Africa Development Forum – serie

Building on global interest in migration development, the volume draws attention to one of the most important migration systems in sub-Saharan Africa. It reviews South Africa’s approach to international migration in the post-apartheid period from a regional development perspective, highlighting key policy issues, debates, and consequences.The authors find at least three areas where migration is resulting in important development impacts. First, by offering options to those affected by conflict and crises in a region that has limited formal disaster management and social protection systems. Second, by mitigating shortcomings and distortions in regional labour markets. Third, by providing support to struggling rural economies and ever expanding urban areas in terms of livelihoods and social capital transfers.Chapter One consists of a study of the country’s historical experience of migration and, in particular, analyses the changes in official attitudes throughout the twentieth century, indicating the roots of contemporary ideas and policy dilemmas. Chapters Two, Three, Four and Five complement this analysis of the South African State's capacity to reform and manage the South African migration situation by looking at often neglected dimensions: the first explores the question of skilled labour, a crucial question given the unbalanced structure of the South African labour market; the second examines the impact of migration on local government in South African cities and specifically implications for urban planning, service delivery, health, security, and political accountability; the third analyses the nature of undocumented migration to South Africa and the challenges it raises to both State and non-State actors; The book concludes with an examination of health as a critical issue when examining the relationship between migration and development in South Africa, in light of recent empirical data.

High fertility and declining mortality rates have led to a very young population in most Sub-Saharan African countries. The region's labour force is expected to increase by 11 million a year over the next 10 years. Most of this increase will be new entrants seeking their first job. While the younger generation is better educated than their parents, they often lack the means to translate that education into productive employment. Today, most work is in non-wage jobs in household farms and firms. Even if greater economic activity creates the conditions for robust growth and economic transformation, the private modern wage sector in low and lower-middle income countries cannot absorb all new entrants. The report focuses on how to improve the quality of all jobs with a view to meeting the aspirations of youth. It emphasises that building a strong foundation for human capital development can play an important role in boosting earnings and argues that a balanced approach that builds skills as well as the demand for labour is key.The report notes that many youth employment challenges are problems of employment in general. But, in addition, youth is a time of transitions and young people face particular constraints to accessing productive work. The report brings together original analysis of household and labour force surveys; it reviews the experience of a number of promising interventions across the continent; it draws from qualitative surveys in a number of countries; and it surveys the most up-to-date evidence from rigorous evaluations of policies and programmes. From this information base, the report provides guidance to policymakers on how to intervene along two dimensions - human capital and the business environment - and in three priority areas - agriculture, household enterprises and the modern wage sector. The ultimate goals are to increase productivity, improve livelihoods and multiply opportunities for young people.

Governments in Africa are showing increasing interest in tourism as a source of growth and diversification. Recent work indicates that tourism in Africa can contribute effectively to economic development. The tourism industry throughout Africa often operates below international competitive standards, but several products already meet international standards of excellence. This Notes examines the government's role in ensuring economic, environmental, and cultural sustainability, poverty alleviation, and social inclusion.

Given that most African countries face difficult decisions about how to allocate limited resources among different social programs, evidence is important.This book demonstrates that it is possible to reach the poorest and most vulnerable with safety net programs, and provides lessons for the effective use of targeting methods to achieve this goal.

Since independence, the West African sub-region has been an arena for a number  of  large-scale  conflicts  and  civil  wars,  as  well  as  simmering  and low-intensity  uprisings.  Contrary  to  perceptions,  West  Africa  in  its  post-independence  history  has  experienced  fewer  conflict  events  and  fatalities from conflict than the other sub-regions on the continent. The turn of the millennium  has  witnessed  the  recession  of  large-scale  and  conventional conflict, and it has ushered in new and emerging threats. The specters of religious  extremism,  maritime  piracy,  and  narcotics  trafficking  threaten toundermine some of the progress achieved in recent years.The Challenge of Stability and Security in West Africa critically examines the key drivers of conflict and violence, and the way in which they impact the countries of the sub-region. In addition to emerging threats, these drivers include the challenges of youth inclusion, migration, sub-regional imbalances, and extractives, as well as challenges related to the fragility of political institutions and managing the  competition  for  power,  reform  of  the  security  sector,  and  weakness  of institutions  related  to  land  management.  The  book  explores  how  the  sub-region, under the auspices of the regional organization ECOWAS, has become a pioneer on the continent in terms of addressing regional challenges.The Challenge of Stability and Security in West Africa also identifies key lessons in the dynamics of resilience in the face of political violence and civil war drawn from Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, that can be useful for countries around the world in similar situations. It incorporates knowledge and findings from leading experts and provides insights from academics and development practitioners. Finally, the book identifies possible policy and programmatic responses and directions for policy dialogue at the national and international levels.

