Performance In Sub-Saharan Africa Research Articles

Enhancing burned area monitoring with VIIRS dataset: A case study in Sub-Saharan Africa

Since 2001, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor on board the Aqua and Terra platforms has made great strides in providing information on global burned areas (BA). However, the MODIS mission is nearing its end. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensors, presented as the MODIS Aqua heritage, could be an excellent alternative to ensure the temporal continuity of this information at a moderate resolution. This paper describes and evaluates the effectiveness of our developed hybrid algorithm, which utilizes VIIRS reflectance and active fire products on the Google Earth Engine platform, in producing efficient information about BA. The study investigates the algorithm's performance in sub-Saharan Africa as the region of interest in 2019, using biweekly outputs and a spatial resolution of 250 m. The algorithm encompasses several steps, including pre-processing individual scenes, creating cloud-free composites, generating binary reference data for burned and non-burned areas, conducting a supervised classification using random forest, and performing region shaping. The VIIRS-BA final product, which includes three confidence levels (low, moderate, and high) known as the uncertainty layer, is compared to four other burned area products. The validation is conducted against 27 reference sampling units from the Sentinel-2 Burned Area Reference Database dataset, allowing for a comprehensive uncertainty assessment across five various biomes. The VIIRS-BA product identified 5.1 million km2 of BA, which was significantly larger than other global coarse resolution BA products such as FireCCI51, FireCCIS310, and MCD64A1 and close to the fine resolution FireCCISFD20 with a difference of 7.3%. The differences were less significant in biomes such as “Tropical Savannas” and “Temperate Grasslands” which are characterized by persistent biomass burning. Based on a stratified random sampling, the validation results demonstrate varying levels of accuracy for the VIIRS-BA product across different confidence levels. The commission error (CE) ranges from 7.8% to 23.4%, while the omission error (OE) falls between 29.4% and 58.8%. Notably, there is a significant reduction in OE (ranging from 40.7% to 50.5%) compared to global BA products like FireCCI51, FireCCIS310, and MCD64A1. When compared to VIIRS-BA, the FireCCISFD20 regional product has a 37% better OE performance. While VIIRS-BA shows great potential in detecting fires that global products miss, the VIIRS-BA with low confidence level tends to overestimate BA in regions with high fire activity. To address this, future versions of the algorithm will integrate the updated VIIRS reflectance data alongside VIIRS active fire from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to reduce CE and improve understanding spatial patterns.

The Impact of Corruption on Economic Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

The Impact of Corruption on Economic Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

Board expertise diversity and firm performance in sub-Saharan Africa: do firm age and size matter?

Our study delved into an analysis of 128 public companies in Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria to explore the influence of diversified board expertise on firm performance. We also investigated the impact of firm size and age on this relationship. Our results indicate that a varied blend of professional experts on corporate boards significantly boosts a company's ROA, although there is no significant effect when Tobin's Q measures firm performance. Nevertheless, we discovered that combining firm size and age negatively impacts the correlation between board expertise diversity and firm performance. Our findings support the significance of integrating agency, resource dependence, and convergence theories, implying that businesses can improve their financial performance by including an appropriate mix of expertise on their boards, especially for relatively younger small-sized firms. In contrast, more prominent and ageing firms may not see the same financial benefits. Consequently, we recommend that corporate executives and practitioners consider implementing board expertise diversity to enhance their firms' financial performance.

School work performance in sub-Saharan Africa: A bivariate multilevel analysis

The objective of this study is to evaluate the internal performance of education systems in sub-Saharan Africa. The choice of the academic performance of student work in reading and mathematics (defined as the ratio between the score obtained in a subject and the investment in learning that subject) as the approach to internal performance constitutes the originality of this research. Based on 2019 data from the Confemen Programme for the Analysis of Educational Systems (PASEC) covering 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the choice of bivariate modelling allows the hierarchical structure of the data to be taken into account and the performance of schoolwork in reading and mathematics to be treated simultaneously. The results show that the influence of learner and school characteristics on performance in reading and mathematics converges. Nevertheless, certain personal attributes of the pupils or certain aspects specific to the school attended generate differentiated impacts depending on the subject considered. Sensitivity and robustness analyses confirm the stability of the results, offering avenues for understanding and improving students' academic performance.

