This study aims to investigate the direction of causality between income inequality and growth, income inequality and debt, and debt and growth for 11 selected countries in SSA countries (Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia). The panel bootstrap causality approach is applied to these countries from 1980 to 2018. Inequality is represented using Gini coefficient, Palma ratio, and Theil index. The findings show that there is at least a one-way causal relationship between public debt and inequality in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda, between inequality and growth in Botswana, Lesotho, Nigeria, and South Africa and between growth and debt in Botswana, Rwanda, South Africa, and Uganda. Empirical results imply that the relations between the relevant variables in the Sub-Saharan African countries may vary according to the specific characteristics of these countries. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to analyse the impact of these three macroeconomic variables together.

AbstractThis paper examines the impact of the Russia–Ukraine war on grain and fertilizer supply to Kenya as the sixth largest economy in Africa using the Regression Discontinuity estimator on monthly data spanning from January 2017 to August 2022. The share of the quantity and value of cereals and fertilizer imports by Kenya from Russia and Ukraine in the total quantity and value of cereals and fertilizer imports by Kenya from world are utilized. The share of freight and insurance costs on grain and fertilizer imports by Kenya from Russia and Ukraine in total freight and insurance costs on grain and fertilizer from world have also been used. After controlling for sensitivity and incorporating depreciation of the exchange rate and a dummy on drought as covariates, the results indicate the war has had insignificant impact on imports of grain and fertilizer by Kenya though the impact is negative for grain but positive for fertilizer. The findings have policy implications touching on need for African countries to diversify import sources for grain and fertilizer, enhance productive capacities through investment on irrigation, strengthen diplomatic ties with existing import sources for grain and fertilizer, and invest in climate action to tackle drought incidences.

Kenya has experienced rapid population growth and urbanization in recent years leading to major changes in its natural environment. Urban infrastructure has a significant influence on carbon emissions and environmental degradation. Urban green spaces are some of the interventions that demonstrate how the impact of increased urbanization can be managed. An exploration of the current state of urban green spaces in Kenya is essential to identify equitable and sustainable development strategies. Kenya has a few green spaces and community gardens for relaxation and recreational activities. These spaces’ continued renovation and preservation strongly indicate Kenya’s commitment to maintaining urban green spaces for a sustainable environment. A multi-method approach involving a literature review, situational analysis, and researchers’ reflections was used to examine two urban green spaces (Nairobi City Park and John Michuki memorial park) and identify their benefits and opportunities to the environment and community whilst highlighting the challenges of maintaining the spaces. Green spaces provide socioeconomic benefits, increased biodiversity, reduced air and water pollution, and regulated temperatures. Population growth, lack of enough public open spaces, and overdevelopment are highlighted as contributors to environmental degradation. Urban green spaces in Kenya offer numerous economic and social development opportunities, promoting employment creation and attracting foreign investment. Today, community centers, such as green libraries, sustain the environment by availing modern reading areas with adequate natural lighting and disseminating knowledge that promotes green growth. It is unclear how renovated Kenyan urban spaces, such as parks, create a better environment and reduce the negative impacts of urbanization. This paper aims to fill this gap by providing an understanding of the role of urban green spaces in Kenya and how they promote environment sustainability.

