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12. Reforming EU Trade Policy to Accelerate Economic Transformation in Africa
- Author:
- Hannah Timmis and Ian Mitchell
- Publication Date:
- 10-2019
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- As the rest of the developing world has reaped the benefits of rapid globalisation, Africa has remained marginalised in international trade. The new European Commission has an opportunity to accelerate export-led growth on the continent by introducing a bolder, more coherent policy on trade, agriculture, and aid.
- Topic:
- Development, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, European Union, Economic Development, and Economic Transformation
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Europe
13. Automation and AI: Implications for African Development Prospects?
- Author:
- Charles Kenny
- Publication Date:
- 10-2019
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Now that computers are capable of taking the jobs that require brain as well as brawn, it may appear there is little left for humans to do. There are many scary forecasts of the capacity of automation and AI to replace a lot of workers very fast. Self-driving vehicles may wipe out opportunities for taxi driv- ers and truckers, for example. Brynjolfsson, Rock, and Syverson note there are 3.5 million people em- ployed driving vehicles in the US. If automation reduced that to 1.5 million, that alone would increase total US labor productivity by 1.7 percent,1 but it would also leave two million drivers looking for work. In 2013, Oxford economists Carl Frey and Michael Osborne made waves by predicting that 47 percent of US employment was automatable over the next two decades, with a higher estimate for developing countries.2 Erin Winick of Technology Review subsequently produced a summary table of job losses and gains estimations on automation.3 Some of the worldwide figures are in Table 1. There are clearly two sides to the ledger, but some of the predicted job loss numbers at the global level are considerable. The forecasts suggest bad news for Africa in particular, given concentration in types of low-skill jobs that might be easy to automate, rising working age populations, and already far too few good jobs to occupy the existing population. Arntz et al. suggest the share of workers at high risk of automation is 40 percent amongst those with a lower secondary education and above 50 percent for those with primary or less education.4 Advanced manufacturing and AI applications including automated call centers might even reverse the trend towards manufacturing and low-skilled services moving to developing countries. That would imperil a recent run of global income convergence. And there have been cases of impact al- ready: Foxconn replacing 30 percent of its workforce when it introduced robots, and 1,000 lost jobs in Vietnam when Adidas shuttered a factory and moved production to “speed factories” in Germany and the US. If this is the beginning of a trend, it would be harmful to African development prospects.
- Topic:
- Development, Science and Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and Emerging Technology
- Political Geography:
- Africa
14. Development as Diffusion: Manufacturing Productivity and Sub-Saharan Africa's Missing Middle
- Author:
- Vijaya Ramachandran, Alan Gelb, and Christian J. Meyer
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- We consider economic development of Sub-Saharan Africa from the perspective of slow convergence of productivity, both across sectors and across firms within sectors. Why have "productivity enclaves", islands of high productivity in a sea of smaller low-productivity firms, not diffused more rapidly? We summarize and analyze three sets of factors: First, the poor business climate, which constrains the allocation of production factors between sectors and firms. Second, the complex political economy of business-government relations in Africa's small economies. Third, the distribution of firm capabilities. The roots of these factors lie in Africa's geography and its distinctive history, including the legacy of its colonial period on state formation and market structure.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Industrial Policy, and Markets
- Political Geography:
- Africa
15. To Charge or Not to Charge: Evidence from a Health Products Experiment in Uganda
- Author:
- Dean Karlan, Pia Raffler, Greg Fischer, and Margaret McConnell
- Publication Date:
- 11-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- In a field experiment in Uganda, we find that demand after a free distribution of three health products is lower than after a sale distribution. This contrasts with work on insecticide-treated bed nets, highlighting the importance of product characteristics in determining pricing policy. We put forward a model to illustrate the potential tension between two important factors, learning and anchoring, and then test this model with three products selected specifically for their variation in the scope for learning. We find the rank order of shifts in demand matches with the theoretical prediction, although the differences are not statistically significant.
