This paper examines the determinants of the global competitiveness of the WAEMU economy applying a dynamic panel approach from 2011 to 2017. After providing a synthesis of the both theoretical and empirical debates on the subject, we derived a dynamic panel model which estimation was reached using the system generalized method of moments (GMM). The result of the estimation shows that competitiveness lagged by one period, financial development, GDP per capita, internal absorption and foreign trade taxes positively and significantly affect the global competitiveness of WAEMU countries, while economic openness, the inflation rate and the quality of institutions have a negative and significant contribution.
Self- help groups are increasingly becoming platforms used by development organizations to induce behavioural change and especially to target women’s empowerment, but little is known about the effectiveness of such policies. This paper examines the contribution of Self- help groups to women’s empowerment in Burkina Faso, focusing on the case of the township of Gaoua through data collection from a reasoned choice sample of beneficiaries. The results show that membership of women in these groups enables them to increase their purchasing power, which in turn enables them to participate in the primary needs of their households and thus improve their empowerment. Therefore, it is suggested to the development actors intervening in the township of Gaoua to put together their efforts to cover all the villages of the Self- help groups in order to enable a large number of women to benefit from the spin-offs of these projects.
This paper contributes to the literature on the role of specialization in economic competitiveness. To this end, it evaluates the effects of specialization on the competitiveness of the economy of 28 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) over the period from 2007 to 2018 using the system generalized method of moments (GMM) and the random effects method. It is found that specialization in manufactured goods, oil products and high technology has a positive effect on economic competitiveness, while specialization in agricultural raw materials and commodities has a negative effect. Also, the structure of specialization similarly affects the economic competitiveness of Central Africa, East Africa and West Africa, but varies slightly with those of SSA member countries belonging to South Africa. In addition to producing and exporting goods in which they have a comparative advantage, SSA countries need to strengthen bilateral cooperation to improve their value chains and benefit from competitiveness gains.
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