Reduction In Africa Research Articles

Financial inclusion, financial stability, and poverty reduction in Africa

AbstractFinancial inclusion universally remains one of the critical means to end poverty in the world, especially Africa, where the level of poverty is high. It has however been argued that financial inclusion equally has the tendency to destabilize the financial system, thwarting the poverty reduction efforts, which necessitates the interrogation of the relationship between the variables. This study therefore investigates how financial stability mediates the financial inclusion and poverty reduction relationship in Africa. Using the panel Autoregressive Distributive Lag model, covering a period of 2004–2020, the study found that financial inclusion is positively related to financial stability in both short and long‐run, with education, Gross National Income per capita (GNI) and domestic credit to private sector, contributing to financial stability, and trade openness negatively related to financial stability in the long‐run. The study further established that financial stability is positively related to household consumption expenditure as such leads to poverty reduction with trade openness, government expenditure, GNI, education, domestic credit to private sector, and institutional quality contributing significantly to poverty reduction. This confirms the mediating role financial stability plays in enhancing the impact of financial inclusion on poverty reduction in Africa and must therefore be given the necessary attention, through proper regulatory mechanisms.

Gender analysis of chickpea (Cicer arietinum) yield gap: the case of Ada’a, Ethiopia

One of the primary development challenges hindering poverty reduction in Africa is the existence of a yield gap between female and male farmers. However, previous studies conducted in Ethiopia have largely overlooked the role of gender-related factors in influencing this gap. This article aims to address this gap by examining the chickpea yield disparity between female and male farmers and identifying its determinants. Data were gathered from 325 respondents (163 male and 162 female farmers) in 2019, combining survey responses with qualitative insights from discussions in two women farmers' groups, two men farmers' groups, and four key informant interviews. T-tests and linear regression models were applied to quantify the extent of the yield gap and analyze the factors contributing to it. Additionally, thematic analysis of the qualitative data was conducted to complement the quantitative findings. The study revealed that female farmers produced 29% less chickpea yield in the 2019 production year compared to their male counterparts, and this difference was statistically significant. Factors such as land allocation for chickpea cultivation, soil fertility, labor availability, chickpea variety (improved or local), access to extension services, and participation in farmers' cooperatives were identified as significant contributors to the yield gap. Beyond these technical aspects, gender-related challenges like unequal treatment, restricted mobility, labor demands, and religious/cultural taboos were also factors impeding the productivity of women farmers. Addressing the yield gap necessitates an inclusive approach in all agricultural development endeavors, recognizing and rectifying gender-based disparities to enhance the productivity and livelihoods of female farmers.

Understanding Socioeconomic Risk and Vulnerability to Climate Change–Induced Disasters: The Case of Informal Settlements in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

This study employs a qualitative research approach to spatially delineate the risk and vulnerability of informal settlements in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This comes after devastating floods that occurred in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, in April 2022. This disaster emphasised the necessity for South Africa to proactively address natural hazards by implementing risk reduction strategies rather than attempting to mitigate the impact after the damage has occurred. Evidence indicates that the risk and vulnerability associated with climate-induced disasters, such as flooding, are exacerbated by socioeconomic factors, including housing shortages, which compel individuals to construct dwellings in flood-prone areas. Opportunities exist to enhance the understanding of disaster risk reduction in Africa, and South Africa in particular, through science-informed initiatives employing spatial techniques, including geographic information systems, hazard exposure mapping, and socioeconomic risk and vulnerability mapping. These techniques are crucial for humanitarian planning focused on long-term risk reduction, early recovery, shelter, reconstruction, and psychosocial support for climate change disaster recovery. Furthermore, an understanding of the nature and location of areas with high disaster risk, such as flooding, is essential for the formulation of disaster risk reduction strategies, including early warning systems.

