Resource rents and inclusive human development in developing countries

This study aims to empirically verify the effects of natural resource rents on inclusive human development in developing countries. The results from the IV Tobit regression show that natural resource rents have a positive direct effect on inclusive human development in developing countries and that this relationship varies by regional groupings, income levels, level of development and export structure. Looking at the transmission mechanisms, when the interactive variables of governance and environmental quality is introduced, the modulating channel through governance exerts a robust negative synergy effect in the sample of developing countries and positive synergy effects for Africa and low-income countries. When the interactive variable of CO2 emissions is introduced for Africa, a negative net effect of natural resource rents on inclusive human development is obtained. This was up to a policy threshold of 25.4412 of CO2 emissions when the negative effect is nullified. For Asia and the Latin America and Caribbean, a positive net effect is obtained. This is up to a CO2 emissions threshold of 29.038 and 3.6752 respectively, when the positive effect is nullified. Besides, the high income and the upper-middle income countries produce a negative net effect of resource rents on inclusive human development through CO2 modulation, with up to positive CO2 emission thresholds of 37.9365 and 23.6257 respectively. Policy implications are highlighted. In summary, contingent on engaged specificities, where conditional effects are negative, negative thresholds for complementary policies have been provided and in scenarios where conditional impacts are positive, actionable positive thresholds have been provided

Women empowerment and environmental sustainability in Africa

This study examines the effect of women’s socioeconomic empowerment on environmental sustainability in Africa over the 1996-2019 period. Results of the system Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) estimator reveal that women’s socioeconomic empowerment is environment enhancing. Moreover, the findings reveal that the environmental impact of women’s socioeconomic empowerment is modulated through GDP per capita and Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), leading to respective net effects of 0.002055 and 0.003478. These positive net effects are offset beyond respective threshold values of 9.513889 and 9.611398. These thresholds of GDP and FDI are critical for complementary policies relating to the link between women empowerment and environmental sustainability. Consequently, for women empowerment to effectively contribute to environmental sustainability in Africa, various governments, either through individual or concerted efforts should endeavour to create enabling business environments capable of attracting substantial FDI necessary to propel sustainable growth. Moreover, the nexus is not linear and hence, governments should also be aware of critical levels of FDI and GDP per capita at which, complementary policies are needed for women’s socioeconomic empowerment to maintain a positive influence on environmental sustainability

Unravelling the Mysteries of Underdevelopment in Africa

Achieving sustainable development has been the dream of every society across the globe especially sequel to the dawn of the industrial revolution. Thus, understanding the fundamental determinants of the socio-politico-economic development of every economy is of prime importance for investors, policymakers, development agencies and the society at large. It is in this light that this study sought to empirically examine the key factors that explain the socioeconomic development patterns in Africa. The Instrumental Variable Two Stage Least Squares (IV-2SLS) estimation technique is adopted for a panel of 38 African countries over the 1996-2019 period. The empirical findings reveal that financial development and human capital are development enhancing in Africa while external financial inflows are detrimental to economic development. In addition, when other specific macroeconomic and structural variables were introduced in the model, the results show that institutional quality through governance, natural resources abundance, and industrialisation all explain both the social and economic development dynamics. These results were specific to income group, export structures and level of development. Moreover, salient policy implications are discussed

Petroleum Products Price Fluctuations and Economic Growth in Cameroon

Commodity exports have over the years been the main source of foreign exchange earnings to most developing countries. This is especially the case with crude oil producing countries such as Cameroon since the discovery of oil in the late 1970s. However, as evident in the economic crises era of the mid 1980s, this exposes the commodity dependent country to heavy external shocks such as price fluctuations which affect the level of growth of the country. It is in this light that this study was conducted to examine the effect of petroleum products (crude oil) price fluctuations on the economic growth of Cameroon. Secondary data from1980 to 2013 were used to estimate the coefficients of the ordinary least square technique used to analyse the dependency between the dependent and independent variables of the phenomenon. The results obtained reveal that petroleum product prices have a positive significant effect on the economic growth of Cameroon, while the volume of trade to GDP (openness) and real interest rate have a negative significant effect on the economic growth of the country. Human factors (demand and supply imbalances, and interest rates) and natural factors (geographical location and resource endowment) are the principal causes of variations in the prices of petroleum products among different regions. From these, it is suggested that for Cameroon to benefit from the global trade process by opening up to the rest of the world, the revenue generated from crude oil exploitation should be re-directed towards investment in both human and physical capital so as to enhance the productive capacity of the nation, especially in the manufacturing and transport sectors

