Inequality In Africa Research Articles

Chronicle of a death foretold: the fateful fate of french tropical medicine disciplines and its consequences in the fight against health inequalities in Africa

RésuméDepuis la fin des années 1990, nous assistons en France à une évolution lente conduisant à la disparition des disciplines liées aux maladies tropicales. Au niveau hospitalier, elle se traduit par la dilution progressive des services cliniques consacrés au traitement des maladies infectieuses et tropicales au sein d’un pôle infectieux ou de médecine interne, et, en biologie médicale, par le remplacement des biologistes parasitologues ayant acquis une spécialisation en mycologie, par des biologistes mycologues ayant acquis une spécialisation en parasitologie. Cette orientation peut sembler normale, la réduction des compétences en diagnostic parasitologique et clinique étant liée au succès des mesures d’hygiène et de contrôle des produits alimentaires, qui ont entraîné la quasi-disparition, dans notre pays, de parasitoses autochtones telles que la fasciolose, le tœniasis, ou l’amibiase. Priorité est donc donnée à la mycologie, en particulier aux infections respiratoires, prédominantes dans une population protégée et vieillissante. Fallait-il pour autant le faire au détriment des compétences en diagnostic et en soin des maladies touchant les populations des pays à ressources limitées ?

Greenhouse gas emission widens income inequality in Africa

Over the past couple of decades, the world has witnessed a rise in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and rising income inequality that threatens human well-being. Addressing these challenges and ensuring sustainable development become a pressing issue for policymakers. This paper investigates the impact of GHG emissions on income inequality in Africa. The study uses a panel data set from 49 countries from 1981 to 2015 and shows that GHG emission widens income inequality. The result is robust for alternative emission indicators. A direct implication is that climate change policy should be designed to narrow income inequality. It is emphasized that mitigation actions should focus on the agriculture sector. Hence, intervention towards energy-smart agriculture, land conservation practices, exploiting the job creation potential, and strengthening value addition in the agricultural sector is decisive. Reforming agriculture reduces emission, narrows income inequality, and realizes sustainable development on the continent.

Interregional inequality in Africa, convergence, and multiple equilibria: Evidence from nighttime light data

AbstractUnderstanding the dynamics of interregional inequality in Africa is important when formulating development policies. In this paper, we investigate the convergence pattern of regional inequality within 49 African countries over the period 1992–2012 using satellite night‐light‐based inequality proxies. We find evidence of multiple equilibria in regional income inequality. Countries belonging to clubs with high regional inequality level do not show any tendency to converge toward the clubs with low regional inequality, indicating that these countries are indeed stuck in regional income inequality traps. The idea of regional income inequality traps is also confirmed by a distributional dynamic analysis that uncovered evidence of regional income inequality persistence with a limited degree of mobility between convergence clubs. From the convergence analysis, we found that the initial conditions in the economic development, natural resource rent, urbanization, political institutions, development aid programs, and infrastructure are very important determinants of regional income inequality. Our findings provide policy makers some direction for future economic policies.

Informal Economy and Gender Inequality in Africa

The study investigates the relationship between gender inequality and the growth of the informal sector in Africa. Using Generalised Least Square Approach. it was discovered that gender inequality indices such as equality between males and females in getting jobs in the formal economy under the same or similar circumstances have a significant impact on the growth of the informal economy in the continent. The study concludes that if an adequate effort is not made to address the gender inequality in the continent, especially in formal employment that has forced many females to informal sector employment, the objective of achieving inclusive growth and development in the continent might not be realistic. The study, therefore, recommends that the United Nation and other international organizations should compensate the African women by giving the women at least 60 percent chance in all their employees as a way of increasing the economic and political power of the women in the continent.

Towards the quest to reduce income inequality in Africa: is there a synergy between tourism development and governance?

ABSTRACT Despite the growing attention on the tourism development-income inequality nexus, a conspicuous gap in the literature is that rigorous empirical works examining how good governance moderates the relationship are hard to find. Anchoring on the trickle-down theory and the tourism-led growth hypothesis, this study fills this void in the literature based on data for 48 African countries for the period 1996–2020. We provide strong evidence robust to several specifications from the GMM estimator to show that, though unconditionally both tourism development and governance reduce income inequality in Africa, the effect of the former is amplified in the presence of good economic, political and institutional governance. Particularly, we find that control of corruption and political stability are keys for propelling Africa’s tourism sector to contribute to the equalization of incomes across the continent. Policy recommendations are provided in line with SDG 10, and Aspirations 1 and 3 of Africa’s Agenda 2063.