Digital Economy and Poverty Reduction in Africa: The Role of Governance Quality

Digital Economy and Poverty Reduction in Africa: The Role of Governance Quality

Social Protection Instruments and Strategies in Southern Africa

Purpose: This article aims to investigate social protection knowledge and strategies and their implementation in selected countries in Southern Africa, namely Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Eswatini, Zambia, and South Africa. The article is part of ongoing policy and practical debates on development and poverty reduction in Africa. Methodology: The article employs a conceptual research approach to identify the social protection strategies in seven Southern African countries that were chosen purposefully due to the nature and depth of the programs. Conceptual research was underpinned by a review of primary and secondary literature available in both academic and grey formats accessed from the Google Scholar database. Findings: The article shows elderly grants, child grants, and disability grants were the most common in the selected countries. It was also found that governments believed that social protection strategies could help reduce poverty and vulnerability. However, except for South Africa, these countries did not have permanent strategies to implement and sustain social protection. Originality/Value: The article highlights how institutions can be strengthened to reinforce social protection systems and ensure sustainability. The article, thus, showcases practical conduits through which the social protection systems in the selected countries can be strengthened.

Threshold Effect of Financial Inclusion on Poverty Reduction in Africa: Does institutional quality play a role?

ABSTRACT In Africa, poverty levels are still very high, especially with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite efforts by governments and development partners to address it. Financial inclusion has been identified as an important concept in fighting poverty due to its ability to increase the income level of households. This study sought to estimate the threshold level at which financial inclusion, aided by strong institutions, will lead to poverty reduction in Africa, using Hansen’s threshold estimation method, covering a period of 2004–2020. The Hansen threshold estimation method uses an endogenous approach to identify threshold values, which eliminates deterministic process by using a systematic approach, as compared to the linear methods of sample-splitting of threshold-level specifications by other methods. This therefore makes the Hansen threshold estimation method robust in threshold estimations compared to other methods. The study found double threshold values of 0.0534 and 0.341, indicating that a financial inclusion value below 0.0534 would increase household consumption expenditure, leading to poverty reduction. However, a threshold value between 0.0534 and 0.3141 has a negative impact on poverty reduction. Furthermore, beyond a threshold value of 0.3141, financial inclusion will improve household consumption and as such reduce poverty in Africa. The study also established a threshold value of institutional quality index of −1.6325, indicating that below that institutional quality index, financial inclusion will have a negative impact on household consumption as well as poverty reduction in Africa. The results further indicated that dependency ratio, gross national income, interest rate, inflation, education, and government expenditure contribute significantly to poverty reduction in Africa. It is recommended that development partners, central banks and governments in the region should consciously develop and implement financial literacy policies, with the collaboration of all financial institutions that are aimed at promoting financial inclusion due to its ability to end poverty.

The Effectiveness of Climate Adaptation Finance and Readiness on Vulnerability in African Economies

Addressing climate vulnerability remains a priority for economies globally. This study used the panel-corrected standard error (PCSE) methodology to investigate the impact of adaptation financing on climate vulnerability. This analysis examined 52 African countries from 2012 to 2021 while considering their climate adaptation readiness. The impact was also assessed based on the Human Development Index (HDI) categories to reflect different levels of development. The findings showed that adaptation finance considerably influenced climate vulnerability reduction in Africa, particularly in nations with a moderate HDI. However, most countries still need higher levels of adaptation financing, resulting in a small impact on vulnerability reduction. Furthermore, the impact of readiness measures differed by HDI category. Economic and social climate readiness strongly impacted climate vulnerability in high-HDI nations, but governance preparedness was more critical in low-HDI countries. Based on the empirical facts, two policy proposals emerge. First, it is critical to reconsider the distribution of adaptation financing to reduce disparities and effectively alleviate climate vulnerability. Moreover, African economies should consider implementing innovative localized financing mechanisms to mobilize extra adaptation finance. Second, African governments should customize climate readiness interventions based on their HDI levels to improve the achievement of a positive impact on climate vulnerability.