Linear and non-linear effects of infrastructures on inclusive human development in Africa

The objectives of this paper are to verify the linear and the non-linear effects of infrastructural development on inclusive human development in Africa. The results of the system GMM estimations show a positive effect of infrastructural development on inclusive development across all the infrastructural development indexes employed, except the ICT infrastructural composite index which presents an insignificant negative effect. Besides, a non-linear effect of infrastructures on inclusive development was established across all the infrastructure indicators except for the ICT indicator. Negative thresholds for complementary policies are established for the African Infrastructure Development Index (AIDI) and the transport index while positive thresholds are apparent for the electricity index and the water and sanitation infrastructure index (WSS). Accordingly, in order to sustain the positive incidence of the AIDI and transport index on human development, complementary policies should be engaged to avoid an overall negative effect on human development when the indexes are respectively, 31.12% and 25.56%. In the same vein, the electricity index and WSSI should exceed critical levels of respectively 49.79% and 41.92%, to engender an overall positive effect on inclusive human development

Resource abundance: Blessing or curse? Comparative analyses of point and diffuse resources

The objective of this study is to assess the short and long run effects of renewable and non-renewable resource rents on economic growth in Cameroon. Taking crude oil rents and forest resource rents as proxies for non-renewable and renewable resources respectively for the period 1977–2018, we employed the autoregressive and dynamic autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL/DynARDL) modelling frameworks to achieve the stated objective. Results from the ARDL model indicate that, in the short run, both the renewable and non-renewable resources have a positive and significant effect on economic growth but the point resource is more significant than the diffused. A clear disparity in results is however noticed in the long run. While the point resources show that natural resources are a curse to long run growth, the diffuse resources reveal that natural resources are a blessing to long run growth. From the DynARDL simulation, a negative shock of the point resources leads to a fall in economic growth whereas diffuse resource indicates an increase. This shows that point resources are more prone to the resource-curse thesis and diffuse resources to resource-bless thesis. Contingent on these findings, the Cameroon government should ensure a proper allocation of natural resource revenues especially point resource rents to growth-inducing investment or social overhead capital such as open new markets, transport infrastructures, and power sectors, so as to enhance growth and development

The Socioeconomic Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Africa

This study is motivated by the conviction that pandemic diseases entail huge human and economic costs. It is in this light that this study was designed to explore the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 in Africa in order to provide sound policy recommendations which can aid in abating the spread of the disease which is crucial for achieving desirable sustainable economic development. We found that besides the loss of human lives, the COVID-19 pandemic can have enormous short and long-run negative impacts on economic growth through various channels including, education, employment, industrial production, as well as the tourism and agricultural sectors. Also, the study revealed that although Africa has recorded the least number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, the continent remains the worst affected with a fatality rate of over 23%. Consequently, in the short-run, African governments should step-up their community screening/testing capacities and ensure the respect of basic hygiene rules.  Equally, African governments should rethink their health, educational and industrial policies in order to incorporate modern methods which make great use of digital technologies. Thus, they should increase investments in the health, educational and industrial sectors in order to render their economies more resilient to potential shocks in the long-run

Is mother nature responsible for Africa's predicaments? Pathways to breaking the chains of the resource curse through the lens of good governance, digitalisation and energy transition

As regards the question whether natural resource affluence is a benediction or curse to sustainable development, the jury's verdict is still awaited. While we impatiently await the jury's verdict, this study provides empirical evidence that Mother Nature is responsible for Africa's predicaments with regard to economic development and environmental sustainability. Specifically, the system GMM estimates from 37 African economies reveal that: (i) natural resource affluence inhibits economic development, (ii) resource rents exacerbates carbon emissions thereby impeding environmental sustainability (iii) natural resource rents interacts with governance to produce negative synergy effects on economic growth and environmental pollution, (iv) resource rents interacts with ICT to produce respective positive net effects and negative synergy effects on economic growth and pollution emissions, (v) while non-renewable energy consumption inhibits economic growth and exacerbates pollution emissions, renewable energy consumption promotes environmental protection, (vi) we provide evidence of the U-shaped and inverted N-shaped EKC for natural resources, while also validating the inverted U-shaped EKC hypothesis relating to the nexus between per capita GDP and pollution emissions. Contingent on these findings, African countries can break the chains of the resource curse by designing sound and complementary policies upon attainment of the established thresholds by the policy modulating variables. Equally, various governments should strengthen governance quality and encourage digitalisation of the resource sector. Furthermore, African governments should propel the energy transition process by increasing investments in alternative clean energy sources in order to catalyse the attainment of the continent's Agenda 2063