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This article examines the impact of the growing Chinese presence in Africa on the EU's international role and more particularly on European development policy towards sub-Saharan Africa. The Chinese Africa policy is based on fundamentally different principles than the European model with regard to sovereignty and aid conditionality, offering an alternative to the dominant European approach. In this article we will argue that, although the European development model towards sub-Saharan Africa has never been entirely in line with its proclaimed principles, the "China factor" contributes to an adaptation of this European policy towards a more pragmatic and less normative strategy. Yet, this does not imply a complete overhaul of the European normative discourse which is still the most important source of legitimacy of the European development policy. It does however highlight the importance of an open and honest dialogue between the EU and sub-Saharan Africa, in particular on the merits of the European model for the development of the region and its countries. ; Cet article examine l'impact grandissant de la présence chinoise en Afrique sur le rôle international de l'UE, en particulier sur la politique européenne de développement en Afrique sub-saharienne. La politique africaine de la Chine se fonde sur des caractéristiques qui diffèrent fondamentalement du modèle européen, tant en matière de souveraineté et qu'en ce qui concerne la conditionnalité de l'aide. Elle offre ainsi une alternative à l'approche européenne dominante. Bien que le modèle européen de développement à l'égard de la région sub-saharienne n'ait jamais réellement coïncidé avec ses principes, nous avancerons dans cet article que le "facteur chinois" contribue à l'adaptation de cette politique européenne à une approche plus pragmatique et à une stratégie moins normative. Néanmoins, ceci ne signifie pas la remise en question complète du discours normatif européen, qui reste la source majeure de légitimité de la politique européenne de développement. Cependant, cela souligne l'importance d'un dialogue ouvert et honnête entre l'UE et l'Afrique sub-saharienne, en particulier sur les mérites que le modèle européen peut avoir pour le développement de la région et de ses pays

Sub-Saharan Africa has a state system that was imposed from abroad during the era of colonialism and that does not reflect ethnic realities. Most of these states achieved independence in the 1960s and emerged into the bipolar system of the Cold War. The international rivalry produced assistance and also a measure of influence for their governments, despite the fact that the fifty-three nations in Africa make it the world's most balkanized and fragmented region. When African states were supported by bipolar forces, methods of governing seemed to be of little consequence, and there were many abuses of human rights by both military and civilian governments.

The IBA's recent Conference, Investing in Africa: Opportunities for Businesses and the Lawyers Who Counsel Them, held in New York on 24-26 June 2015, highlighted the growing challenges and opportunities related to infrastructure needed for major mining projects in sub-Saharan Africa. The mining sector, which remains critical to many economies in the region, is being hampered by the lack of adequate transport, power and other infrastructure, as was underscored by participants in the 'Trends in the Mining Sector' panel. In the current depressed commodity price environment, large investments in infrastructure required to develop major, 'world-class' deposits is difficult to justify, causing many important projects to be delayed or cancelled. At the same time, the World Bank has identified a funding gap of US$31bn (or 5.1 per cent of GDP) annually to meet the wider-infrastructure needs of sub-Saharan Africa's growing population and economy. In this context, host governments, mining companies, and their legal advisors are actively considering opportunities and challenges associated with the shared-use of mining infrastructure.

Issues of development border on improving, advancing or modernizing the living conditions of people especially in the developing world. Countries of the region known as the Sub Sahara are known to be among the poorest in the world. They record some of the poorest indices on human development compared to other regions of the world. In order to get out of poverty, these countries need to efficiently promote various aspects of development. The development media theory advocates the use of the media such as broadcasting to help spur development. Unfortunately, broadcasting systems in the Sub Sahara region are beset by numerous problems including government interference, poor and lack of funding, unfavourable ownership structures and poor infrastructure making them unable to reach their intended audiences in rural areas. Although there are many development projects and programmes funded by governments and international aid agencies, these are not very effective because of, among other things, the poor performance of the broadcasting systems. This paper uses the development media theory to show the importance of broadcasting to the promotion of development in poverty-stricken Sub-Saharan Africa. Having observed the setbacks faced by broadcasting systems in the regions, the paper concludes that removing these constraints can help spur the region to greater prosperity.Keywords: broadcasting, promotion, development, Sub-Saharan Africa, constraints, projects

