Absent vaccines and pharmaceutical interventions, the only tool available to mitigate its demographic effects is some measure of physical distancing, to reduce contagion by breaking social and economic contacts. Policy makers must balance the positive health effects of strong distancing measures, such as lockdowns, against their economic costs, especially the burdens imposed on low income and food insecure households. The distancing measures deployed by South Africa impose large economic costs and have negative implications for the factor distribution of income. Labor with low education levels are much more strongly affected than labor with secondary or tertiary education. As a result, households with low levels of educational attainment and high dependence on labor income would experience an enormous real income shock that would clearly jeopardize the food security of these households. However, in South Africa, total incomes for low income households are significantly insulated by government transfer payments. From public health, income distribution and food security perspectives, the remarkably rapid and severe shocks imposed because of Covid-19 illustrate the value of having in place transfer policies that support vulnerable households in the event of ‘black swan’ type shocks.
Financial inclusion is gaining attention in African policy circles in view of the recent African growth renaissance, but which has been characterised as non-inclusive. While not conclusively documented in the literature, financial inclusion is viewed among the drivers of inclusive growth. This special issue takes a stock of the extent of, and the factors affecting financial inclusion; the role of cross-border banking in financial deepening and access across Africa; and the impacts of financial innovation on access as well as monetary policy. While Africa's banking systems are still shallow relative to peers, substantial progress has been made over the past two decades both in terms of financial inclusion and financial innovation, as well as cross-border banking. While access to finance has improved, the evidence based on the Global Findex database points to substantial heterogeneity within subregions of Africa and demographic characteristics. The evidence also suggests that foreign banks from emerging markets, including Africa, have contributed to financial access, but the opposite is the case for foreign banks from Europe and U.S. However, challenges remain, including the gap between financial deepening and financial inclusion.
High population growth in rural areas, an unprecedented impact on development strategies and resource management S ub-Saharan Africa is following an unusual development path. It faces specific, unprecedented challenges for 2030-2050. According to the 2015 United Nations projections, its population is set to double by 2050 to reach 2.2 billion people, half of whom will be under 25 years of age. This increase also concerns rural areas, where the population will grow from 620 million people to more than 1 billion over the same period. The demographic transition is thus pushed back beyond 2050, as is the demographic dividend-a boost in economic productivity associated with a slowdown in population growth and a reduction in the number of dependents. Agriculture is another specific feature. The sector employs more than 60% of the working-age population, and agricultural holdings are mostly small, labour-intensive family farms. Consequently, structural and economic change in sub-Saharan Africa is not following the same path as the industrialised or emerging countries. In those countries, industrialisation has been facilitated by rapid growth in persp ctive e November 2017 44 agricultural productivity and the massive transfer of agricultural workers to the so-called modern sectors. In sub-Saharan Africa, the secondary and tertiary sectors are still mostly informal and are struggling to create employment and wealth. Faced with these challenges, centralised and sectoral public policies persist, in spite of recurrent criticism that these policies are disconnected from local realities, segmented and fragmented: they are clearly permanent and are being reproduced. The mixed results of decentralisation reflect this inflexibility. The public institutions created through decentralisation lack resources; they are struggling to find their place within the existing political and administrative organisations. The secondary cities, which are disadvantaged in terms of infrastructure and strategic capacities, are failing to play their role as development hubs and catalysts of structural change. Consequently, industrialisation is concentrated in the capital cities and a small number of urban agglomerations. In Mali, the Office du Niger region is a good illustration of this trend. With 120 000 hectares of irrigated cropland and 40% of national rice production, the Office du Niger is a strategic region. But the lack of local infrastructure and In sub-Saharan Africa, the magnitude of the demographic challenge implies anticipating targets to be reached within the time horizon of the next generation, in all sectors of activity. We propose an operational methodology that can be implemented by policymakers and actors in rural territories to envision the future and to prepare their development strategy. This territorial foresight methodology combines an analysis of past local dynamics, a 20-year population projection and a participatory foresight process. It enables collective thinking on sustainable paths and provides a framework for monitori...
This paper employs the Panzar and Rosse and the Bresnahan models to determine the level of competition in the South African banking sector. This level of competition was tested during the period 1998 to 2008 for the Panzar and Rosse approach and from 1992 to 2008 for the Bresnahan model. We …nd evidence of monopolistic competition in the South African banking sector. Our …ndings are consistent with those of Bikker et al (2012) for South Africa.
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