Reduction In sub-Saharan Africa Research Articles

Re‐evaluating Africa's growth, poverty and inequality nexus

AbstractThis study evaluates the role of growth in poverty reduction within the sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) region in direct comparison to other global regions along time‐delineated thresholds. The study's results show (i) A significant gulf in the performance of SSA economies in comparison to their global cohorts; (ii) An improved role played by growth after the mid‐2000s for poverty reduction in SSA; (iii) A less deleterious impact of rising income inequality on poverty reduction within the SSA sub‐region relative to other global regions, and (iv) An improved performance of resource‐dependent SSA economies in translating growth to poverty reduction since the mid‐2000s. The convergence in growth‐induced poverty reduction between SSA and its global cohorts energizes prospects for attaining the Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating global extreme poverty by 2030; it however also calls for renewed strategies toward improving the efficacy of growth in future poverty reduction within the sub‐region.

Empirical Analysis of Financial Inclusion's Role in Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa

This research aims to investigate the correlation between financial inclusion (FI), economic growth (EG), and poverty reduction in several Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries throughout the period of 2014-2021. The research used the generalized method of moments (GMM) econometric methodologies. A financial inclusion (FI) composite index was constructed using principal component analysis (PCA) to include the many attributes of FI indicators. The findings indicate a positive and significant impact of financial inclusion on economic development and a reduction in poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. These results emphasize the crucial significance of legislators and governments giving priority to policies that enhance the availability, utility, and accessibility of financial goods and services. The outcome will include a reduction in poverty and an increase in equitable economic progress throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

Does governance matter to ensure significant effect of foreign direct investment on poverty reduction? Evidence from developing and emerging countries

This paper examines the moderating role of governance in the effect of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on poverty using simultaneous equations models for sub-Saharan African, Asian, Latin American and Eastern European countries over the period 1996–2017. The main objective of this study is to examine the role of governance as a moderator of the FDI effect on poverty. Our analyses support a positive significant impact of FDI on poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America but a negative effect in Eastern Europe, while it is not significant in Asian economies. In addition, we detect a positive conjoint impact of FDI and governance quality on poverty in all African, Latin American and Eastern European economic communities. However, this interactive effect is negative and not significant in Asia. This means that FDI reduces poverty in the presence of governance quality. Our results support that in the poorest countries (sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America), poverty is more sensitive to interactions between governance and FDIs than in the richest countries (ASIA). As policy implications of this study, governments in less developed regions must give great importance to improving the quality of governance. In this way, it becomes possible to attract foreign direct investment and increase household consumption reducing poverty as main purpose of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030.

Dissemination and implementation of an evidence-based voluntary medical male circumcision program: The Spear & Shield program.

Despite compelling evidence linking voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) with 60-70% HIV risk reduction in sub-Saharan Africa, Zambian men have been especially reluctant to undergo VMMC. The Government of Zambia set targets for VMMC uptake and promoted community-level interventions. Spear & Shield (S&S) is an innovative, evidence-based, service program promoting VMMC uptake while ensuring both VMMC supply and demand. This study assessed the large-scale provincial rollout of the program (S&S2) utilizing the RE-AIM model for translating interventions into the community. The S&S2 study was conducted between November 2015 and December 2020, and sequentially rolled out over four Zambian provinces in 96 clinics; 24 observation clinics received VMMC training only. Local clinic healthcare workers were trained to conduct the VMMC procedure and HIV counselors were trained to lead S&S group sessions. Using the RE-AIM model, primary outcomes were: Reach, the number, proportion, and representativeness of S&S attendees; Effectiveness, the impact of S&S2 on VMMC uptake; Adoption, the number, proportion, and representativeness of clinics implementing S&S2; Implementation, fidelity to the S&S intervention manual; and Maintenance, the extent to which S&S2 became an element of standard care within community clinics. Initially, n = 109 clinics were recruited; 96 were sustained and randomized for activation (Adoption). A total of 45,630 clinic patients (n = 23,236 men and n = 22,394 women) volunteered to attend the S&S sessions (Reach). The S&S2 program ran over 2,866 clinic-months (Implementation). Although the study did not target individual-level VMMCs, ~58,301 additional VMMCs were conducted at the clinic level (Effectiveness). Fidelity to the S&S intervention by group leaders ranged from 42%-95%. Sustainability of the program was operationalized as the number of CHCs initially activated that sustained the program. Intervention delivery ended, however, when study funding ceased (Maintenance). The S&S2 program successfully utilized the RE-AIM model to achieve study goals for implementation and dissemination in four Zambian provinces. Innovative VMMC programs such as S&S2 can improve the uptake of VMMC, one of the most effective strategies in the HIV prevention arsenal.