To sustain Africa's growth, and accelerate the eradication of extreme poverty, investment in infrastructure is fundamental. In 2010, the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic found that to enable Africa to fill its infrastructure gap, some US$93 billion per year for the next decade will need to be invested. The Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), endorsed in 2012 by the continent s Heads of State and Government, lays out an ambitious long-term plan for closing Africa s infrastructure including trough step increases in hydroelectric power generation and water storage capacity. Much of this investment will support the construction of long-lived infrastructure (e.g. dams, power stations, irrigation canals), which may be vulnerable to changes in climatic patterns, the direction and magnitude of which remain significantly uncertain.Enhancing the Climate Resilience of Africa's Infrastructure evaluates -using for the first time a single consistent methodology and the state-of-the-arte climate scenarios-, the impacts of climate change on hydro-power and irrigation expansion plans in Africa s main rivers basins (Niger, Senegal, Volta, Congo, Nile, Zambezi, Orange); and outlines an approach to reduce climate risks through suitable adjustments to the planning and design process.The book finds that failure to integrate climate change in the planning and design of power and water infrastructure could entail, in scenarios of drying climate conditions, losses of hydropower revenues between 5% and 60% (depending on the basin); and increases in consumer expenditure for energy up to 3 times the corresponding baseline values. In in wet climate scenarios, business-as-usual infrastructure development could lead to foregone revenues in the range of 15% to 130% of the baseline, to the extent that the larger volume of precipitation is not used to expand the production of hydropower. Despite the large uncertainty on whether drier or wetter conditions will prevail in the future in Africa, the book finds that by modifying existing investment plans to explicitly handle the risk of large climate swings, can cut in half or more the cost that would accrue by building infrastructure on the basis of the climate of the past.

Africa is poised on the edge of a potential takeoff to sustained economic growth. This takeoff can be abetted by a demographic dividend from the changes in population  age  structure.  Declines  in  child  mortality,  followed  by  declines in fertility, produce a 'bulge' generation and a large number of working age people, giving a boost to the economy. In the short run lower fertility leads to lower youth dependency rates and greater female labor force participation outside the home. Smaller family sizes also mean more resources to invest in the health and education per child boosting worker productivity. In the long run  increased  life  spans  from  health  improvements  mean  that  this  large, high-earning  cohort  will  also  want  to  save  for  retirement,  creating  higher savings  and  investments,  leading  to  further  productivity  gains.  Two  things are required for the demographic dividend to generate an African economic takeoff. The first is to speed up the fertility decline that is currently slow or stalled in many countries. The second is economic policies that take advantage of  the  opportunity  offered  by  demography.  While  demographic  change  can produce more, and high quality, workers, this potential workforce needs to be productively employed if Africa is to reap the dividend. However, once underway, the  relationship  between  demographic  change  and  human  development works in both directions, creating a virtuous cycle that can accelerate fertility decline, social development, and economic growth. Empirical evidence points to three key factors for speeding the fertility transition: child health, female education, and women’s empowerment, particularly through access to family planning. Harnessing the dividend requires job creation for the large youth cohorts  entering  working  age,  and  encouraging  foreign  investment  until domestic savings and investment increase. The appropriate mix of policies in each country depends on their stage of the demographic transition.

