Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 19 of 19

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

My Experience In Swaziland With Give Hope, Fight Poverty, Megan Kaser Nov 2018

My Experience In Swaziland With Give Hope, Fight Poverty, Megan Kaser

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

Megan Kaser, a recent 2017 alum in the College of Health and Human Sciences at Purdue University, describes her experience with Give Hope, Fight Poverty (GHFP)—a nonprofit organization in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in physician assistant studies. GHFP’s mission is “to foster philanthropy domestically by designing service-learning programs that engage U.S. college students with rural communities in Swaziland, Africa, and work together to educate, empower, and lift orphaned and vulnerable children—particularly those living in child-headed households— out of poverty” (Give Hope, Fight Poverty, n.d.). By incorporating college students in the implementation of GHFP orphan education …


Girl Child Education For Inclusive Sustainable Development, Mollin Mandaza Nov 2018

Girl Child Education For Inclusive Sustainable Development, Mollin Mandaza

Young African Leaders Journal of Development

The socio-economic marginalization of females derived from gender disparities, lack of access and quality education leads to subsequent youth unemployment, working poverty, poor standards of living, diminished career choices, unequal salaries and economic exclusion. It is therefore imperative for leaders and governments to invest in girl-child education for Africa's development by castigating gender-based violence, sexual discrimination, gender stereotypes and obliterating early-child marriage. The blatant repudiation of girl's fundamental rights to access equal and quality education is the indictment of a continent that has failed young women and their broader continuous struggle for emancipation, equality and power. This paper lays out …


Breaking The Poverty Trap In Africa: A Comparative Perspective On Poverty Alleviation, Abu Girma Moges Oct 2018

Breaking The Poverty Trap In Africa: A Comparative Perspective On Poverty Alleviation, Abu Girma Moges

International Journal of African Development

An increasing number of African countries have recently registered improved rates of economic growth. Translating economic growth into poverty reduction, however, requires putting into place policies and institutions that promote a sustainable and shared economic growth process. The degree of success in poverty reduction depends largely on balancing the process of economic growth and the judicious pattern of income distribution so that an increasing share of the population benefits from the growth process and engages in more productive endeavors. Building the necessary policy and institutional framework to promote sustainable and shared economic growth is central in breaking the poverty trap …


Indigenous Knowledge And The Development Debate In Africa, Fidelis Ewane, Samson Ajagbe Oct 2018

Indigenous Knowledge And The Development Debate In Africa, Fidelis Ewane, Samson Ajagbe

International Journal of African Development

This research employs Bourdieu’s theory of habitus to explain the disposition of the donor community to integrate indigenous knowledge systems and practices into development projects. The theory’s objectivist perspective specifies the mechanism that links structural conditioning to social practice and regularities. It holds that power is culturally and symbolically created, and it is constantly re-legitimized through the interplay of agency and structure. This facilitates an analysis of the development field as social space characterized by indigenous and donor power relations. It argues that the reinforcement of indigenous knowledge as the main channel for development will generate transferable local capacities and …


Does Inclusive Growth Matter For Regional Integration In Africa? An Empirical Assessment, Mohammed Shuaibu, Mamello Nchake Oct 2018

Does Inclusive Growth Matter For Regional Integration In Africa? An Empirical Assessment, Mohammed Shuaibu, Mamello Nchake

International Journal of African Development

Inclusive growth is an important channel through which African countries can foster higher regional integration especially through trade. This is because many African countries are characterized by exclusive growth, small and fragmented domestic markets that are landlocked and often prone to external shocks. Using an augmented gravity specification, this paper conducts an empirical investigation of the relationship between regional integration and inclusive growth in Africa. The adapted model is estimated using ordinary least squares, Pseudo Poisson maximum likelihood estimator and the Blundell-Bond system generalized method of moment estimator. The empirical results reveal that inclusive growth plays a vital role towards …


Black Panther: Thrills, Postcolonial Discourse, And Blacktopia, Giana M. Eckhardt Oct 2018

Black Panther: Thrills, Postcolonial Discourse, And Blacktopia, Giana M. Eckhardt

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Black Panther challenges traditional depictions of African nations in film by showcasing the fictional African country of Wakanda as a global technological leader, its citizens as being comfortable in global settings, and by having Wakanda deliver social aid to the US, reversing the typical global flow of assistance. Wakanda is depicted as a Blacktopia, where societies thrive beyond the reach of white supremacy as they have not been subject to colonization.