Localising decent work for poverty reduction in Africa: a case study of the decent work pilot project in Ghana

AbstractSince the adoption of Local Agenda 21, local governments have been enjoined to become active players in major development agendas, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite the proliferation of literature on localisation strategies adopted by sub-national governments in pursuance of the 17 SDGs, little is known about localised efforts to fulfil SDG 8: “Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all”, particularly in Africa. Through a qualitative case study of the Ghana Decent Work Pilot Project, this paper examines how two local districts adapted and implemented the principles of decent work in a rural setting to improve the well-being of informal workers. The findings reveal that decent work was conceptualised by local authorities to mean the achievement of four main goals: the stimulation of local employment, extension of social security to informal entrepreneurs, adoption of best business practices and enhancement of entrepreneurs’ participation in local assembly decision-making. To enhance the achievement of these goals, the local authorities launched four main interventions in a gender- and poverty-sensitive manner. These interventions include institutional embedding of the project, capacity building for entrepreneurs, the unionisation of entrepreneurs and the introduction of local health and financing schemes. The study concludes with policy recommendations that, if adopted, would help to upscale and out-scale local efforts to promote decent work across Africa.

Modelling structural breaks in social cash transfers effects on poverty and inequality reduction in Africa: A case of Nigeria

Poverty and inequality have become persistent challenges, hindering sustainable growth in African countries. Against this backdrop, the Nigerian government introduced social cash transfer (SCT) programmes to provide targeted financial assistance to vulnerable populations and foster inclusive social welfare. However, the impact has been somewhat indefinable given the continued increase in poverty and inequality levels in Nigeria. Thus, this present study focuses on the effect of SCT on poverty, inequality, and macroeconomic instability in Nigeria using secondary data for the periods of 1984 to 2021. The results of the Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares with structural breaks showed that SCT reduced poverty and inequality levels, but increased macroeconomic instability in Nigeria; however, when we considered the institutional peculiarities (control of corruption and accountability in the public sector), the findings showed that SCT increased poverty level in Nigeria. We report other significant findings that are instructive to policymaking and future research.

Examining the linkages among financial inclusion, economic growth, poverty, and inequality reduction in Africa

The study examined the nexus between financial inclusion and economic growth, poverty, and inequality in Fragile and Post-Conflict African economies based on data sourced from 2004 to 2021. The study employed the system GMM and dynamic threshold model within the context of the Tunnel and Joneses effects to analyze the data generating set. The study noted that financial inclusivity enhances growth, and reduces poverty and inequality in the studied economies. The results of robustness tests reveal that our model is appropriate, this suggests the validity of the Tunnel effect in the studied economies. The threshold dynamic result suggests that the optimal influence of financial inclusion on economic growth, poverty, and inequality is at 42% for the studied economies. The study offered some policy implications.

Can technological innovations contribute to more overcome the issue of poverty reduction in africa?

Although recent years have shown that innovation can also thrive in economies where the challenges of absolute poverty and inequality remain long-standing problems, the effects of innovation on poverty reduction has remained a largely unexplored field of investigation. . So this study assesses the effect of technological innovations on poverty reduction using a panel of 36 sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2008 to 2019. More specifically, the study examines the influence of technological innovation on poverty reduction. Using the principal component analysis (PCA) we constructed an indicator of the use, adoption and adaptation of technological innovations and that of multidimensional poverty. After applying several estimation techniques for panel data such as fixed effects, Driscoll and Kraay, kiviet (2020), Lewbel two stage least square (Lewbel 2SLS), mediating effects, the results shows that technological innovations significantly reduce poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Our results survive several robustness checks. Taking into account the level of urbanization, it appears that technological innovations reduce poverty in countries with low urbanisation rates and increase it in countries with high urbanization rates. Finally, the analysis of mediation effects suggests that almost 30 % of the total effect of the use, adoption and adaptation of technological innovations on multidimensional poverty reduction is through the improvement of productivity in the industrial sector while 62.5 % is through the productivity of the agricultural sector. These results imply that poverty reduction policies in sub-Saharan Africa need to refocus on capacity building in the use, adoption and adaptation of technological innovations, particularly in the agricultural and industrial sectors.