Les marchés fonciers urbains et périurbains des villes d’Afrique de l’Ouest en expansion rapide opèrent dans des contextes où coexistent des régimes fonciers différents et où les procédures d’accès aux terrains sont complexes. Un  cadre  d’analyse  faisant  défaut  jusqu’ici,  ce  livre  propose  une  approche systémique et l'applique à  la zone urbaine et périurbaine de Bamako et à  son hinterland rural. La méthode repose sur une analyse des différentes filières d’approvisionnement en terres et identifie, depuis la mise en circulation des terres agricoles pour répondre aux besoins en terrains à  usage résidentiel, les  changements  de  tenure  et  types  de  transactions  qui  accompagnent  le passage aux terrains urbains, ainsi que les interactions entre les différentes filières. L'analyse montre que l’approvisionnement en terre est à  l’origine assurée par la filière coutumière, qui prédomine dans les zones périurbaines, et par la filière publique et parapublique où l’État alloue des terrains à  usage d’habitation aux individus ou les cède à  des sociétés de promotion foncière et  immobilières.  Ces  filières  alimentent  la  filière  privée  formelle  qui  met ensuite sur le marché, à  des prix élevés, des parcelles viabilisées avec titre de  propriété.  Les  parcelles  peuvent  être  cédées  successivement,  avec  un degré d'informalité qui dépend de la tenure, de la légalité de la transaction et de son enregistrement. Alors que le développement du marché formel est entravé  par  des  facteurs  structurels,  le  marché  foncier  informel  offre  peu de  sécurité.

The need for safety nets in Sub-Saharan Africa is vast. In addition to being the world’s poorest region, Sub-Saharan Africa is also one of the most unequal. In this context, redistribution must be seen as a legitimate way to fight poverty and  ensure  shared  prosperity  †“  and  all  the  more  so  in  countries  where growth is driven by extractive industries that are not labor-intensive and often employ very few poor people. Given that most African countries face difficult decisions about how to allocate limited resources among a number of social programs,  evidence  is  important.  Do  Safety  Net  programs  actually  benefit the poorest people? This book demonstrates with empirical evidence that it is possible to reach the poorest and most vulnerable people with safety net programs, and provides lessons for the effective use of targeting methods to achieve this outcome in the region.

Roads are the arteries through which the economy pulses. They connect sellers to markets, workers to jobs, students to education, and the sick to hospitals. Hence financing and investing in transportation infrastructure remains a cornerstone of the global development agenda.

Using an original modeling framework, this report identifies promising interventions, quantifies their likely costs and benefits, and describes the policy trade-offs that will need to be addressed to reduce the vulnerability and increase the resilience of the hundreds of millions of people living in dryland regions of sub-Saharan Africa.

This study focuses on the local and regional impact of large-scale gold mining in Africa in the context of a mineral boom in the region since 2000. It contributes to filling a gap in the literature on the welfare effects of mineral resources, which, until now, has concentrated more on the national or macroeconomic impacts. Economists have long been intrigued by the paradox that a rich endowment of natural resources may retard economic performance, particularly in the case of mineral-exporting developing countries. Studies of this phenomenon, known as the "resource curse," examine the economy-wide consequences of mineral exports.Africa's resource boom has lifted growth, but has been less successful in improving people’s welfare. Yet much of the focus in academic and policy circles has been on appropriate management of the macro-fiscal and governance risks that have historically undermined development outcomes. This study focuses instead on the fortune of local communities where resources are located. It aims to better inform public policy and corporate behavior on the welfare of communities in Africa in which the extraction of resources takes place.

Résumé : L'Afrique est sur le bord d'un lancement potentiel de croissance économique soutenue. Cette ascension peut être accélérée par un dividende démographique dû aux changements dans la structure par âge de la population. Les baisses de la mortalité infantile, suivies par la baisse de la fécondité, produisent une génération.