African Christian Leadership: Realities, Opportunities, And Impact, David K. Penno Jul 2018

African Christian Leadership: Realities, Opportunities, And Impact, David K. Penno

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"African Christian Leadership is a well-organized, well-written report on some very significant research about leaders and the practice of leadership in the African church. The methodology allowed the researcher to hear from a broad spectrum of African Christians. One criticism of the study could be that a sample of church leaders and members in majority Muslim countries of North Africa were not included in the study, but this might be understandable due to the already vast scope of the project. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in leadership in the Christian context, and especially as practiced …


Jarrod Hayes. Queer Roots For The Diaspora: Ghosts In The Family Tree. Ann Arbor: U Of Michigan P, 2016., Annie De Saussure Jun 2018

Jarrod Hayes. Queer Roots For The Diaspora: Ghosts In The Family Tree. Ann Arbor: U Of Michigan P, 2016., Annie De Saussure

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Jarrod Hayes. Queer Roots for the Diaspora: Ghosts in the family tree. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2016. 325 pp.


Du Folklore Au Cinéma: La Transformation D'Un Classique De La Littérature Orale, Désiré Nyela Jun 2018

Du Folklore Au Cinéma: La Transformation D'Un Classique De La Littérature Orale, Désiré Nyela

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Michel Ocelot's film Kirikou et la sorcière became a great success as soon as it hit the screens in 1998. It even inspired a sequel, Kirikou et les betes sauvages, whose release in 2005 earned the figure of the small African boy a permanent place in a wider Francophone imaginary. Originating in a traditional tale, Kirikou et la sorcière is an adaptation and, as such, the result of a transformation. Indeed, it is the result of a two-fold transformation involving a transition from the oral to the written, on one hand, and from the written to the visual, on …


Aid For Trade And Africa’S Trade Performance: Evidence From Bilateral Trade Flows With China And Oecd Countries☆, Adugna Lemi Jan 2018

Aid For Trade And Africa’S Trade Performance: Evidence From Bilateral Trade Flows With China And Oecd Countries☆, Adugna Lemi

Journal of African Trade

The optimism surrounding aid for trade (AfT) led scholars and practitioners to probe its link with trade performance of aid-recipient countries in Africa. In the absence of formal evaluation guidelines, most previous studies, using aggregate data, have looked into the impacts of AfT on exports and imports and found results consistent with the stated objectives of AfT. The present study investigates the nature of the link for the case of African countries using disaggregated AfT data from China and OECD member countries. The results show that flows of OECD aid to all sectors and to economic infrastructure have increased both …


Understanding Crude Oil Import Demand Behaviour In Africa: The Ghana Case, George Marbuah Jan 2018

Understanding Crude Oil Import Demand Behaviour In Africa: The Ghana Case, George Marbuah

Journal of African Trade

As in many African countries, crude oil importation is a major drain on the economy of Ghana. We estimate short-run and long-run import demand models for crude oil using data over the period 1980–2012. Results show that demand for crude oil is price inelastic in the short-run but elastic in the long-run. Other important drivers of crude oil import are the real effective exchange rate, domestic oil production and population growth. Income is found to be the strongest driver of crude oil demand. Policy implications of our results are presented.


Effect Of Exchange Rate Volatility On Trade In Sub-Saharan Africa☆, Bernardin Senadza, Desmond Delali Diaba Jan 2018

Effect Of Exchange Rate Volatility On Trade In Sub-Saharan Africa☆, Bernardin Senadza, Desmond Delali Diaba

Journal of African Trade

The volatile nature of exchange rates with the advent of floating regimes has received much attention in economic research. The volatility is generally perceived as negatively affecting international trade. While theoretical predictions and empirical outcomes appear mixed, the balance seems to tilt in favour of this perception. Applying the pooled mean-group estimator of dynamic heterogeneous panels technique to data for eleven Sub-Saharan African economies over the period 1993 to 2014, this paper uncovers no significant effects of exchange rate volatility on imports. In the case of exports, however, the study finds a negative effect of volatility in the short-run, consistent …


Oil Prices And African Stock Markets Co-Movement: A Time And Frequency Analysis, Grakolet Arnold Zamereith Gourène, Pierre Mendy Jan 2018

Oil Prices And African Stock Markets Co-Movement: A Time And Frequency Analysis, Grakolet Arnold Zamereith Gourène, Pierre Mendy

Journal of African Trade

This paper examines the co-movement between OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil prices and the six largest African stock markets. We used wavelet coherence to analyze the evolution of this relationship both in time and by frequency. Our results show that the co-movement between African stock markets and oil prices is relatively low, with the exception of emerging stock markets such as South Africa and Egypt. For most of the African stock markets, the co-movement takes place over large time scales and both during and after the U.S. financial crisis. At small scales, African stock markets could represent a …


Trade Dependence, Liberalization, And Exports Diversification In Developing Countries☆, Patrick N. Osakwe, Amelia U. Santos-Paulino, Berna Dogan Jan 2018