The Impact of Financial Inclusion on Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction: Empirical Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

This study examines the impact of financial inclusion (FI) on economic growth (EG) and poverty reduction in 18 sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) over the period from 2014 to 2021. The study employs fixed effects, random effects, panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE), Driscoll Kraay standard errors, the generalized method of moments (GMM), and quantile regression. A FI composite index was created using principal component analysis (PCA). According to the findings from all the models, FI has a significant positive effect on EG, and it also reduces poverty in SSA. The findings from the quantile regression indicate that countries with a higher Human Development Index (HDI) have a more significant decline in poverty. Therefore, governments and policymakers must prioritize the implementation of policies that facilitate the accessibility, availability, and usability of financial products and services. Such measures will contribute to fostering inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction in SSA.

Revisiting the Role of Institutional Structures in the Relationship Between Trade Openness and Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACT The study investigates the conditioning effect of institutions in the relationship between trade openness and poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan African economies. Employing generalized method of moments, it was revealed that institutions influence the relationship between trade openness and poverty reduction in SSA. Thus, to reduce poverty in the region, SSA economies must first start by opening their economies to international trade. This could be achieved by reducing import and export taxes, focusing more on exporting value-added products and providing relevant training and information for importers and exporters. However, such attempts will be more fruitful in the presence of sound institutions.

Financial inclusion and energy poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa

This study examines the relationship between financial inclusion and energy poverty reduction, proxied with access to electricity and clean cooking technologies and fuels, using data from 23 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from 2004 to 2019. Evidence from dynamic ordinary least squares, fully modified ordinary least squares, and canonical correlation regression techniques showed that financial inclusion significantly reduces energy poverty in SSA. However, financial inclusion's impact on energy poverty reduction differs significantly among individual SSA countries. We recommend that policies promoting financial inclusion would reduce energy poverty.

Structure, conduct, and performance of beans marketing in Malawi: A case study of Lilongwe District

Poorly performing markets are one of the major limitations to achieving high farm income and ultimately poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa. Using the structure, conduct, and performance approach applied to bean markets in Malawi, we bring to light the status and performance of the smallholder marketing system. Multiple methods were employed in this study: the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index to evaluate the market structure; adopted pricing strategies and affiliation with large companies or associations to assess conduct; and marketing margins to measure market performance. Our results show that 39 percent of markets are imperfectly competitive. Also, the lack of reliable markets, purchase prices, access to credit, operating capital, and transaction costs were major factors that undermined the potential for bean traders to operate at a higher scale. The commonly adopted pricing mechanisms include cost-plus pricing, dynamic pricing, and quality-dependent pricing. Very few bean traders (7%) are affiliated with large trading companies and associations. Seven bean marketing channels were observed. We recommend that policies favoring improvements in rural road networks and market infrastructure should be encouraged to reduce transaction costs. In order to eliminate barriers to increasing quantities of beans handled by traders, the government should provide soft loans with low interest rates to traders. Deliberate actions to promote the affiliation of small traders with larger companies and associations involved in bean trading should be promoted.

International trade and environmental pollution in sub-Saharan Africa: do exports and imports matter?

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and Africa in general are known as the lowest emitters of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. However, CO2 emissions in SSA are increasing, making it a problem of concern and calls for attention given its adverse consequences on human health and climate change. International trade is argued to have a vital role in global and SSA emissions in diverse ways, leading to doubts of whether trade is good or bad to the environment. As a result, we explore the environmental effect of international trade in 33 SSA countries from 1990 to 2020. The study further evaluates the differential effect of exports and imports on environmental pollution. The generalized method of moment estimator and Dumitrescu and Hurlin (D-H) causality test were utilized. The results revealed that the overall effect of trade reduces environmental pollution by about 0.10% and 0.79% in both the short and long run, respectively. Again, we observe that exports and imports minimize environmental pollution of about 0.07% and 0.45% (0.08% and 0.58%) in the short run (long run), respectively. Regarding D-H results, we noticed the existence of bidirectional causality between total trade and environmental pollution, whereas exports and imports have a unidirectional causality from CO2 emissions to exports and imports. We conclude based on the findings that international trade causes pollution reduction in SSA. Furthermore, we establish that exports and imports have a homogeneous impact on environmental pollution in SSA. Given the results, we call for trade initiatives that ensure improvement in environmental and energy efficiency technologies related to production and transportation of exported and imported goods and services.