This paper focuses on how supranational collaboration in agricultural research in Sub-Saharan Africa has evolved over the past 10 years. It focuses primarily on the various institutional developments, but also presents some quantitative data on investments in the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa, the subregional organizations, and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Institutional reforms introduced in recent years (such as a programmatic approach at the SRO level, multi-donor trust funds, competitive grant mechanisms, and centers of excellence) are reviewed and assessed, and suggestions are made for further improvements. The principal conclusion is that the overall institutional architecture for supranational collaboration in agricultural research is now in place, and that for the coming years the focus should be more on mastering and further fine tuning the various internal decisionmaking and implementation processes. Despite all efforts to increase African ownership of the supranational agricultural research agenda, high donor dependency remains a factor that limits such ownership. The only way to change this is by introducing an African funding base for supranational agricultural research. Unfortunately very little progress has been made on this front to date. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; GRP31; Theme 10; Subtheme 10.2; ASTI ; EPTD

We examine the relationship between road quality and regional favouritism in Sub-Saharan Africa. Roads are an important public good in Africa, not only because of their positive impact on economic development but also because they are a major focus of central government spending. Using data from up to twelve countries from rounds 3 through 6 of the Afrobarometer on the existence of paved roads and regional, round, and country/round fixed effects, we find a negative effect of having a co-regional president, such that co-regional presidents provide poorer quality roads to their home areas than to other parts of the country. This result exists at both the highest (provincial) and second-highest (district) level of local government, and is robust to a variety of controls and sub-samples. We examine qualitative evidence from three countries which suggests that Presidents channel regional favouritism towards their co-ethnic/co-regional elite at the expense of the non-elite.

Motivated by sustainable development challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa, this study assesses the comparative persistence of environmental unsustainability in a sample of 44 countries in the sub-region for the period 2000 to 2012. The empirical evidence is based on Generalised Method of Moments. Of the six hypotheses tested, it is not feasible to assess the hypothesis on resource-wealth because of issues in degrees of freedom. As for the remaining hypotheses, the following findings are established. (i) Hypothesis 1 postulating that middle income countries have a lower level of persistence in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is valid for CO2 per capita emissions, CO2 emissions from electricity and heat production and CO2 emissions from liquid fuel consumption. (ii) Hypothesis 2 on the edge of French civil law countries is valid for CO2 emissions from liquid fuel consumption and CO2 intensity, but not for CO2 per capita emissions. (iii) Hypothesis 3 on the postulation that politically-unstable countries reflect more persistence is valid for CO2 per capita emissions. (iv) Hypothesis 5 on the propensity for landlocked countries to be associated with more persistence in CO2 emissions is valid for CO2 per capita emissions but not for CO2 emissions from liquid fuel consumption. (v) Hypothesis 6 maintaining that Christianity-dominated countries are more environmentally friendly with regard to CO2 emissions is valid for CO2 per capita emissions but not for CO2 emissions from liquid fuel consumption and CO2 intensity. Implications for policy and theory are discussed.