IFRS adoption and performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: a comparative analysis of Nigeria and Ghana

IFRS adoption and performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: a comparative analysis of Nigeria and Ghana

Enhancing Governance Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa Can Bolster Climate Mitigation and Food Security

The sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region has experienced substantial population growth over the past decades, accompanied by severe hunger and environmental degradation. Underperforming governance is a major driver of unsustainable agricultural production and land use in SSA. The impacts of governance performance on food security and the environment in SSA require better understanding by considering socioeconomic and biophysical dynamics. Using an agro-economic dynamic optimization model, we investigate the impacts of governance performance on land use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and food security in the SSA region by 2050. Our findings indicate that strong governance could lead to less deforestation, thus reducing GHG emissions in the agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU) sector. Strong governance could also improve food security, with higher agricultural productivity, lower food prices and food expenditure share, as well as higher self-sufficiency. These findings highlight that those efforts should extend beyond specific agricultural and environmental measures and promote integrated governance to achieve long-term synergies between food and environmental security in SSA.

Energy security, governance quality, and economic performance in sub-Saharan Africa

This study investigates the role of energy security and governance quality in economic performance using 22 sub-Saharan African countries between 2000 and 2020. It explores Poisson Pseudo-maximum Likelihood Estimator. More so, five measures of energy security (accessibility, affordability, acceptability, availability, and developability) and four measures of governance quality (political, economic, institutional, and aggregate) are considered. The results show that only the availability and developability of energy security significantly and positively enhance economic performance. Other measures have little or no effect on economic performance. Additionally, measures of governance quality largely and positively facilitate economic performance. On interaction terms, governance quality was found to significantly enhance the effectiveness of the availability aspects of energy security on economic performance. However, the governance structure is still very weak to foster the effectiveness of other aspects of energy security in the growth process. Thus, countries need to be proactive in strengthening their governance structures to harness the benefits associated with energy security for sustainable economic growth. Specifically, policymakers need to prioritize policies that will enhance energy availability and developability, promote energy sustainability and equality, disincentivize high-emission energy sources, strengthen governance roles in energy security, and mitigate oil price volatility.

Financial Inclusion and Information Communication Technology on Tax Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

Purpose: The main objective of this paper is to determine empirically the impact of financial inclusion and Information Communication Technology (ICT) on tax performance in Sub-Saharan African countries; determine the extent to which the elements of financial inclusion have influenced tax performance of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa; and examine the role technology plays in impacting the performance of taxes in Sub-Saharan African countries. Theoretical Framework: The existing theories that serve as a roadmap for the development of this study are Theory of Digital Diffusion and Theory of Margins. Digital transformation has an important impact on the operations and systems of every economy, which often triggers a positive effect on taxes. Diffusion innovation theory was initiated by Rogers in 1962. The Theory of Margin on the other hand, is a theoretical school that gives validity to the impact of financial development on product output. It suggests that more access to financial services and products is vital for high output and economic advancement. Design/Methodology/Approach: The population considered in this study was 48 sub-Saharan African Countries from the period of 1999 to 2019. The methods used for the analysis consists of the descriptive and correlation analysis on the identified variables and a creation of financial inclusion index using the Principal Component Analysis to deal with multiclonality challenge amongst the financial inclusion proxies, it also adopted the two-staged least square estimation technique for the empirical analysis. Findings: The study reveals inter alia that the variables for financial inclusion and ICT proxies are overwhelmingly positive and significantly impact on the tax performance (i.e., total tax revenue and the non-resource tax revenue as percentages of GDP), in sub-Saharan Africa and that the financial inclusion index has positive effect on tax performance in sub-Saharan Africa. We also observed that there is a positive relationship between technology and tax performance in sub-Saharan Africa. Research Practical & Social implications: Policies should be formulated to engender enhancement of technology and more investment should be allocated to technology as it is discovered to drive financial inclusion and promotes tax revenue mobilization. In general, the findings indicate that policies are needed to engender an enhancement of technology and more investment should be channeled to technology as it affects financial inclusion and by logical extension, the promotion of tax revenue mobilization. Originality/value: The challenge of tax implementation can be directly ascribed to an ineffective tax system. A tax management that is of high in superiority, helps to make the tax mobilization process more transparent and efficient, and also reduce the level of shadow economy, which main feature is non- remittance or payment of tax. This study reveals that a tax administration system can only operate effectively with the use of modern information technologies.