Trade Dependence, Liberalization, And Exports Diversification In Developing Countries☆, Patrick N. Osakwe, Amelia U. Santos-Paulino, Berna Dogan

Journal of African Trade

This paper explores the relationship between trade, trade liberalization, and exports diversification in developing and Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. The non-parametric analyses indicate that developing countries that are more open to trade (based on trade intensity) tend to have more diversified exports structures than those that are classified as less open. However, for SSA countries the non-parametric test shows that countries that are more open to trade have less diversified exports structures. Regarding the parametric analysis, the findings provide further evidence that trade liberalization, in the form of lower tariffs, contributes to exports diversification in developing countries, and the results …


Trade Facilitation And Social Welfare In Africa☆, Daniel Sakyi, Isaac Bonuedi, Eric Evans Osei Opoku Jan 2018

Trade Facilitation And Social Welfare In Africa☆, Daniel Sakyi, Isaac Bonuedi, Eric Evans Osei Opoku

Journal of African Trade

Improving social welfare in the developing world remains a top priority on the global development agenda, as policymakers and international development partners worldwide strive to meet the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Using data on 40 African countries over the period 2010–2015, this paper investigates the extent to which trade facilitation contributes to improving social welfare in Africa. To do so, we construct three indices of trade facilitation capturing infrastructure, institutions, and market efficiency from several primary indicators. With regard to social welfare, we use education (net primary school enrollment rate), child health (under-5 mortality rate), population health (life expectancy), …


How Well Does Observable Trade Data Measure Trade Friction Costs? Evidence From Member Countries Within The Economic Community Of West African States (Ecowas), Festus Ebo Turkson Jan 2018

How Well Does Observable Trade Data Measure Trade Friction Costs? Evidence From Member Countries Within The Economic Community Of West African States (Ecowas), Festus Ebo Turkson

Journal of African Trade

This paper is an empirical application of the micro-founded measure of trade costs by Head and Mayer (2004) and Novy (2013). The derived micro-founded measure, consistent with the Ricardian and heterogeneous firm's models of trade, captures all trade costs components that hitherto have been impossible to include in the gravity framework because of severe data limitations and the impracticability of measuring some of the trade cost components. Based on bilateral trade and production data from the Trade, Production, and Protection database by Nicita and Olarreaga (2007) over the period 1980–2003, the micro-founded estimate of relative bilateral trade cost measure computed …


Foreign Direct Investment, Productivity And The Technology Gap In African Economies, Christopher Malikane, Prosper Chitambara Jan 2018

Foreign Direct Investment, Productivity And The Technology Gap In African Economies, Christopher Malikane, Prosper Chitambara

Journal of African Trade

This paper investigates the impact of foreign direct investment on total factor productivity conditional on relative backwardness in a panel of 45 African countries over the period 1980–2012. We use two measures of relative backwardness, namely: the distance from technological frontier and the income gap. We apply the fixed-effects and two-step system GMM methods. We find a generally positive but weak effect of FDI on productivity growth. Meanwhile, the results do not support the convergence theory of Findlay (1978) and Wang and Blomstrom (1992), that relative backwardness would result in higher productivity growth via the adoption of foreign technologies.


Export Market Destination And Performance: Firm-Level Evidence From Sub-Saharan Africa☆, Ousmanou Njikam Jan 2018

Export Market Destination And Performance: Firm-Level Evidence From Sub-Saharan Africa☆, Ousmanou Njikam

Journal of African Trade

This paper uses a novel manufacturing firm-level survey data in 19 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries to explore the linkages among a number of export-market destinations (e.g., China, India, other Asia, EU, US, MENA, SSA excluding South Africa, and South Africa) and performance. The paper also examines differences between exporters and non-exporters performance and assesses self-selection. We find superior characteristics of exporters relative to non-exporters. Size, foreign ownership and past export experience enhance the propensity to export while continuing exporters outperform switching ones. Export destination matters: exporting to China leads to improvements in total factor productivity (TFP); India destination enhances the …


The Consequences Of Brexit For Africa: The Case Of The East African Community☆, Andrew Mold Jan 2018

The Consequences Of Brexit For Africa: The Case Of The East African Community☆, Andrew Mold

Journal of African Trade

How will Brexit impact on Africa? This paper looks at the available empirical evidence and carries out a Computable General Equilibrium simulation, focusing particularly on the prospects for the East African Community (EAC). The paper makes three main points. First, while the direct impacts through investment, trade and remittances are likely to be relatively small, African countries may benefit from the creation of new export opportunities. However, these are mainly in resource-intensive sectors that are not considered a priority for the development agendas of most African countries. Second, indirect consequences, through Brexit's impact on the global economy, its influence on …