Globalization and Inequality in Africa: The Way out of the Current Challenges

Globalization and Inequality in Africa: The Way out of the Current Challenges

The price of inequality in Africa

The price of inequality in Africa

Globalization and income inequality: A panel data analysis of 37 developing countries in Africa

The lack of economic facts on the effects of globalization and income inequality in Africa has made it difficult for an effective economic policy response to the problem of inequalities in the continent. Against this backdrop, this paper examined the nexus between globalization and income inequality by estimating Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and the Random model for Panel data of 37 developing countries in Africa over the period of 1970 to 2014. The relationship between income level and income inequality justifies the validity of Kuznets’ U hypothesis. The results showed a negative relationship between the total globalization index and income inequality after taxes and transfer for the (OLS). Results for the globalization sub-indicators such as economic globalization showed a robust positive significant relationship for both measures of income inequality measures (Gini net and Gini market), while political globalization showed a negative relationship with both income inequality measures. It is recommended that government in African countries should strengthen their institutions to promote policy frameworks that will increase income levels and the human capital capacity, while steps should be taken to control the ever-increasing population and age dependency ratio.

The hidden Zimbabwean Blockchain Technology Engine: A permanent solution to poverty and inequality in Africa.

The hidden Zimbabwean Blockchain Technology Engine: A permanent solution to poverty and inequality in Africa.

Is there a nonlinear relationship between financial development and income inequality in Africa? Evidence from dynamic panel threshold

Using dynamic panel threshold model, this work examines the nonlinear relationship between financial development and inequality in Africa. The study introduces a robust measure of financial development into the literature. Using 40 African countries selected from high-income, middle-low and low-income countries, the study tests the new financial development indicator. The empirical results validate the existence of threshold levels of financial development that addresses inequality among African countries. Aggregately, financial development tends to promote inequality in high-income countries and reduces the same in low and middle-income countries. Hence, policymakers, in African countries, should be aware of the threshold level of financial development that imparts income inequality. Also, for financial development to have an enormous impact on inequality, all financial development pillars of depth, stability, access and efficiency must be simultaneously accorded a due place in policymaking by practitioners.

Urbanization, Industrialization and Inequalities in Africa: does threshold matter?

This paper examines the impact of urbanization and industrialization on observed inequalities in a sample of 48 African countries. We specify and estimate a panel data model using the Generalized Method of Moments-System (GMM-S) over the period 1980-2016 along the different dimensions of inequality. Our results show that urbanization increases income, environmental and housing inequalities in Africa, while industrialization reduces them. Our results remain robust with the use of Panel Smooth Transition Regression Model (PSTR) and Panel Transition Regression Model (PTR). We suggest taking into account the disparities identified in the inclusive urbanization and industrialization policies of African cities.

Is Inequality Slowing Down Africa’s Industrialization?

Africa has also experienced a decline in the level of industrialization for at least three decades. Examining the dynamics of industrialization, and its effect on inequality, therefore remains a strikingly topical issue. This paper assesses the effects of industrial transformation on inequality in Africa over the period 1980-2016. Using a sample of 48 African countries, we estimate a dynamic panel data model using the Generalized Method of Moments in System (GMM-S). Our results show that strong industrialization would reduce inequality in Africa. The robustness of the results is tested using a PSTR (Panel Smooth Transition Regression) model and a PTR (Panel Transition Regression) model. The study recommends that economic, social and environmental disparities be taken into account in the process of industrial transformation on the continent.

ICT, governance and inequality in Africa

We examine the direct effect of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on inequality and investigate whether the ICT and inequality relationships can be reinforced by governance indicators of democracy, regulatory quality, rule of law and political stability. Using the panel dataset of 46 African countries over the period 1984–2018 and dynamic two-step system generalized method of moment estimator, we found that ICT measures of internet, fixed broadband and mobile cellular subscription directly reduce inequality, and good governance indicators can reinforce the ICT and inequality links. We execute a threshold analysis that illustrates the crucial role of democracy, regulatory quality, rule of law and political stability in facilitating the ICT and inequality relationships in Africa.