Firm performance in sub-Saharan Africa: What role do electricity shortages play?

Firm performance in sub-Saharan Africa: What role do electricity shortages play?

Extracting Innovation Value from Intellectual Property: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

Although a sizable body of research concerning innovation and intellectual property (IP) performance exists, there has been limited attention on whether the state of IP strengthens or curtails innovation activity in the global south, specifically among sub-Saharan Africa firms. This article analyzes the direct impacts of IP on innovation performance in sub-Saharan Africa, namely patents, copyrights, industrial designs, and trademarks. The paper responds to firms extracting value from intellectual property strategies through innovation activities and overall performance. Using the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) and Innovation Follow-up Survey (IFS), we find that appropriation channels are essential for transforming innovation pursuits into a competitive advantage. Our results further reinforce that appropriation mechanisms are crucial to innovation and may allow firms to gain returns on their innovation activities. Regardless of the weaknesses and limitations of the patenting strategy in sub-Saharan Africa, the probability of patenting an innovation relates to a process and product innovation while controlling for several other effects. More importantly, we demonstrate how industrial designs and improved or changed trademarks can foster inclusive performance. In addition, we show that beyond perception-based innovations, intellectual property strategies also matter to innovation intensity and sales growth. Consequently, our results indicate that the significance of innovation for competitiveness puts intellectual capital at the critical juncture of knowledge management.

Mobile money innovations and health performance in sub-Saharan Africa

This study assesses nexuses between mobile money innovations and health performance in terms of total life expectancy in 43 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa employing data for the period 2004–2018. Four mobile money innovation dynamics are proxied with registered mobile money agents and active mobile money agents. The empirical evidence is based on quantile regressions. The findings overwhelmingly show that mobile money innovations are relevant in improving health performance or total life expectancy exclusively in bottom quantiles of the conditional distribution of total life expectancy. In other words, countries with below-median levels of total life expectancy are more susceptible to benefit from mobile money innovations compared to countries with above-median levels of total life expectancy. It follows that common or general policy measures on the linkage between mobile money innovations and health performance are unlikely to succeed unless attendant policies are contingent on initial levels of health performance and hence, tailored differently across countries with various initial levels of health performance. More policy implications are discussed.

Trust Institutions, Perceptions of Economic Performance, and the Mitigating Role of Political Diversity in Sub-Saharan Africa

Several previous studies have explored the relationship between trust and socio-economic conditions but do not attempt to examine channels through which the relation operates. In this paper, we examine how political fractionalization mitigates the positive relationship between trust institutions and national economic performance in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using Round 7 data of Afrobarometer in over 1000 districts in 34 countries, we find that trust institutions positively and significantly affect economic performance. Nevertheless, the positive effect is attenuated in districts with a high level of political diversity. More specifically, a higher level of trust is associated with lower economic performance at a higher level of political fractionalization and vice versa, with a steady linear decrease of the estimated coefficients. Policy implications are discussed.

Aid and Governance: Impact of Chinese Aid on the Evaluation of Government Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

One of a government's primary responsibilities is to provide public goods and services for the benefit of citizens. A government that excels in such provision may therefore win favorable evaluations from its citizens. However, if external state and non-state actors through foreign aid issuance become providers of what citizens expect from their government, citizens may doubt their government's competence. In recent decades, China has become an important donor to Africa, providing the continent with several aid projects. Consequently, this study examines whether aid from China undermines citizens’ evaluations of government performance. Geocoded data on Chinese aid projects are matched to 4 waves of Afrobarometer survey respondents from 31 sub-Saharan African countries. Using an instrumental variable estimation, the findings indicate that Chinese aid undermines the evaluation of government performance. Testing for the mechanism through which this effect manifests, the results suggest Chinese aid engenders corruption perceptions and erodes trust.