The challenge to obtain early-stage funding for small ventures is especially pronounced in Africa, where traditional funding sources are available only to a small extent. This lack, combined with the diffusion of mobile phones and internet access, enabled the unprecedented rise of mobile payments on a personal level in Africa in recent years. On a commercial level, ICT-enabled crowdfunding is given the potential to mitigate the early-stage funding gap for African entrepreneurs. Using exploratory research, the dissertation provides initial empirical evidence on crowdfunding in Sub-Saharan Africa. In particular, it is shown that African entrepreneurs across the continent can raise substantial amounts of money by tapping into the global funding community. Moreover, empirical evidence is provided, that the basic economic constructs, institutions and infrastructure appear to play a decisive role for African crowdfunding and that their effect size depends on the respective institutional setting.:1. Introduction 2. Prevailing Forms of Funding for African Entrepreneurs 2.1 Informal Funding 2.2 Government Funding 2.3 Business Angels 2.4 Venture Capital 2.5 Factoring and Leasing 2.6 Banking Loans 2.7 Mobile Money 2.8 Microfinance 2.9 Summary 3. Crowdfunding 3.1 Definition of Crowdfunding 3.2 Taxonomy of Crowdfunding 3.3 Donation-based Crowdfunding 3.3.1 Characteristics 3.3.2 Platforms 3.3.3 Empirical Research 3.4 Reward-based Crowdfunding 3.4.1 Characteristics 3.4.2 Platforms 3.4.3 Empirical Research 3.5 Debt-based Crowdfunding 3.5.1 Characteristics 3.5.2 Platforms 3.5.3 Empirical Research 3.6 Equity-based Crowdfunding 3.6.1 Characteristics 3.6.2 Platforms 3.6.3 Empirical Research 3.7 The Emergence of Crowdfunding 3.8 The Worldwide Crowdfunding Market 3.9 The African Crowdfunding Market 4. Evidence on the Use of Reward-based Crowdfunding in Africa 4.1 Research Objective 4.2 Research Design and Methodology 4.3 Data Sample 4.3.1 Data Set Construction 4.3.2 Variables 4.4 Results 4.4.1 Project and Platform Results 4.4.2 ...

The purpose of this study is to assess the nexus between governance and renewable energy consumption in sub-Saharan Africa. The focus is on 44 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with data from 1996 to 2016. The empirical evidence is based on Tobit regressions. It is apparent from the findings that political and institutional governance are negatively related to the consumption of renewable energy in the sampled countries. The unexpected findings are clarified and policy implications are discussed in the light of sustainable development goals. This study extends the extant literature by assessing how political governance (consisting of political stability and "voice & accountability") and institutional governance (entailing the rule of law and corruption-control) affect the consumption of renewable energy in sub-Saharan Africa.

This presentation focuses on results obtained from the international workshop "Agricultures et développement urbain en Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre" [Types of urban agriculture and development in Central and West Africa] hosted in Yaoundé in 2005 in Cameroon. The main partners in this workshop were Senegal, Benin and Cameroon, with the participation of several other countries from sub-Saharan Africa. Four main topics were investigated: urbanization and governance; urbanization and city supplies; urbanization and the environment; and urbanization and sanitary issues. Several main areas of research emerged, among which: 1) How can areas in cities for which it is impossible to obtain building permits be rezoned and promoted for agriculture? 2) How can the marketed surplus from urban and peri-urban areas be promoted? and 3) How can agrochemical inputs be better monitored? Among the participants at the workshop there was consensus on the highly heterogeneous situations confronted by urban and peri-urban agriculture. There was also consensus for a wide variety of policies to implement or pursue in order to improve livelihoods and environmental standards for urban and peri-urban agriculture (training, reliable data, etc.). Today, however, despite some case studies, there is still a lack of systematic research concerning institutional urban-rural interconnections. Moreover, little research has focused on the very nature of the currently ongoing transition between the rural and urban worlds. From a transition perspective, future research could thus begin to study the dynamics of agricultural practices; the migration of people in or out of agriculture; or the question of whether or not to adopt intensive systems. In this sense, a complementary area for research from a transition perspective would be the study of substitution factor between inputs (labour, technology, land, credit): for example, the economic and agronomic consequences that would result from recycling municipal solid wastes instead of using agrochemical inputs. (Texte intégral)

Analysis of recent survey data reveals large differentials in child mortality among ethnic groups in countries throughout sub-Saharan Africa. These disparities correspond with the prominence of specific ethnic groups in the national political economy. In many countries where heads of state since independence have come from one or two ethnic groups-as in Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, and Niger-these groups have experienced levels of early child mortality at least one-third lower than those of other groups. In other countries where there have been several transitions in state control, as in Ghana and Uganda, descendants of precolonial kingdoms such as Ashanti and Buganda have experienced much lower mortality than others. In most countries, the lower mortality of potent ethnic groups-who typically represent small proportions of national populations-is strongly related to economic privilege. Persistent inequalities among African ethnic groups deserve strong consideration in planning economic development and child health strategies.

