Equity In Africa Research Articles

COVID-19 vaccine equity in Africa.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has dominated global health discourse since early 2020. By early 2021, the unprecedented speed of vaccine development against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by government, academia and industry contributed biotechnological tools to reduce severe COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths. However, vaccine distribution has not been equitable. We address one element of this challenge, namely the low COVID-19 vaccination rates in African countries, which lag behind higher-income nations. We evaluate key obstacles to initiatives addressing this inequity and emphasize Africa-based research and development as a sustainable solution to ensuring vaccine equity in Africa.

EVALUATING THE EFFECT OF MOBILE MONEY ON FIRM PRODUCTIVITY IN AFRICA: A COMPARISON OF THE FORMAL AND INFORMAL SECTORS

We explore the relationship between firms’ mobile money use and their productivity using a sample of 994 formal and 1,499 informal, predominantly micro-, small- and medium firms from Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Our findings reveal a positive and statistically significant relationship between mobile money use and labor productivity for informal firms. The effect also appears to be stronger for female-led than for male-led informal firms, suggesting that mobile money could be a valuable tool to promote gender equity in Africa’s informal sector. In contrast, for formal firms, the effect vanishes once all relevant controls are accounted for. Thus, for formal firms, mobile money may be insufficient to overcome the impediments of their business environments in Africa. Further, a complementary fsQCA reveals configurations of conditions that appear important for informal firms to truly benefit from the productivity enhancing potential of mobile money. The combination of founders’ education, firms’ location, their sector and their use of traditional bank accounts appear particularly crucial. The fsQCA findings give additional nuance to our regression results. Overall, our findings suggest that firms more exposed to transaction costs benefit more from mobile money.

OC 8360 GLOBAL HEALTH RESEARCH AND ITS ROLE IN IMPROVING HEALTH AND HEALTH EQUITY IN AFRICA

BackgroundHealth research has the potential to generate knowledge that may be used to improve health and health equity. This has led to calls for African governments to dedicate at least 2% of their national budgets to heath research, but such resource allocations have never been achieved. Rather, most of health research in Africa continues to be funded by high-income countries (HICs) and involves collaborative partnerships between researchers in high-income countries and those in Africa. These research partnerships have many benefits, but they also raise ethical issues related to justice and fairness in global health research.MethodsThe ‘Research for Health Justice Framework’ makes recommendations on how global health research partnerships may foster the ideals of justice through their selection of research populations and questions, research capacity strengthening, delivery of ancillary care and the provision of post-trial benefits. We applied these criteria to collaborative genomics research consortia in Africa (an example of global health research in Africa).ResultsThe results show that the lack of national health research priorities in most African countries hinders the intention of global health actors to use global health research as a means of promoting global health equity. Furthermore, capacity building efforts need to be more coordinated and monitored. The responsibility for this lies with several actors.ConclusionThe potential for global health research to improve the health capability of countries in Africa will require that attention is paid to research that improves the health of people in Africa and that global health research partnerships identify, first and foremost, what kind of capacity strengthening is required and who is responsible for this activity. African governments and research institutions can play a role to help global health research improve health and health equity in Africa, in ways that are sustainable.

Higher Education, Technology, and Equity in Africa

ABSTRACTA healthy and skilled workforce is at the heart of Africa’s economic and social transformation agenda and countries with leading institutions of higher learning are among the most diversified economies in Africa. This paper examines the gaps in the performance of Africa’s higher learning institutions, identifies structural barriers to transformation and proposes better utilization of information technology to meet the emerging needs for equity and access. Based on best practices from the use of ICTs in South Africa and the rollout of digital libraries in 20 countries three key recommendations are provided to overcome gaps related to investment, digital literacy, and policy coherence.

Youth Radicalization in Africa: A Comparative Analysis of Radicalized Groups

A lot of efforts are being exerted by world’s governments and other stakeholders to achieve higher rates of Accessibility to Education. Militia groups the world over have recruited and radicalized the potential school going children into their militant outfits to either fight in battlefields, or use them as spies or suicide bombers denying them opportunities of accessing education that would have been very valuable in their development. These groups abduct torture and kill victims, cause untold sufferings of their captives. In Africa, BokoHaramu in Nigeria opposes modern formal education and hinders the youth from accessing benefits associated with formal education they kidnap students from schools, women from market places, rape and force them into marriages. Mungiki in Kenya has caused school enrolment in central Kenya to drop. Their forced initiations into the groups, doctrines and practice or threat of Female Genital Mutilations, the taking of drugs and the insecurity caused by the sect members are the major challenges the Kenyan Nation is facing as a threat to realization of the objectives of vision 2030 in its former Central Province. The groups, in their teachings, associate formal education with neo-colonialism or western imperialism. Al-Shabab enforces its own harsh interpretation of sharia law, prohibiting various types of entertainment, such as movies and music, the sale of khat, smoking, the shaving of beards, and many other “un-Islamic” activities. This paper examines historical and Philosophical backgrounds of some of the militia groups in Africa such as Al-Shabab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria and Mungiki in Kenya. Highlighting modes of recruitment, radicalization and how school aged youths are utilized by militia groups. The paper argues that use of strategies such as military force in Nigeria on Boko Haram has failed to bear any fruits. It suggests that skewed distribution of national educational funds could be an impetus to forces of radicalization of youth. Therefore, this paper suggests strategies that can be used to counter the recruitment and radicalization of youths in an effort to improve Educational Access and Equity in Africa.

