces and Japanese prefectures. The choice of the two countries is motivated by the fact that South Africa as the largest economy in Africa is an example of a successful developing country. As the second largest world economy, Japan represents the perspective of developed economies. For comparative analysis, South Africa and Japan together represent two different stages of national economic development: developing and developed economies. With this background, this paper introduces a new innovation management (IM) framework for regional system of innovation. The IM framework calls for coordination across a wide range of policies including labour policies, education policies, industrial policies, and science and technology policies in the NSI. This paper applies the IM framework to the region of Hokkaido in Japan to assess the activities of innovation actors in managing factors limiting regional competitiveness. Hokkaido is selected among other regions in Japan because it is experiencing similar socioeconomic challenges that are facing many developing countries. For this reason, the experiences of innovation actors in Hokkaido can be applied in developing countries to identify and manage factors limiting competitiveness to improve national productivity.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify and review strategic government policies on agricultural financing in Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa. Four factors dictated the choice of these countries. In the first place, the study is set in African emerging markets – and the four countries are the widely acknowledged emerging markets in Africa (Onyiriuba, 2015). Secondly, the spread of the countries, to a large extent, mirrors Africa in general – Egypt and Morocco are in North Africa; Nigeria is a West African country; and, of course, South Africa. Thirdly, other countries in Africa tend to look up to the four countries, apparently as the largest economies in their respective regions. Needless to say, Nigeria alternates with South Africa as the largest economy in Africa. In this capacity, the two countries influence – indeed, mirror – continental Africa's emerging economic progress. Fourthly, lessons from agricultural policy and financing experiences of the four countries will certainly be useful to the other African countries. The specific objective of this paper is to determine how the government seeks to address the financing issues attendant on the risk-laden nature of agriculture through policy interventions. With this end in view, the paper analyses the strategic goals, objectives and beneficiaries of the agriculture financing policies of the government, as well as the constraints on access to finance by the farmers and the policy response.Design/methodology/approachThe study involves a review of empirical literature and government policies on agricultural financing in Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa. The high risks in agriculture (Onyiriuba, 2015; Mordi, 1988), risk aversion behaviour of banks towards agricultural financing (Onyiriuba, 2015, 1990), and the reluctance of insurers to take on agricultural risks (World Bank, 2018; Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2016; Onyiriuba, 1990; Mordi, 1988) underpin this methodology. There are two other considerations: the needs to find out how government seeks to address the financing issues in agriculture through policy intervention, and to avoid unwieldy research, one that combines government and institutional policy perspectives on agriculture financing. Thus the study is not approached from the perspective of banks and other lending institutions; neither does it combine government and institutional policy perspectives. It rather focuses on government policy in order to properly situate implications of the findings.FindingsThe authorities seek to get rid of bottlenecks, ease participation and redress constraints on access to finance in agriculture through policy interventions as a means of sustainable economic growth. The findings are characteristic of emerging markets, rooted in the transitional challenge of opening economies, economic reforms and the March of progress. However, with agriculture and natural resources – rather than industrialisation – as the main stay of their economies, the African emerging markets face an uphill task in their development efforts. This is evident in the divergent and gloomy pictures in which the literature paints their agricultural economies.Practical implicationsGovernment should gear financing policies to boost output as a means of ensuring food security. It should address risk aversion tendencies among the lenders and feeble credit guarantee, subsidies and budgetary allocations to agriculture. This will ensure effective commitment of the lenders to agriculture and underpin agricultural insurance. However, it demands strengthening links in the chain of access to, and monitoring of, credit for agricultural production. A realistic policy response should target the rural economy – with youth, women and smallholder farmers as ultimate beneficiaries. These actions should be intensified as measures to boost farming and the rural economy.Originality/valueCurrent literature fails to situate the empirical findings in emerging markets context, reflecting economies in transition. Besides, in its current state, the literature does not explicitly clarify that agriculture, like most other sectors in such economies, is bound to experience the observed financing constraints. Neither does it clearly reflect how and why the findings should be seen as fleeting realities of the March of progress in transitional economies. This study will help to fill the gap.

The forgotten resource curse: South Africa's poor experience with mineral extraction

The jury is out and the verdict is in, according to most leftist commentators on the African National Congress (ANC) government. The South African political leadership has forgotten its institution...

South Africa has the largest economy in Africa, according to the World Bank's 2017 first quarter report, and ranks 32nd in the world in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Past economic catastrophes, such as the global financial crisis of 2008, the insolvency of all Cyprus banks in 2013, and Standard and Poor's (S&P) downgrading of South African banks to junk status in 2017, have prompted the need for banks to be rigorously regulated. The primary goal of this paper was to investigate the determinants of bank performance in the context of bank-specific variables, industry-related factors, and macroeconomic influences, using a panel of selected banks representing approximately 80% of total bank assets in South Africa. Non-performing loans, capital adequacy, and GDP market price are the primary predictors of bank performance in South Africa, according to the findings of the study, which were done using random effects panel data analysis. The progress of the banking system in South Africa requires effective management of these variables. The results imply that the strength of the economy affects the profitability of banks in South Africa, and that ROA of South African banks affects economic growth measured by the country’s GDP.