A crucial element in enhancing agricultural productivity growth in Africa is improving the provision of productive investments through more and better public spending in agriculture. Agricultural public spending in Africa not only lags behind other developing regions by several metrics of volume, it is also vitiated by misinvestment such as input subsidies programs and transfers that tend to benefit the better off, with insignificant gains for the poor. Shortcomings of the budgeting process also reduce spending effectiveness. Addressing the quality of public spending and the efficiency of resource use is perhaps even more important than addressing the level of spending. Investments in rural public goods combined with better policies and institutions have driven agricultural productivity growth around the world. The dividends from investments to strengthen markets, expand irrigation, develop and adopt improved technologies can be enormous. Despite high returns on such investments, Sub-Saharan African countries grossly underinvest in them. Rebalancing the composition of public agricultural spending would reap massive payoffs. To realize these benefits requires better choices about how to allocate public agricultural spending and how to ensure that budget processes support those allocations. And making those choices will require overcoming the inertia in policymaking that favors continuing with today s inefficient spending and that favors short-term visible programs over much higher, if less visible, long-term gains.

Despite a period of strong economic growth and improvements in many dimensions of welfare, extreme poverty remains a pervasive and complex phenomenon in Sub-Saharan Africa (referred to as Africa in this report). Part of the agenda in recent years to tackle poverty in Africa has been the launching of social safety nets programs. The number of programs has skyrocketed since the mid-2000s, though many programs remain limited in size. For Africa to fully realize the potential of social safety nets and bring its poorest and most vulnerable to a point where they can seize economic opportunities, this report discussed the decisive shifts which need to occur in three critical spheres: political, institutional, and fiscal.

Most African households cannot afford electricity access and consumption needed to enhance their economic wellbeing. This research argues that a sustainable path for universal access requires a focus on the productive use.

This book lays out a range of policy and implementation actions that are needed for countries in sub-Saharan Africa to meet the challenge of improving learning while expanding access and completion of basic education for all.

Africa's resource boom has lifted growth, but has been less successful in improving people's lives. Yet much of the focus in academic and policy circles has been on appropriate management of the macro-fiscal and governance risks that have historically undermined development outcomes.

This book lays the groundwork for more effective multisectoral action on reducing stunting by analyzing and generating empirical evidence useful for informing the joint targeting of nutrition sensitive interventions in countries in Sub-Sahara Africa.

The Future of Work in Africa focuses on the key themes of creating productive jobs and addressing the needs of those left behind. It highlights how global trends, especially the adoption of digital technologies, may change the nature of work in Sub-Saharan Africa by creating new opportunities and challenges. It argues that, contrary to global fears of worker displacement by new technologies, African countries can develop an inclusive future of work,with opportunities for lower-skilled workers. Harnessing these opportunities is, however,contingent on implementing policies and making productive investments in four main areas.These are enabling inclusive digital technologies; building human capital for a young, rapidly growing, and largely low-skilled labour force; increasing the productivity of informal workers and enterprises; and extending social protection coverage to mitigate the risks associated with disruptions to labour markets. This companion report to the World Bank's World Development Report 2019 concludes with important policy questions that should guide future research, whose findings could lead to more inclusive growth for African nations.

Un rapport de la Banque mondiale recommande aux gouvernements des pays d' Afrique subsaharienne d'investir dans des plans d'etectrification coordonnes a long terme pour atteindre plus rapidement leurs objectifs de developpernent.

