Investigating household energy poverty in South Africa by using unidimensional and multidimensional measures

The ability to access affordable, reliable and modern energy services presents a pathway to social and economic development. Yet, the lack of access to modern energy services is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa and developing Asia. Following the declaration to achieve universal access to energy by 2030 in the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals – several tools have emerged tracking and monitoring energy access and energy poverty. Earlier efforts have focused on measuring energy poverty from a unidimensional perspective while recent efforts have focused on a multidimensional measurement. However, the growing trend in tracking and monitoring energy poverty using multidimensional indicators has been applied limitedly in the context of South Africa. Part of this has been associated with the lack of detailed and reliable survey data. With access to detailed survey data, this study aimed to evaluate household energy poverty in South Africa by using both unidimensional and multidimensional measures. This study constructed the energy budget share, also known as Tenth-Percentile Rule (TPR) (unidimensional) and the multidimensional energy poverty index (MEPI) using data from wave 1 (2008) and wave 4 (2014-2015) of the National Income Dynamic Study (NIDS) of South Africa. A 10 percent threshold was used for the energy-budget share while a 0.3 cutoff point was used for the MEPI. This study first computed national-level estimates of household energy poverty, and subsequently decomposed these estimates by province, household income poverty status and household location (urban versus rural). A sensitivity analysis was performed to test for the stability in ranking of provinces when the energy poverty threshold of the TPR was varied from 7 to 13 percent, and the energy poverty cutoff k of the MEPI was changed from 0.2 to 0.4. The Spearman rank correlation coefficient was determined for each pair of ranking of provinces to establish the strength of correlation. Based on the TPR measure, results show that 21 and 13 percent of South African households lived in energy poverty in 2008 and 2014-2015, respectively. The MEPI measure indicates that 37 and 19 percent of the households lived in energy poverty in 2008 and 2014- 2015, respectively. Limpopo province had the highest rates of energy poverty in 2014-2015 with values of 25 percent (using TPR) and 52 percent (using MEPI). This study also found that by 2014-2015, only 23 percent (using the TPR) and 46 percent (using the MEPI) of energy poor households lived below the food poverty line of R430. Further, this study found that household energy poverty has reduced in rural areas and by 2014-2015, only 18 percent (using TPR) and 49 percent (using MEPI) of households located in rural areas lived in energy poverty. The lowest observed value of the Spearman rank correlation coefficient was 0.90. It is concluded that the overall household energy poverty has reduced in South Africa between 2008 and 2014-2015. The TPR gives lower estimates of energy poverty than the corresponding values obtained from the MEPI measure. There is negligible effect of varying the threshold values (within the studied range) of the TPR and k

Capital flight and the role of exchange rates in Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia

The problem of capital flight presents an interesting paradox towards capital accumulation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Though Africa has been labelled as "the rising continent" by various researchers, we continue to see capital flight and its adverse effects extend beyond the lack of domestic investment capital, to sluggish economic growth and disquieting poverty rates. This paradox highlights the importance of understanding the drivers of capital flight from Africa. Among the many postulated determinants, this study investigates the effect of the exchange rate on capital flight using 3 case studies from Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia for the period 1970 to 2010 . By employing Granger's (1969) causality test, we investigate the causal relation between capital flight and the exchange rate. We further use the Johansen (1988) Method of Cointegration to determine the existence of a long run relationship and estimate a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) to determine the short run dynamics. Our granger causality test results suggest that the direction of causality between capital flight and the real exchange rate only holds in the period under analysis and therefore, it should not be assumed to hold in different time periods. Our main findings suggest that capital flight from Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia is habitually motivated by portfolio considerations. We find that capital flight from Nigeria and South Africa is driven by expected currency depreciation while capital flight from Zambia is driven by expected currency appreciation in the long run. Our other findings suggest that other macroeconomic policy errors in the form of inflation unpredictability and foreign direct investment also increase capital flight from Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia. We also find that political factors have a significant role in determining capital flight from Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia. We however find inconclusive evidence of the short run effects in all three countries. It is recommended that the imposition of efficient exchange controls can curb capital flight when implemented concurrently with effective macroeconomic management practices by the fiscal authorities

Analysis of a complex *policy domain: Access to secondary education in Malawi

As in other developing countries, students\u27 access to secondary education in Malawi has been a growing problem. Yet secondary education is crucial for human resource development. That is, the way people are allocated into the educational ladder directly influences human capacity building. This study analyzed how policies constrain the transition of rural primary school students to secondary school. The study answered two major questions: what do standard eight (grade eight) repetition, selection, and community day secondary school policies mean to teachers, students and parents? And what is the relationship between standard eight repetition, knowledge of the policies, and students\u27 aspirations for secondary education? These questions were explored through a concurrent mixed methods design. Using purposeful sampling, data were collected through interviews, focus group discussions, questionnaire, and document review. The results suggest that secondary school selection at standard eight is problematic and that participants showed ignorance of the policies guiding the selection process. Consequently, they behaved contrary to the policies\u27 demands by encouraging students who are not selected to repeat, hence affecting their access to secondary education. Assessing repetition and selection policies, participants felt the policies are not beneficial because students\u27 repetition does not necessarily result from the students\u27 own problems. In addition, implementation of the policies was found to be negatively affected by failure to track repeaters in the education system. It was also found that policy communication to rural schools is not effective and there is lack of grassroots stakeholder participation in the policy formation process. As a result, participants felt powerless to influence policy change. Because of the many problems in rural areas, participants felt rural schools should have special policies to facilitate students\u27 access to secondary education. On the conversion of Distance Education Centers to Community Day Secondary Schools (CDSSs), participants felt the conversion did not solve pre-existing problems and has decreased students\u27 access to secondary education. CDSSs still offer low quality education and the communities are not empowered to run them. Due to problems in CDSSs and rural areas, participants requested the government to help their children attend better conventional schools with boarding facilities, qualified teachers, and adequate resources. The study ends with policy recommendations