Does Institutional Quality increase inequalities in Africa?

This article appreciates the role of Institutional quality in addressing inequalities in Africa. Starting from Piketty’s (2015) holistic analysis of income inequalities and their sources, we have integrated two contemporary forms of inequalities (environmental and housing). We carry out an estimation of a panel data model using the Maximum Likelihood Method (MLM) on a sample of 48 African countries for the period 1996–2016, which yielded two main results. Firstly, governance indices reduce income inequality and have a significant adverse effect on housing and environmental inequalities. Secondly, Longevity of the regime and the Term in power of the political party of the chief executive exacerbate the inequalities in all its forms.

Colonial Education, Political Elites, and Regional Political Inequality in Africa

Political elites tend to favor their home region when distributing resources. But what explains how political power is distributed across a country’s regions to begin with? Explanations of cabinet formation focus on short-term strategic bargaining and some emphasize that ministries are allocated equitably to minimize conflict. Using new data on the cabinet members (1960–2010) of 16 former British and French African colonies, I find that some regions have been systematically much more represented than others. Combining novel historical and geospatial records, I show that this regional political inequality derives not from colonial-era development in general but from colonial-era education in particular. I argue that post-colonial ministers are partly a byproduct of civil service recruitment practices among European administrators that focused on levels of literacy. Regional political inequality is an understudied pathway through which colonial legacies impact distributive politics and unequal development in Africa today. JEL: F54, I26, N37, N47

United in diversity? Digital differences and inequalities within a South African rural community

ABSTRACT Digital inequalities in Africa have been explored in terms of dimensions such as gender, age, education, socio-economic status, language, ability/disability etc. In the present study, we draw on qualitative research emphasising digital differences within Dwesa, a rural community on the Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. For the past decade and a half, this has been the site of extensive ethnographic and ICT-for-development research highlighting complex and nuanced social arrangements, social stratification and local power dynamics. Mobile communication and media appear to either entrench or challenge the status quo, e.g., by strengthening the bond with community members who migrated to urban areas, by disrupting cultural norms or by opening up work and education opportunities. Mobile digital access, use and benefits are unevenly distributed within the community. Teachers and local business people tend to be early adopters and use phones extensively for work-related purposes and to maintain contacts outside the community. The youth appear to be the most sophisticated and frequent users of social media to organise events and meet new people. Somewhat surprisingly, mature women provide some of the most innovative examples of collaboration and empowerment. People of all ages, genders and socio-economic backgrounds recognise the disruptive potential, costs and limitations of digital technology and some deliberately limit themselves to voice calls. Our findings problematise a view of rural African communities as digitally homogeneous and provide some examples of how actual experiences in the Global South challenge expectations based on research from the Global North.

Do Weather Events affect Income Inequality in Africa

This paper investigates the effects of weather events on income inequality in Africa over the period 1990-2017. Our novel findings using GMM reveal a non-monotonic U-shape effect of the incidence o...

The Macroeconomic and Institutional Effects on Income Inequality in Africa

This paper attempts to offer an empirical assessment of the main macroeconomic and institutional driver of income inequality in Africa. We use a Kuznets curve framework, which emphasises the role of income per capita in explaining the time path of inequality. In contrast to much of the literature, we explicitly examine the possibility of the existence of multiple income steady states. Using the concept of clubs of convergence, we show that per capita income is divergent and identify four steady states to which groups of economies converge (i.e. high income to low income economies) Using panel data models and a data set encompassing 52 African countries spanning the years 1980-2017, we show that once these multiple steady states are accounted for, the Kuznets’ curve relationship becomes unstable. Our findings suggest that inequality may be increasing in high income countries in Africa, while decreasing in low income or the least developed economies. In addition, the role of macroeconomic and institutional factors in explaining income inequality is limited and differ across convergence clubs. For example, evidence suggest the importance of fiscal, employment and monetary policies and the rule of law to tackle inequality in high income economies, while have no statistically significant role in low income economies’ income inequality.

The development of Business Seedbed Theories: A permanent solution to poverty and inequality in Africa

The development of Business Seedbed Theories: A permanent solution to poverty and inequality in Africa

Do weather events affect income inequality in Africa

Do weather events affect income inequality in Africa