Does Infrastructure Development Contribute to Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Does Infrastructure Development Contribute to Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Is democracy pro poor in Sub-Saharan Africa?

This study examines if democracy reduces poverty in 40 Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1999–2018. For this purpose, we employ the Generalised Method of Moments. The results show that democracy is not directly associated with poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa. However, this observation hides important non-linearities and an interesting pattern of policy complementarities. Indeed, democracy is associated with poverty reduction in countries where economic growth is strong and human capital high. The robustness tests carried out do not change these results. This means that poor economic growth and weak human capital not only have a direct negative effect on the well-being of SSA countries, but also prevent the poor in those countries from benefitting the gains of democracy. Therefore, in order to reduce poverty in SSA, policy makers should continue the process of democratization while simultaneously adopting policies of economic development and human capital building. Democracy in isolation is useless for the poor in SSA.

The role of exogenous technological factors and renewable energy in carbon dioxide emission reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa

There is global consensus that an increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, is driving climate change. To deal with this issue, governments all around the world have committed to controlling greenhouse gas emissions. For developing economies like Sub–Saharan Africa (SSA), studies have suggested adopting low-carbon technologies from developed countries while at the same time exploiting their vast renewable energy resources to reduce CO2 emissions. Particularly, from a developing economy perspective, we note little knowledge exists empirically on the role of technological factors in carbon dioxide emissions. This study contributes to this gap by exploring the effects of various exogenous technological factors [measured in terms of machinery and equipment imports, stock of foreign machinery research and development (R&D) spillovers, foreign direct investment (FDI)] and renewable energy on CO2 emissions, employing data from 18 countries in SSA between 1995 and 2017 and the dynamic specific common correlated effect estimator (DCCE) technique. The findings reveal that both machinery imports and renewable energy usage reduce carbon dioxide emissions significantly, but the effect of the latter is larger. Although FDI shows CO2 emission reducing effect, it is less pronounced. However, foreign R&D increases carbon dioxide emissions in the region. Further robustness checks confirm these results. These results suggest that important synergies exist among SDG13, SDG 7 and SDG 9. We discuss the policy implications.

Impediments to maternal mortality reduction in Africa: a systemic and socioeconomic overview.

Maternal mortality is nowadays more of a problem of developing countries especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Maternal mortality has to large extent been eliminated in developed countries and has drastically been reduced in many other regions of the world. The maternal mortality rate (MMR) available in the literature from Africa is not a true reflection of the actual MMR as it is derived from institutional studies. The causes of maternal mortality in SSA are the same as those in developed countries. The means of addressing maternal mortality used in developed countries are the same as those used in developing countries, however, the success levels are not the same. There are various impediments toreducing maternal mortality with roots in cultural, social, economic and systemic factors prevalent in SSA. An in-depth study of these factors will give an insight as to why maternal mortality reduction has remained an enigma in SSA. Analyzing these factors will guide us to design and implement measures that will in the long run lead to significant maternal mortality reduction in SSA. The aim of this review is to identify impediments to maternal mortality reduction in SSA and highlight measures that can lead to maternal mortality reduction.

Grain Hermetic Storage and Post-Harvest Loss Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa: Effects on Grain Damage, Weight Loss, Germination, Insect Infestation, and Mold and Mycotoxin Contamination

Grain Hermetic Storage and Post-Harvest Loss Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa: Effects on Grain Damage, Weight Loss, Germination, Insect Infestation, and Mold and Mycotoxin Contamination

Information and communication technologies (ICTs): The potential for enhancing the dissemination of agricultural information and services to smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa

The transformation of smallholder farming is poised to be one of the key drivers of achieving the dual objectives of food security and poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Smallholder farmers account for between 60–80% of the food produced in the region but face many challenges that impede their productivity. Such challenges include a lack of timely access to appropriate agricultural information and services, which results in poor decision-making, particularly in addressing challenges and responding effectively to opportunities. In that context, the effective use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in improving accessibility to appropriate agricultural information and services presents substantial prospects for transforming the productivity and livelihoods of the farmers. Currently, the region experiences massive penetration and propagation of mobile and web-based applications. However, there is a dearth of compelling, comprehensive reviews evaluating their importance in enhancing agricultural information and services dissemination to smallholder farmers. Therefore, the current review explores the potential of enhancing agricultural information and services dissemination to smallholder farmers through ICTs and highlights gaps in their development and deployment in SSA. Five existing mobile applications used to disseminate agricultural information and services to smallholder farmers were identified, and their advantages, limitations, and opportunities were discussed. These were Esoko, iCow, Community Knowledge Workers, WeFarm and DigiFarm. The development and deployment of user-driven mobile applications that provide curated skill-sharing platforms, encourage farmers to give feedback to extension systems in real-time and promote the participation of women and youth in agriculture are recommended.

Remittances, financial development and poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for post-COVID-19 macroeconomic policies

To design and implement effective post-COVID-19 macroeconomics policies to tackle poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), policymakers need to understand the factors shaping poverty in the region. This paper investigates the effect of international remittances and financial development on poverty alleviation in 44 sub-Saharan African SSA countries from 2010 to 2019. The instrumental variable generalised method of moment technique results indicated that while remittances increase poverty, financial development contributes significantly to poverty reduction. The results consistently revealed that remittances increase both male and female poverty rates, while financial development significantly reduces male and female poverty rates. Other factors such as economic growth, foreign direct investment, and trade openness contributed significantly to reducing poverty. In contrast, government expenditure and foreign aid were found to increase poverty rate in SSA. These results are robust to the Lewbel two-stage least squares estimator. The practical implications of these findings for post-COVID-19 macroeconomic policies in SSA are discussed.

Poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa: The mixed roles of democracy and trade openness

This paper examines the impact of democracy and trade openness on poverty. To this end, we estimate a poverty model using the generalized method of moments (system-GMM) on a sample of 24 sub-Saharan African countries during the period 2005–2016. The econometric estimates provide two main sets of results. On the linear effects side, we find that democracy increases income poverty in non-oil producing countries and has no effect in oil producing countries, while trade openness has no impact on poverty. On the non-linear side, we find that imports improve household living conditions in democratic oil-producing countries on the one hand, and contribute to reducing monetary poverty in democratic non-oil-producing countries on the other. Our results are robust to estimates by different democracy indicators. Democracy and trade openness should therefore not be considered in isolation, and simultaneous policies are needed to enhance their impact on poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.

Foreign direct investment and poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa: does environmental degradation matter?

This paper investigates the threshold effect of environmental degradation on the FDI-poverty nexus in sub-Saharan Africa for the period 1986–2018. The study used panel threshold regression for the empirical analysis. The evidence from threshold regression using different measures of poverty and environmental degradation shows that the poverty reduction effect of FDI is not eroded by environmental degradation. The study found overwhelming evidence that at the higher level of environmental degradation, FDI contributes significantly to poverty reduction except when Household final consumption is used to proxy poverty and FDI produces an insignificant effect on poverty reduction at the higher level of methane emissions and nitrous oxide emission. Based on this finding, any attempts to reduce environmental degradation by reducing the inflow of FDI will worsen poverty rates in the region.

The Role of Public Goods Provision in Reducing Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: Quantile Regression and Fixed Effect Models

The poverty situation in sub-Saharan Africa continues to be a major concern to the world due to the increasing rate of population. The study investigates the impact of institutional investments on poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa using panel data from 2000-2018. The study employed fixed effect and quantile regression models to investigate the relationship between institutional investment and poverty reduction. The results revealed that investment in education contributes significantly to the fight against poverty in the sub- region as compared to health investment. Also, investment in the energy sector also contributes significantly to the fight against poverty in the sub-re- gion, however, the security investment has no significant effect on poverty reduction. The results from the quintile regression confirm the earlier results. In conclusion, the study discovered that investing in infrastructure, health, energy, technology, sanitation, and water supply, and education sectors in the sub-region has a consequential effect on poverty reduction in the sub-region.

The effect of financial inclusion on poverty reduction in Sub-Sahara Africa: Does threshold matter?

This paper investigated the threshold effect of financial inclusion on poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using an annual dataset spanning 2010 to 2017, the Hansen’s estimation and Diff...