Malgré la forte croissance économique que l'Afrique subsaharienne a connue ces vingt dernières années, les niveaux de transformation économique, de réduction de la pauvreté et de développement des compétences dans cette partie du monde sont bien inférieurs à ceux des autres régions. Des investissements judicieux dans le développement des compétences, en accord avec les objectifs politiques de croissance de la productivité, d'inclusion et d'adaptabilité, peuvent aider à accélérer la transformation économique de la région subsaharienne au XXIe siècle.L'augmentation de la population en âge de travailler en Afrique subsaharienne constitue une réelle chance d'accroître la prospérité collective. Les pays de la région ont investi massivement dans le développement des compétences ; les dépenses publiques consacrées à l'éducation ont été multipliées par sept au cours des 30 dernières années, et le nombre d'enfants scolarisés est aujourd'hui plus élevé que jamais. Pourtant, les systèmes d'éducation de cette population n'ont pas donné les résultats escomptés, et ces insuffisances entravent considérablement les perspectives économiques. Dans la moitié des pays, moins de deux enfants sur trois terminent l'école primaire, et encore moins atteignent des niveaux supérieurs d'enseignement et obtiennent un diplôme. Les acquis d'apprentissage demeurent faibles, ce qui entraîne des lacunes dans les compétences cognitives de base telles que la lecture, l'écriture et le calcul, aussi bien chez les enfants, les jeunes que les adultes. Le taux d'alphabétisation de la population adulte est inférieur à 50 % dans de nombreux pays ; la part des adultes sachant lire, écrire et compter de manière fonctionnelle est encore plus faible.Une réforme du système est nécessaire pour réaliser des progrès significatifs. De multiples agences aux niveaux national et local sont impliquées dans les stratégies de développement des compétences, faisant des compétences « le problème de tous, mais la responsabilité de personne ». Les politiques et les réformes doivent permettre de renforcer les capacités des politiques qui ont fait leurs preuves et d'instaurer des mesures incitatives visant à faire converger le comportement de tous les acteurs dans la poursuite des objectifs de développement des compétences au niveau national.Le développement des compétences en Afrique subsaharienne, un exercice d'équilibre. Investir dans les compétences pour la productivité, l'inclusion et l'adaptabilité présente des données qui éclaireront les choix stratégiques des pays en matière d'investissements dans les compétences. Chaque chapitre aborde un ensemble de questions spécifiques, en s'appuyant sur une analyse originale et sur une synthèse des travaux existants pour explorer les domaines principaux :comment les compétences appropriées à chaque étape du cycle de vie sont-elles acquises et quelles défaillances du marché et des institutions affectent le développement des compétences;quels systèmes sont nécessaires pour que les individus aient accès à ces compétences, notamment les investissements consentis par les familles, les institutions du secteur privé, les écoles et autres programmes publics;comment ces systèmes peuvent-ils être renforcés;comment les personnes les plus vulnérables, à savoir celles qui ne font pas partie des systèmes standards et qui n'ont pas réussi à acquérir des compétences essentielles, peuvent-elles être soutenues.Les pays de la région seront souvent confrontés à des arbitrages difficiles qui auront des effets distributifs et influeront sur leur trajectoire de développement. Des dirigeants engagés, des efforts conjoints de réforme et des politiques bien coordonnées sont essentiels pour aborder le délicat exercice d'équilibre que représente le développement des compétences en Afrique subsaharienne.

Food for cities in Africa is changing under the triple effect of growth demography, urbanization and transformations in agricultural production and trade. These changes create risks: African cities increasingly face the challenges of undernutrition and malnutrition. But they also generate new opportunities: the economy food is the continent's main source of employment and will remain so in the near future, both to ensure agricultural production, agro-food processing and product distribution. At the center of this economy are the intermediaries market, which link producers and consumers, and whose ineffectiveness explains that about a third of the production evaporates in food losses.

Ce rapport réévalue la perspective pour l'industrialisation de jouer un rôle essentiel dans le développement des pays d'Afrique subsaharienne et montre que l'industrie manufacturière représente une voie viable de transformation structurelle par l'intégration des chaînes de valeur mondiales.

In a rapidly urbanizing world, mayors often see migrants as a burden to their cities' labor markets and a threat to their development. Drawing on national household surveys and four secondary city case studies in Africa, this report finds that migrants can strengthen the urban labor force.

Ce rapport examine la contribution que peuvent avoir les ressources naturelles que possede I'Afrique a sa transformation economique, et les consequences d'une transition vers une economie decarbonisee pour les pays riches en ressources.

La présente étude s'appuie sur des données démographiques, des travaux de recherche, des entretiens avec des informateurs clés, ainsi que des études empiriques pour mieux comprendre comment les migrants qui rejoignent les villes secondaires d'Afrique s'intègrent aux marchés du travail urbain.

The growing disparity between the rich and poor is a critical challenge, irrespective of a country's per capita GDP. Rising inequalities pose substantial barriers to sustainable development, and it is within this context that this book offers a comprehensive analysis of the current challenges and future perspectives of inequality in Africa.