The attainment of gender education equality: A preliminary assessment of country performance in sub-Saharan Africa

The research literature on girls’ education in low and middle income countries focuses almost exclusively on ‘what works?’ which is confined mainly to relatively small scale experimental interventions, particularly randomised control trials This evidence is important but it provides few insights about the overall (especially more recent) progress made by individual countries and the overall effectiveness of the national strategies and specific policies in promoting girls’ education. This article is an initial attempt to redress this research imbalance. It has three principal objectives. Firstly, it outlines a broad conceptual framework which provides the basis for a holistic analysis of country-level performance in improving girls’ education. Secondly, it presents an initial, tentative assessment of country performance in improving girls’ education across sub-Saharan Africa. And thirdly, it explores some of the potentially key national characteristics and policy interventions which may help to explain the considerable variability in country performance during the last two decades in redressing gender inequalities in education in this region.

Impact of global value chains integration on firm performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: evidence from micro panel data

Impact of global value chains integration on firm performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: evidence from micro panel data

Digital Technology and Trade Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

This study examines the relationship between digital technology and trade performance with a focus on export trade in sub-Saharan African countries. The main objectives are to examine the impact digital technology measured by ICT goods import, internet use and mobile telephone subscriptions have on export trade in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), to evaluate the link between the degree of the region’s development and export trade and the form of digital technology most suitable in facilitating trade in the region. The study hypotheses are that: (1) ICT goods import, internet use and mobile telephone subscriptions do not influence significantly export trade in SSA; (2) the region’s development does not link appreciably to export trade in SSA; (3) no form of digital technology can facilitate trade in the region. The panel regression estimation technique is adopted considering the panel least squares, fixed effect and random effect estimation techniques. Results show that information and communication technology imports exert greater positive and significant impact on export trade flows compared to internet usage demonstrating theoretical and practical relevance of technology in trade flows. The degree of development is low and does not show an appreciable impact on trade flows in the region indicating that trade integration can thrive better in a well-structured economy. Redundant fixed effect test confirms that the panel least squares estimation is better compared to the fixed effect estimation. Hausman test demonstrates that random effect estimation is also better than fixed effect estimation. In attaining the reality of the contribution of digitalization process in SSA, policy makers need to pursue major goals that would address problems hampering its success.

Impact of Global Value Chains Integration on Firm Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Micro panel data

Impact of Global Value Chains Integration on Firm Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Micro panel data

Governance Quality and Trade Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

Governance Quality and Trade Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

Nexus between financial integration, capital market development and economic performance: Does institutional structure matters?

This study investigates the role of institutional structure on asymmetries dynamic impact of financial integration, capital market development on economic performance in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The study classified economic performance into RGDPC, nominal gdp and human capital development, and employed (PNARDL) modeling framework, and a panel of 16 nations of SSA over the period 1996–2019. The finding of this research output can be summarize as thus: i.) In the long run, a rise in positive shock to the financial integration index leads to a rise in RGDPC, while a negative shock to FI leads to a fall in RGDPC. ii.) Both shocks (positive and negative) to MCAP reduce RGDPC. Institutional quality index (INSQI) is revealed to have a positive and significant impact on RGDPC in the long run and indeed intensify their asymmetries. iii.) Both shocks to FI exert inverse influence on nominal GDPC, while positive and negative shocks to MCAP exert a positive and negative influence on GDPC, respectively. INSQI also affects GDPC negatively and significantly and indeed reduces their asymmetries. iv.) Positive and negative shocks to FI reduce HCD as well as shocks to MCAP. INSQI, on the other hand, adds to HCD and intensifies their asymmetries. However, the lack of consistency in the results across the models suggest that the interplay between these variables are still undeveloped relative to other continents of the world, and the benefits are yet to be adequately harnessed.

Mobile money innovations and health performance in sub-Saharan Africa

Mobile money innovations and health performance in sub-Saharan Africa