The Impact of External and Internal Governance Institutions on IPO Firm Underpricing and Cost of Equity in Africa

The Impact of External and Internal Governance Institutions on IPO Firm Underpricing and Cost of Equity in Africa

Private equity in Africa: Lessons learned

Thunderbird International Business ReviewVolume 51, Issue 4 p. 403-405 Research Article Private equity in Africa: Lessons learned Carolyn Campbell, Corresponding Author Carolyn Campbell CampbellC@ecpinvestments.com Founding member, Emerging Capital Partners (ECP) investment teamManaging Director and General Counsel, Emerging Capital Partners, 1602 L Street, N.W., 6th Floor, Washington, DC 20036Search for more papers by this author Carolyn Campbell, Corresponding Author Carolyn Campbell CampbellC@ecpinvestments.com Founding member, Emerging Capital Partners (ECP) investment teamManaging Director and General Counsel, Emerging Capital Partners, 1602 L Street, N.W., 6th Floor, Washington, DC 20036Search for more papers by this author First published: 23 June 2009 https://doi.org/10.1002/tie.20276AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume51, Issue4Special Issue: Sub-Saharan Africa at a Key Inflection PointJuly/August 2009Pages 403-405 RelatedInformation

Forests, poverty and equity in Africa: new perspectives on policy and practice

This paper places forestry in the larger context of rural development and therefore in the current debates on poverty and inequality. While Africa has high levels of natural and human capital it is the poorest and most unequal region in the world. In order for natural assets to contribute to environmental, economic and empowerment outcomes four principle interlinked changes are needed: 1) Improve the recognition of the fundamental role of natural resources in economic growth of poor countries and poor populations and in the development of democracies and good governance; 2) Better distribute resource rights, both property and procedural, giving the poor greater security, access and control; 3) Develop and implement frameworks, regulations and enforcement to assure that natural resource markets work for the poor; 4) Redefine the role of science and technology, and associated planning and institutions.

The Welfare State Within the Context of Liberal Globalisation in Africa: Is the Concept Still Relevant in Social Policy Alternatives for Africa?

Africans are struggling to reclaim their rights to wealth, liberty, and democracy as mechanisms of articulating social progress. Is the concept of the welfare state still relevant within the existing dominant paradigms of liberal globalisation? In this study, using a historical-structuralist framework, I examine the nature of the arguments about the welfare state. I categorize three types of regimes, namely, social welfare state, liberal welfare state, and transitional democracy and I compare their performances in selected sectors. My main objective is to search for correlative explanations between the ideological foundation of each regime and its social program policy. Based on the data used, it was demonstrated that global liberal democratisation has not yet created any conditions for greater social development and equity in Africa. In all sectors, transitional democracies have performed poorly as compared to other democracies. Liberal democracies have performed lower than social democracies. And social democracies have been systematically ranked higher in the selected social indices. It was concluded that the concept of welfare is still relevant, and thus should provide the epistemological and social basis for rethinking African democracies.

Debt, Development, and Equity in Africa. Karamo N. M. Sonko

<i>Debt, Development, and Equity in Africa</i>. Karamo N. M. Sonko

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice and Training. By Caroline O. N. Moser Reverse Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought. By Naila Kabeer Women, the Environment and Sustainable Development: Towards a Theoretical Synthesis. By Rosi Braidotti, Ewa Charkiewicz, Sabine Hausler and Saskia Wieringa Feminist Perspectives on Sustainable Development. Edited by Wendy Harcourt Population and Reproductive Rights: Feminist Perspectives from the South. By Sonia Correa (in collaboration with Rebecca Reichmann) Social Science Research for Agricultural Technology Development: Spatial and Temporal Dimensions. Edited by Karen Ann Dvořák Economic Interdependence in the Asia‐Pacific Region: Towards a Yen Bloc. By C. H. Kwan Ground Up: Rethinking Industrial Agriculture. By Peter Goering, Helena Norberg‐Hodge and John Page Inter‐nation Policy Co‐ordination and Untying of Aid. By Catrinus J. Jepma Economic Crisis and Third World Agriculture. Edited by Ajit Singh and Hamid Tabatabai The Political Economy of Oil. By Sarah Ahmed Khan The Process of Development of Societies. By K. C. Alexander Market Forces and World Development. Edited by Renée Prendergast and Frances Stewart Gender, Work and Population in Sub‐Saharan Africa. Edited by Aderanti Adepoju and Christine Oppong Debt, Development and Equity in Africa. By Karamo N. M. Sonko Population and Development: Old Debates, New Conclusions. By Robert Cassen and contributors Crisis or Transition in Foreign Aid. Edited by Adrian Hewitt The Trap. By James GoldsmithAuthor's response to Stein Hansen's review of Mortgaging the Earth: The World Bank, Evironmental Impoverishment and the Crisis of Development. By Bruce Rich