South Africa is amongst the largest economies in Africa and is considered the most industrialised country in Africa. One of the primary reasons for industrialisation has been affordable electricity that was made available for manufacturing. South Africa accounted for 32% of the electricity generated in Africa in 2015, of which 92% was generated from coal. However electricity access and penetration within the local population was still lagging (at 86% in 2018) in spite of relatively large volumes of generation. In order to address the lopsided nature of electricity access, national policy prioritised access to electricity, which meant diversifying the nature of electricity from primarily thermal generation to include renewable sources. As part of the diversification, South Africa embarked on an ambitious renewable energy programme that involves private participation. As of 2017, South Africa generated 41% of wind energy, 56% of solar PV and 62% of solar thermal energy, for electricity generation on the African continent. The penetration and prevalence of renewable electricity generation is bound to increase considering the abundance of resource in the region. While renewable energy plants are environmentally less harmful due to limited emissions, limited information is available about the effects of utility scale renewable power plants in developing countries. This chapter aims to provide an investigation into the potential external (or unaccounted) effects of utility scale renewable plants particularly from a developing country perspective, where utility scale adoption is relatively new and where plant data is not readily available. The chapter aims to provide a comparison of external effects and external costs of renewable technologies with external effects and external costs of conventional thermal electricity generation within South Africa. Based on data considerations, a life-cycle based approach is employed, where possible. The investigation compares three power plants employing different technologies, namely coal power, on shore wind power and concentrated solar power (CSP). The results of the analysis indicate that environmental costs (USD 2.76 c/kWh) from coal fired electricity are significantly high by more than an order, whereas non-environmental impacts that include human health, have lesser variation depending on the technology. Wind power was observed to have the least impact and cost across totalled environmental and non-environmental impacts (USD 0.08 c/kWh). While investigation of the coal plant was limited to the generation stage, a full life cycle analysis was considered for other technologies. It was seen that the extraction and manufacturing stages of renewable technologies have a higher share of impacts whereas operations and maintenance had the least, which was prominent for the CSP plant, that had a total impact cost of USD 0.23 c/kWh. It is expected that, with more developing countries adopting utility scale renewable plants, such energy-environmental impact assessments within a developing country context will be useful in understanding localised impacts on the environment related to energy generation activities.KeywordsElectricityDeveloping countrySub-Saharan AfricaSouth AfricaCoalRenewableEnvironmentHuman healthImpactCost

This chapter explores urban agriculture in Africa, which to date has had relatively little exposure in the academic literature. Further, this chapter focuses on three major cities across the continent: Harare (Zimbabwe), Nairobi (Kenya) and Johannesburg (South Africa). In each case, an overview is provided of urban agricultural activities, authority responses to the practice and an evaluation of the soil properties in which the agriculture occurs. This overview of urban agriculture in selected African cities, particularly the exploration of soil quality and contamination issues breaks new ground since it features one of the first reviews of urban agriculture and soils. Ultimately, this piece aims to provide an insight into practices on the African continent and pave the way for subsequent research. While this review provides evidence to suggest that urban agriculture is still a peripheral component of urban land use in many African cities, it does suggest that the continual search for food security among the urban poor is expanding the practice. However, unless major steps are taken, there will be continual contamination and degradation of soils that, in turn, will further constrain urban food security especially among poor households. Hence, the observation that disjointed practices being experienced in African cities can only be resolved if the nexus between urban land-use planning, food security policies, urban environmental policies and urban health policies is achieved. Further research is required to explore the impact of this type of practice on the African continent: providing empirical material to suggest the potential for urban agriculture and whether populations are able to use this practice to become self-sufficient.