Knowledge, perception, and willingness of emerging Public Health Advocates to effectively communicate about smoking cessation and Tobacco Harm Reduction in Africa

BackgroundMedia campaigns targeting young people are a valuable tool for promoting awareness about tobacco harm reduction (THR). Advocacy and communication efforts that inform about the risks of tobacco use, THR strategies, and smoking cessation methods can enhance policy compliance, minimize tobacco-related damages, and motivate individuals to quit smoking. This study investigates the understanding, perceptions, and capabilities of burgeoning public health advocates in effectively communicating smoking cessation and THR strategies in Africa.MethodsThis research adopts a concurrent explanatory sequential design. The target demographic population consists of public health enthusiasts, healthcare students, health communicators, and budding journalists aged 18–30 in Nigeria. The questionnaire, validated through an extensive literature review, was distributed via Google Forms. From 450 individuals expressing interest in the THRjourno project, 415 agreed to participate, responding to open-ended questions on smoking cessation and THR among young people. Data were analysed with Microsoft Excel and IBM SPSS for quantitative aspects, while Atlas.ti was used for the qualitative interpretation of open-ended responses.ResultsOf the 415 participants, 73.7% lacked prior knowledge or proper understanding of THR. Most respondents (60.0%) regarded Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) as the most effective THR strategy, with 26.7% favoring e-cigarettes. A majority (73.3%) perceived NRT to be safer than smoking, while 48.3% believed e-cigarettes were safer. Approximately 70.8% agreed that THR products aid in smoking cessation. However, 38.3% were uncertain if these products are addictive. Participants referenced strategies/activities for creating awareness for THR, which include, “More advocacy and sensitization programs should be organized”, and “These programs should engage people who smoke tobacco and nicotine products themselves as champions.”Ambassadorial roles in public Universities should be granted to students as a medium to proliferate the central message of the THR.ConclusionIdentified barriers to effective THR communication included misinformation propagated by health professionals and the media, religious and cultural constraints, and challenges in reaching remote areas. Strategies to enhance THR communication encompass increased advocacy and communication, government engagement and policy development, simplification of THR messages, and capacity building and engagement of advocates and stakeholders.

Exploring Cutting-Edge Approaches to Reduce Africa's Carbon Footprint through Innovative Technology Dissemination

This paper investigates the possibility of revolutionizing Africa's carbon footprint through innovative technology dissemination strategies for GHG emission reduction. It highlights the importance of harnessing renewable energy sources to mitigate climate change and promote sustainable development in Africa. This paper also examined several technology diffusion theories in order to unleash Africa's climate-smart potential by tying them to the recommended techniques for dealing with technological diffusion concerns. These theories varied from diffusion of innovation theory to planned behaviour theory. By analysing these theories, it was found that the most appropriate technology diffusion theory for the assessment of innovative technology dissemination strategies for GHG emission reduction in Africa would be the Diffusion of Innovations Theory. This is due to the theory's emphasis on the dissemination and adoption of new ideas, technologies, or innovations by people or groups within a social system. It would give useful insights into the variables influencing the adoption and dissemination of novel technology for reducing GHG emissions in Africa. The paper also discusses the challenges and barriers faced in the diffusion of renewable energy technologies across the continent while proposing innovative strategies to overcome these obstacles and unlock Africa's untapped climate-smart potential. These strategies include promoting policy and regulatory frameworks that incentivize investment in renewable energy, fostering partnerships between governments, private sector entities, and international organizations to support technology transfer and capacity building, and implementing financial mechanisms such as green bonds and carbon pricing to mobilize funding for renewable energy projects. These proposed strategies were also used to develop seven policies required for innovative technology dissemination strategies for GHG emission reduction in Africa. These policies aim to address the unique challenges faced by African countries in adopting and implementing innovative technologies for GHG emission reduction. By focusing on capacity building, financial incentives, and knowledge sharing, these strategies seek to promote the widespread adoption of sustainable technologies across the continent. They emphasize the importance of collaboration between governments, private sector entities, and international organizations to ensure the successful implementation and long-term sustainability of these policies.

Reducing maternal and child oral health disparities in Sub-Saharan Africa through a community-based strategy.