Abstract Google scientists published Bottleneck Bandwidth and Round-trip propagation time (BBR), a novel TCP congestion control algorithm variant. Unlike traditional congestion control algorithms, BBR adjusts its transmission rates by periodically measuring the network traffic based on round-trip propagation time (RTprop) and available bottleneck bandwidth (Btlbw). This results in BBR achieving higher delivery rates and minimizing the latency on our modern-day network infrastructure. However, some recent experimental evaluations and analyses have shown severe RTT (round-trip time) fairness concerns in the TCP-BBR algorithm. When two competing flows with different RTTs coexist on a shared bottleneck link, BBR tends to prefer and favor longer RTT flows, therefore consuming more bandwidth share than short RTT counterparts, which can result in short RTT flows being starved even to death. This preference nature of the BBR in favor of long RTT flows results in an acute throughput imbalance and an extreme BBR and network vulnerability that malevolent individuals can easily exploit by increasing the delay (RTTs) in their flows to create unwarranted long RTTs on their TCP flows to unfairly obtain and enjoy the lion's share of the available bandwidth than the rest of users on the network. The BBR-With Adaptive Pacing Gain Rates (BBR-APG) algorithm is proposed in this study as an alternative solution to the TCP-BBR's RTT fairness problem. Our proposed approach adaptively adjusts the pacing gain rates of each TCP flow based on the bottleneck inflight queue status during the bandwidth estimation phase instead of the default fixed pacing gain rates as provided by the original version of the BBR algorithm, which only works perfectly when only a single flow is involved. With the BBR-APG algorithm, different RTT flows can fairly compete for the available bottleneck bandwidth, thus enhancing the RTT fairness issue that has been compromised in the original version of the BBR algorithm. Through our extensive simulation analysis on NS3, we identified that our proposed methodology improves RTT fairness by more than 18\%, a reduction of more than 24\% and 20\% on packets retransmission rates and queuing delay, respectively, compared to other recently published BBR variants like an adaptive congestion window of BBR (BBR-ACW) on various network conditions.

AbstractAppropriately guided and implemented government interventions help in achieving the desired outcome. They complement the household budget in meeting their basic needs, allowing them to move to a higher satisfaction level. The study looks at the nexus between household poverty and government strategies to stem it. The analysis uses various approaches including the binary and polychotomous logit models to see who is likely to benefit from the interventions, the Tobit model to measure the intensity in closing poverty gap and simulations to capture the impact and cost implications of interventions. While several interventions were introduced, results reveal implementation gaps where the deserving households are not comprehensively covered; the extremely poor have lower probability of uptake of the interventions. Thus, more targeted coverage is necessary in closing the poverty gap.

The potential benefits of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) have taken center stage in recent policy and scholarly debates. We contribute to this discussion by drawing insights from our assessment of the current levels of export survival across the following agreements: the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC), and the overall economic integration agreement (EIA). Using monthly firm-product-destination customs transaction data from Kenya for the period January 2006 to December 2017, we find that the average duration of trading is longer under an agreement than when there is no agreement in place by 1.12 months. The mean duration of exporting under EAC exceeds that of COMESA by 1.47 months. The probit regression results with random effects reveal that trade agreements reduce the hazard rate for exports. However, the effect differs depending on the agreement’s depth and extent: The effect is negative for the EAC and positive for the COMESA. We also find that the ‘timing’ effect differs depending on the nature of the agreement. Overall, while the AfCFTA may expand market access, it might not guarantee low failure rates for exporters.

Ports and neighbouring cities function as connectors between land and water and have long accommodated a substantial flow of goods and services. Port cities in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region and the Global South (GS) are rapidly and inevitably expanding as the demand for global trade increases. However, this expansion has numerous impacts on the surrounding marine ecosystem and the socio-economic livelihoods of local communities. We propose a framework to evaluate the sustainability of port cities in the WIO region and more broadly for cities in the GS. Through an exploratory approach, a systematic literature review (SLR) was undertaken to identify existing themes on port city and marine ecosystem sustainability indicator frameworks. The results revealed a strong bias towards sustainability publications designed for port cities in Global North. The approach developed from this study focuses on the socio-economic and environmental attributes relevant to ports in the WIO region and for GS countries. This draws from the Drivers, Pressures, States, Impacts and Responses (DPSIR) framework and includes 78 indicators. The indicators are designed to identify and report on the complex land and sea interdependencies of port cities. To test the validity of these indicators their interdependencies were examined through a Causal Network (CN) structure which identified 12 priority DPSIR CN. These were also mapped to the UNSDGs enabling the wider applicability and transferability of the framework. The resulting framework enables port cities in emerging economies to establish robust sustainable reporting systems and provides a framework that offers a unique lens for evaluating interactions embedded in the land and sea continuum.