Financing Africa: Through the crisis and beyond.

[Dataset available: http://hdl.handle.net/10411/17679]

Financing Africa:Through the crisis and beyond

The environment in which African financial systems operate has changed dramatically over the past years. The global financial system has undergone a major transformation after the recent financial crisis, with the center of economic and financial power shifting from developed to several emerging countries, including China, India, and Brazil. Additionally, the crisis has led to regulatory reform discussions among developed and emerging countries, with repercussions on financial sector regulation in Africa. Finally, technology has changed the economics of retail banking, revealing its potential to increase access to financial services dramatically, but also posing new regulatory challenges. Financing Africa: Through the Crisis and Beyond takes a fresh look at Africa’s financial systems in light of these recent changes. Benefiting from better data and a wide array of experiences across the continent, the book looks at the challenges of expanding the outreach of financial systems, lengthening financial contracts, and safeguarding financial systems. The authors identify three priority areas for policy action: the positive role of innovation and competition; a stronger focus on nontraditional financial service providers; and more emphasis on addressing demand-side constraints. Recognizing that all financial sector policy is local, the authors carefully distinguish between different country groupings, differentiating between low- and middle-income and small and larger economies among others, with a special focus on resource-based economies and post-conflict countries. And unlike other publications on this topic, this book includes analysis of the North African countries.  A joint collaboration between the African Development Bank, BMZ (Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development), and the World Bank, this book is a valuable asset to practitioners, development partners, and policy makers concerned about a more inclusive and effective financial system

Financing Africa: Through the crisis and beyond [Dataset]

N/

The continuing debate about urban bias: the thesis, its critics, its influence, and its implications for poverty reduction strategies

This article reviews the current state of the debate around the concept of ‘urban bias’. It first reviews Michael Lipton’s original formulation of an Urban Bias Thesis (UBT), and the initial debates that took shape in regard to his work and the work of Elliott Berg and Robert Bates. The main body of the article, however, considers a recent reworking of the UBT by Robert Eastwood and Michael Lipton, and four sets of objections that can be raised against it. Central to these objections are new accounts of the importance of mobility in constructing rural-urban livelihoods and claims emanating from the ‘new economic geography’ about the economic advantages of towns and cities. The article concludes with a short review of the implication of the continuing debate on ‘urban bias’ for public policy and Poverty Reduction Strategies