13 research outputs found
Increasing Foreign Aid for Inclusive Human Development in Africa
In the light of evidence that poverty has been decreasing in all regions of the world with the exception of Africa, where about 45% of countries in sub-Saharan Africa did not achieve the Millennium development goal extreme poverty target, this study assesses whether increasing foreign aid improves inclusive human development. The investigation is on 53 African countries for the period 2005â2012. The empirical analysis is based on (1) the generalised method of moments (GMM) to control for persistence in inclusive human development, simultaneity and time-invariant omitted variables and (2) Instrumental Variable Tobit Regressions to control for simultaneity and the limited range in the dependent variable. The adopted foreign aid variables are: âhumanitarian assistanceâ, âaction on debtâ âaid for social infrastructureâ, âaid to the productive sectorâ, âaid to the multi sectorâ, âaid for economic infrastructureâ and âprogramme assistanceâ. The following findings are established. From the GMM specifications, there are (1) synergy effects from âaid to the productive sectorâ and a positive net effect from âprogramme assistanceâ and (2) negative net impacts from âaid to social infrastructureâ and human assistance, albeit with positive marginal effects. From Instrumental Variable Tobit regressions (1) there is a synergy effect from âaid for economic infrastructureâ and (2) there are negative net impacts from âaid for social infrastructureâ, âaid to the productive sectorâ and human assistance, albeit with positive marginal effects. Policy implications are discussed
The Comparative Economics of ICT, Environmental Degradation and Inclusive Human Development in Sub-Saharan Africa
This study examines how information and communication technology (ICT) could be employed to dampen the potentially damaging effects of environmental degradation in order to promote inclusive human development in a panel of 44 Sub-Saharan African countries. ICT is captured with internet and mobile phone penetration rates whereas environmental degradation is measured in terms of CO2 emissions per capita and CO2 intensity. The empirical evidence is based on Fixed Effects and Tobit regressions using data from 2000-2012. In order to increase the policy relevance of this study, the dataset is decomposed into fundamental characteristics of inclusive development and environmental degradation based on income levels (Low income versus (vs.) Middle income); legal origins (English Common law vs. French Civil law); religious domination (Christianity vs. Islam); openness to sea (Landlocked vs. Coastal); resource-wealth (Oil-rich vs. Oil-poor) and political stability (Stable vs. Unstable).Baseline findings broadly show that improvement in both of measures of ICT would significantly diminish the possibly harmful effect of CO2 emissions on inclusive human development. When the analysis is extended with the abovementioned fundamental characteristics, we observe that the moderating influence of both our ICT variables on CO2 emissions is higher in the group of English Common law, Middle income and Oil-wealthy countries than in the French Civil law, Low income countries and Oil-poor countries respectively. Theoretical and practical policy implications are discussed