Oral conditions disproportionately affect mothers and children in Sub-Saharan Africa, due to biological vulnerabilities, a scarcity of oral health workers, deficient preventive strategies, and gender-based barriers to care. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends integrating oral health into broader health delivery models, to reduce these disparities. We propose integrating preventive oral healthcare into community-based programs to bridge these gaps. We examine integrating preventive oral healthcare into Western Kenya's Chamas for Change (Chamas) community-based program which aims to reduce maternal and child health disparities. Chamas incorporates women's health and microfinance programs best practices to produce a low-cost, community-driven, sustainable, and culturally acceptable health delivery platform. Our strategy is based on the Maternal and Child Oral Health Framework and uses the WHO Basic Package of Oral Care principles. This framework prioritizes community involvement, cultural sensitivity, regular screenings, and seamless integration into general health sessions. We discuss the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to enriching Chamas with oral health promotion activities. It is crucial to assess the effectiveness, sustainability, and acceptability of the proposed strategy through implementation and evaluation. Future studies should investigate the long-term impact of integrated oral health models on community health and oral health disparity reduction in Africa.

Impact of Policy Design on Plastic Waste Reduction in Africa

Single-use plastic (SUP) is an important product group in plastic pollution with various measures managing it within its lifecycle. Africa has the highest single-use plastic bag (SUPB) policy adoption by region globally, but the plastic problem persists, raising policy design concerns on effectiveness. This paper explores plastic policy design on plastic waste reduction in Africa. Using gap analysis and integrative propositional analysis, the status, scope, and variability of policies are assessed against a reference model. There are 48 active policies in 39 of the 55 countries in Africa. Of these, three countries have transitioned from plastic bag bans to SUP policies to manage more plastic products, and two countries have transitioned from SUPB charges to SUPB bans. There are 12 packaging policies, 29 bag policies, 2 bottle policies, 1 utensil and polystyrene boxes policy, and 1 straw policy. Themed SUP and packaging policies loosely cover plastic products. Four of the nine packaging policies analyzed are SUPB policies by design, as they explicitly mention the control of bags rather than primary packaging. Sixteen policies are designed for biodegradability restrictions, while ten policies are total bans on single-use plastic products. The lack of definitions and coherence and provision of exemptions in policies result in plastic waste traceable from exemptions, in-policy, undefined SUP, out-of-policy SUP, and non-SUP sources. The use of different policy mix instruments to manage plastic within its lifecycle was identified in African countries. The design of new policies should consider these shortcomings to enhance plastic waste management by explicitly identifying products and outlining management measures for excluded plastic products within the same plastic group for SUP or packaging policies in the absence of a global or regionally binding plastic policy.

Poverty Reduction Strategies: An Assessment of Development Initiatives in Africa

The objective of virtually all development initiatives in Africa is poverty reduction. The crippling challenge of poverty facing most African states is, by no means, a fresh one. However, the problem has assumed a disturbing dimension at the turn of the 21st Century, if we compare African states with emerging economies in the global south. The paper adopts functionalism as a theoretical framework due to the fact that African states have embraced the idea of integration, with African Union (AU) being a potential instrument of realising their d `evelopment aspirations. Relying on secondary sources of data collection, it sought to gain in-depth understanding of previous studies, in order to gain fresh insight and enriched perspectives. The paper examined selected continental and global development initiatives, as well as their impact towards achieving the goal of poverty reduction in Africa. While noting that political stability is a major precondition for economic growth, the paper noted that most African states are at sub-optimal level of economic performance because of high level of impunity among the political leadership, abuse of due process and failure to adhere to global best practices. The paper observed that the realities of the present interdependent world system dictate that there is no alternative to global partnership if African states are desirous to make a break from their stunted growth and vicious cycle of poverty. The paper recommends that African states need to re- tool and refine their development strategies along the Asian trajectory. It concludes that only an African consensus on the utility of an integration framework can help advance the goal of poverty reduction in the continent.