- Topic:
- Development and Health
- Political Geography:
- Uganda and Africa
16. The Political Economy of Bad Data: Evidence from African Survey Administrative Statistics
- Author:
- Amanda Glassman and Justin Sandefur
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Across multiple African countries, discrepancies between administrative data and independent household surveys suggest official statistics systematically exaggerate development progress. We provide evidence for two distinct explanations of these discrepancies. First, governments misreport to foreign donors, as in the case of a results-based aid program rewarding reported vaccination rates. Second, national governments are themselves misled by frontline service providers, as in the case of primary education, where official enrollment numbers diverged from survey estimates after funding shifted from user fees to per pupil government grants. Both syndromes highlight the need for incentive compatibility between data systems and funding rules.
- Topic:
- Development, Foreign Aid, Foreign Direct Investment, Governance, and Developing World
- Political Geography:
- Africa
17. Delivering on a Data Revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Author:
- Amanda Glassman and Alex Ezeh
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Despite improvements in censuses and household surveys, the building blocks of national statistical systems in sub-Saharan Africa remain weak. Measurement of fundamentals such as births and deaths, growth and poverty, taxes and trade, land and the environment, and sickness, schooling, and safety is shaky at best. The challenges are fourfold: (1) national statistics offices have limited independence and unstable budgets, (2) misaligned incentives encourage the production of inaccurate data, (3) donor priorities dominate national priorities, and (4) access to and usability of data are limited. The Data for African Development Working Group's recommendations for reaping the benefits of a data revolution in Africa fall into three categories: (1) fund more and fund differently, (2) build institutions that can produce accurate, unbiased data, and (3) prioritize the core attributes of data building blocks.
- Topic:
- Development
- Political Geography:
- Africa
18. The New Transparency in Development Economics: Lessons from the Millennium Villages Controversy
- Author:
- Michael Clemens and Gabriel Demombynes
- Publication Date:
- 09-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- The Millennium Villages Project is a high profile, multi-country development project that has aimed to serve as a model for ending rural poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. The project became the subject of controversy when the methodological basis of early claims of success was questioned. The lively ensuing debate offers lessons on three recent mini-revolutions that have swept the field of development economics: the rising standards of evidence for measuring impact, the “open data” movement, and the growing role of the blogosphere in research debates.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Poverty, and Foreign Aid
- Political Geography:
- Africa
19. Making Large-Scale Wind and Solar Power a Reality
- Author:
- Kevin Ummel
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- South Africa and many other countries hope to aggressively expand wind and solar power (WSP) in the coming decades. This presents significant challenges for power system planning. Success hinges largely on the question of how and where to deploy WSP technologies. Well-designed deployment strategies can take advantage of natural variability in resources across space and time to help minimize costs, maximize benefits, and ensure reliability.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Development, Economics, Energy Policy, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- Africa
20. Is Anyone Listening? Does US Foreign Assistance Target People's Top Priorities?
- Author:
- Benjamin Leo
- Publication Date:
- 12-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- The United States government has made repeated declarations over the last decade to align its assistance programs behind developing countries' priorities. By utilizing public attitude surveys for 42 African and Latin American countries, this paper examines how well the US has implemented this guiding principle. Building upon the Quality of Official Development Assistance Assessment (QuODA) approach, I identify what people cite most frequently as the 'most pressing problems' facing their nations and then measure the percentage of US assistance commitments that are directed towards addressing them. By focusing on public surveys over time, this analysis attempts to provide a more nuanced and targeted examination of whether US portfolios are addressing what people care the most about. As reference points, I compare US alignment trends with the two regional multilateral development banks (MDBs) – the African Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. Overall, this analysis suggests that US assistance may be only modestly aligned with what people in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America cite as their nation's most pressing problems. By comparison, the African Development Bank – which is majority-led by regional member nations – performs significantly better than the United States. Like the United States, however, the Inter-American Development Bank demonstrates a low relative level of support for people's top concerns.
- Topic:
- Security, Crime, Development, Economics, and Foreign Aid
- Political Geography:
- Africa, United States, America, and Latin America