Sub-Saharan Africa comprises 48 states at various stages of social, economic and political development. Despite the heterogeneity of these countries, the following general developments relating to statehood and governance in the past 15 years can at least be identified: Such pan-African initiatives as the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the African Union (AU) have done away with the political taboo of interference in internal affairs; it is no longer an accepted justification for inaction. Since the early 1990s processes of political transformation have begun in many sub-Saharan African countries; regime change has occurred in many cases. Notwithstanding regression in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia, for example, Africa as a whole has become politically more open; the participation of the people in political processes through elections has increased. Political transformation has tended to have little effect effect on the accountability of regimes; many political systems continue to be characterized by neopatrimonialism. The policies and service delivery undertaken by African countries have been inadequate. This is true both of basic social and economic services and of governance in the security sphere. In many cases, state does not have a secure monopoly of power. Although there have been changes for the better, major governance deficits persist in almost all parts of the continent and require additional efforts by the African countries themselves. The expected economic results of improved governance are a long time coming for many citizens; in the long term this poses a threat to the stability of the continent. The scale of external support in the form of development aid has a major influence on the political structures and policy-making of the countries assisted. In many cases, governance structures are being weakened by external actors.

This paper assesses the relation between access to markets and cultivated land in Sub-Saharan Africa. Making use of a geo-referenced panel over three decades (1970-2005) during which the road network was significantly improved, the analysis finds a modest but significant positive association between increased market accessibility and local cropland expansion. It also finds that cropland expansion, in turn, is associated with a small but significant increase in local gross domestic product. These results are suggestive of agricultural activities that develop at the extensive margin, which are mostly to serve local demand, but are not indicative of commercial agriculture that serves external markets.

Inflationary performance in sub-Saharan Africa since 1996 is examined. Median inflation has tended to be higher than in other regions of the developing world, such as MENA and Latin America. Inflation is highly persistent and is higher in countries that are less politically stable, in those without hard-peg exchange rate regimes, and in those with larger fiscal deficits. Inflation has declined over time, at least at the upper end of the distribution. There is no evidence that commitment devices such as inflation targeting have reduced inflation, but in SSA the sample is confined to two countries. Inflation typically spikes after a devaluation, and is sensitive to supply-side shocks. Movements in the real price of oil and rice (but not maize) have significantly affected the inflation rate. In countries that are poor in oil and minerals and therefore more reliant on agriculture, output growth is negatively correlated with inflation, presumably because, when the harvest is good and agricultural output is high, the extra supply reduces food prices. Fiscal balances also display considerable persistence and are more favourable in resource-rich and politically stable countries and in those with hard-peg exchange rate regimes, and have improved over time.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis, there is an increased interest to understand how social inequalities, discrimination, and inclusion are related to the pandemic. Sub-Saharan Africa has been comparatively resilient regarding the number of cases and fatalities per capita. At the same time, the region has high rates of multiple inequalities. Socioeconomic inequalities could adversely affect the fight against COVID-19 by influencing people's access to healthcare and eroding confidence and trust in public health institutions. This work investigates the effects of education, gender, income, and political inequalities on COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study also explores a country case study from Ghana to complement the systematic regional analysis. We find that pre-existing income inequality, along with some other dimensions of inequality, may have contributed to higher infection and mortality rates of COVID-19. We recommend that in the shortterm governments should consider outcomes of inequality in their fight against COVID-19. In the medium and long-term, and for the effectiveness of measures to fight future outbreaks, governments should strive to reduce various forms of inequalities.