Social Policies and Poverty Reduction in Africa: A Nigeria-centered Perspective

This study focuses on the impact of social policies on poverty reduction in Africa, specifically in Nigeria. Poverty is a major challenge to social development, and its effects are exacerbated by factors such as terrorism and insurgency. The study uses a comprehensive literature review to examine the social policies implemented in Nigeria to address poverty, including initiatives like the National Accelerated Food Production Project and the Conditional Cash Transfer program. The study also explores the theoretical framework of poverty reduction, considering theories such as the Capability Approach and the Dependency Theory. The findings emphasize the importance of a multi-faceted approach to poverty reduction, recommending actions such as strengthening social policies, diversifying economic growth, improving access to education, enhancing infrastructure development, addressing governance and corruption issues, and fostering regional and international cooperation. By implementing these recommendations, it is anticipated that Nigeria and other African countries can effectively reduce poverty and improve social development, ultimately enhancing the quality of life and preserving human dignity.

Development and Peace in Africa

Development is not often regarded as a function of peace in both developmenttheory and development discourse. In the context of post-colonial Africa, bothinternal security and external security should be crucial considerations in thepursuit of development alternatives. The reason for considering developmentand security is that part of Africa’s development impasse can be attributed tointernal political terror since the Cold War. While development theory anddiscourse from modernisation theory to global neo-liberalism have dominated‘development’ strategies in Africa and produced an Africa bereft of development,political terror has systematically undermined both development andsecurity. Political terror, as sponsored by foreign forces and signified by collateraldamage, not only produced extensive fear and destabilisation, it hit at thevery core of development – human resources, political establishments and economicorder. The end of the Cold War has not seen an end to political terror inAfrica, but it has features that need to be considered for Africa’s developmentalternatives. Some of the features are the reduction in Africa’s foreign aid, disarmament,and the re-invention of the philosophical foundations of the statein Africa. This calls for a transition from a military state towards a developmentalstate with citizens participating to curb internal conflict and face the externalchallenges of the new post-Cold War global system.

Poverty, entrepreneurship, and economic growth in Africa

AbstractLiterature abounds on the impact of entrepreneurship on economic growth, but with little attention to the role of entrepreneurship in poverty reduction. Furthermore, little attention has been paid to the triangular relationship among poverty reduction, entrepreneurship, and growth in Africa. In this study, we examine the dynamic relationship among these three variables using data collected from 18 African countries. Data are sourced from World Bank development indicators and the World Bank's entrepreneurship database. The study uses batteries of panel data estimation techniques to analyze the data. The following findings emerged: (1) there is bidirectional causality between poverty reduction and growth. (2) There is bidirectional causality between growth and entrepreneurship in Africa. (3) There is unidirectional causality moving from entrepreneurship to poverty reduction. (4) Entrepreneurship significantly reduces poverty in Africa. (5) Impulse response shows that all the variables positively respond to shocks in each other. The study concludes that entrepreneurship enhances poverty reduction in Africa and has a significant impact on economic growth.

The inclusiveness of China’s development finance: China’s hybrid approach to aid and poverty reduction in Africa

Recent years have seen China emerging as a new donor outside of the West’s club of traditional donors, seeking to fill the financing gap for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Chinese government has adopted a hybrid approach to international aid, in which it supplies trade credit and other types of loans to underdeveloped countries through its policy banks and state-owned enterprises in addition to traditional aid. As such a hybrid approach is considered more market-oriented than traditional donors, much of the literature on it has focused on its impact on economic growth rather than on social welfare and poverty reduction. It is critical to note, however, that in reality, the Chinese government has long-valued poverty reduction as a priority of the SDGs, regardless of the context of domestic governance or international aid. Therefore, this article used the panel data of African countries between 2000 and 2016 to test the relationship between China’s development finance and its corresponding poverty-reduction effect in Africa. Empirical results shown that China’s hybrid approach reduced poverty in Africa, particularly in poorer sub-Saharan countries and “heavily indebted poor countries.” Further, in a similar vein to China’s domestic inclusive-growth model, its poverty reduction in Africa tended to be achieved indirectly through production sectors rather than directly through the provision of social relief.