The systemic confrontation between the US and China in 2025 has resulted in a new tariff war. Washington's policy of containing China, which began with the first Trump administration and was "picked up" by Biden, did not lead to the desired results. Tariff and sanctions pressure of past years did not restrain the country's emergence as the world's largest economy and a world leader in innovation. The country continued to develop rapidly, increasing its military and economic potential. The next phase of escalation, which began with Trump's return to the White House, involves a multilevel strategy of containing China. On the one hand, in includes new import tariffs aimed at reducing mutual trade between China and the US to a minimum; on the other hand, is seeks to isolate China by pressuring its key trading partners through the imposition of high tariffs on exports to the US. The only option left for Washington to avoid a negative scenario was to conclude trade deals with the US on new terms, which implied a drastic reduction in imports from China, as well as a refusal to turn the signatory country into a platform for re-export of Chinese products to the US. Washington set a 90-day deadline to conclude such agreements, suspending the introduction of the promised high tariffs for all countries except China. In the first half of 2025, Trump aims to resolve the trade issue with most countries in the world, and to reduce China's ability to export its products at previous levels. This is likely to deal a blow to China's national economy, and the country's ambitions and desire to become the world's largest economy will face serious obstacles. The further development of China as a global leader depends on the creation of anti-tariff alliances, efforts to convince countries not to align with the United States, and the expansion of the domestic market through stimulus programs.

This study empirically explored the short run and long run relationship between stock market development and economic growth by comparing two leading emerging economies in Africa: Nigeria and South Africa from 1981 to 2015. Growth rate of gross domestic product was used to measure economic growth, while stock market development was surrogated by market capitalization ratio to gross domestic product and stock value traded ratio. Data were carefully sourced from World Bank development indicators of both countries. The ARDL co-integration divulged equilibrium long run relationship between stock market development and economic growth in Nigeria but not for South Africa. In both short and long run, there was a positive but insignificant relationship between stock market development and economic growth in Nigeria and South Africa. The granger causality analysis deduced that economic growth of South Africa is significantly affected by market capitalization but not so in Nigeria. The variation in economic growth owing to fluctuation in stock market development indices were observed to be insignificant for both Nigeria and South Africa. The study concluded that stock market development is relevant to economic growth as postulated in theoretical literature. Information disclosure in the stock markets of both countries need to be improve upon in an attempt to reducing information asymmetries. The availability of vital information of listed firms to insiders in the market hinders foreign investments. The non-availability of rating agencies and of a well-defined structure of regulation handicap investors from adequate assessment of firms’ risk priori to investing their funds.

Access to lifesaving medical resources for African countries: COVID-19 testing and response, ethics, and politics

Located in the southernmost tip of the African continent, with an area of 1213,100 km2, South Africa is renowned as the “Country of Rainbow”. The country is surrounded by the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean in the east, south and west. At the end of 2015, South Africa had a population of 54.9569 million and gross domestic product (GDP) of 314.572 billion US dollars, the second largest economy in Africa (second only to Egypt, 330.779 billion US dollars). With per capita gross national income (GNI) of 6080 US dollars, South Africa is a developing country of medium to high income while keeping people’s living standards among the best in Africa. Since the establishment of the new South Africa in 1994, it economic development has gone through three stages: 1994–2002, a slight decline in GDP which maintained around 100–150 billion US dollars; 2003–2011, rapid economic growth where GDP increased by about three times, with an annual growth rate of 16.37%; 2012–2015, the economy began to decline, down by 6.7% per year.

This overview of South Africa’s demographic profile, economic development and health system provides the context in which to view the situation of antibiotic access and resistance. It presents information on national health policy and governance, infrastructure and human resources. The presence and utilisation of these features within the health system are discussed in relation to access to essential medicines, with a particular focus on antibiotics. Demographics and economy Demographic and social context With an estimated population of 49.9 million, South Africa is a nation of diverse cultures, languages and religious beliefs. 1 Approximately 61% of the population live in urban areas (2008) compared with the regional urbanisation levels of 37%. The median age is a relatively young 24 years (2008), similar to that of other middle-income countries such as Mexico (26) and Brazil (29). Population growth has declined, dropping from 2.4% in 1994 to 1.06% in 2009. This reflects the decreasing total fertility rate in the country, which went from 6.7 births per woman in the late 1960s to about 2.4 in 2010, and was among the lowest total fertility rates reported for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. Decreasing fertility levels are also mirrored in the age profile of the population. Unlike most countries in the region, South Africa faces a high ageing index, defined as the number of people aged 65 and over per 100 youths under the age of 15. The index varies considerably, however, when disaggregated by population group: it is highest among whites, moderate among Indians and lowest among the black population. South Africa instituted a ‘no-fee’ school system in the last decade. As a result, the percentage of adults without any schooling has dramatically fallen from 18% in 2001 to 7% in 2010. There remains, however, a high degree of inequality in access to education by region and racial group. Housing conditions vary as well. Although 83% of households are connected to electricity nationally, households relying on wood or paraffin remain high in Limpopo (54%) and the Eastern Cape (41%). Most households have access to piped water, with the national average at 89% in 2009. The Eastern Cape, however, lags with only 75% access. Economic context South Africa has achieved a high level of economic stability since the transition to a constitutional democracy in 1994. It has the largest economy in Africa, contributing 40% of the continent’s gross domestic product (GDP) and exerting significant influence on trade and investment on the continent. 2