Suchergebnisse

Local content and local participation policy and legislation have come to stay in Ghana's oil and gas industry. The policy and legislation have been described largely as adequate, promising, and necessary to promote local content and local participation in the oil and gas industry. Implementation of the policy and legislation has, however, produced mixed results, according to industry stakeholders and researchers. Evidence on the ground suggests some level of compliance by international oil companies to implement the policy and legislation on local content. Some Ghanaian companies have been awarded contracts to provide essential services and goods to these companies during exploration and production. Several factors, however, militate against effective implementation of the policy and legislation. Notable among these are the low capacity of local firms, discrimination against local firms by international oil companies through vertical integration, and the weak regulatory capacity of the Petroleum Commission to enforce local content implementation. Vigorous capacity building of local firms, affirmative actions for local firms and employees, and legislative reviews are recommended to enhance the implementation of local content and local participation in Ghana's oil and gas industry.

Foreign trade and sustainability is high on the political agenda. German and international policy-makers undertake increasing efforts to use trade policy more effectively for sustainable development purposes. A growing toolbox is meant to facilitate these policy aims, including sustainability chapters in trade agreements, sustainable value chains and sustainability standards. Meanwhile, scientific evidence on how trading activities impact on firms' sustainable behaviour is limited. This question is addressed by researchers from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and the University of Ghana in a recent study 'Foreign Trade and Sustainable Development in Ghana'. The study provides new empirical evidence on the link between business sustainability and firms' engagement in international trade, using a survey database for more than 400 Ghanaian firms spanning 2013-2015, plus four case studies based on interviews. This unique information source provides a previously untapped wealth of information on various aspects of business sustainability in a Sub-Saharan African country. The key findings of the study are summarized in this policy paper.

The literature on risk aversion suggests that women are less likely to be risk loving than men in financial and insurance decision-making by virtue of their sex and biological make-up. This paper tests this assertion using a unique dataset collected in Ghana and Uganda and assesses the gender differences in self-reported risk perceptions of entrepreneurs by applying a non-linear decomposition technique. The results indicate that on average, entrepreneurs in Ghana report to be less risk loving their counterparts in Uganda. Furthermore, female entrepreneurs are less likely to report to be risk loving compared to male entrepreneurs in both countries. The results from the decomposition analysis show that gender differences in risk perceptions arise mainly from the unexplained component. For Ghana in particular, the findings show that the gender differences in self-reported risk perceptions stems from differences in education and previous business experience.