Download or read book Africa s Infrastructure written by World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2009-12-01 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustainable infrastructure development is vital for Africa s prosperity. And now is the time to begin the transformation. This volume is the culmination of an unprecedented effort to document, analyze, and interpret the full extent of the challenge in developing Sub-Saharan Africa s infrastructure sectors. As a result, it represents the most comprehensive reference currently available on infrastructure in the region. The book covers the five main economic infrastructure sectors information and communication technology, irrigation, power, transport, and water and sanitation. 'Africa s Infrastructure: A Time for Transformation' reflects the collaboration of a wide array of African regional institutions and development partners under the auspices of the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa. It presents the findings of the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD), a project launched following a commitment in 2005 by the international community (after the G8 summit at Gleneagles, Scotland) to scale up financial support for infrastructure development in Africa. The lack of reliable information in this area made it difficult to evaluate the success of past interventions, prioritize current allocations, and provide benchmarks for measuring future progress, hence the need for the AICD. Africa s infrastructure sectors lag well behind those of the rest of the world, and the gap is widening. Some of the main policy-relevant findings highlighted in the book include the following: infrastructure in the region is exceptionally expensive, with tariffs being many times higher than those found elsewhere. Inadequate and expensive infrastructure is retarding growth by 2 percentage points each year. Solving the problem will cost over US$90 billion per year, which is more than twice what is being spent in Africa today. However, money alone is not the answer. Prudent policies, wise management, and sound maintenance can improve efficiency, thereby stretching the infrastructure dollar. There is the potential to recover an additional US$17 billion a year from within the existing infrastructure resource envelope simply by improving efficiency. For example, improved revenue collection and utility management could generate US$3.3 billion per year. Regional power trade could reduce annual costs by US$2 billion. And deregulating the trucking industry could reduce freight costs by one-half. So, raising more funds without also tackling inefficiencies would be like pouring water into a leaking bucket. Finally, the power sector and fragile states represent particular challenges. Even if every efficiency in every infrastructure sector could be captured, a substantial funding gap of $31 billion a year would remain. Nevertheless, the African people and economies cannot wait any longer. Now is the time to begin the transformation to sustainable development.

Download or read book Gender Equality and Inclusive Growth written by Raquel Fernández and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper considers various dimensions and sources of gender inequality and presents policies and best practices to address these. With women accounting for fifty percent of the global population, inclusive growth can only be achieved if it promotes gender equality. Despite recent progress, gender gaps remain across all stages of life, including before birth, and negatively impact health, education, and economic outcomes for women. The roadmap to gender equality has to rely on legal framework reforms, policies to promote equal access, and efforts to tackle entrenched social norms. These need to be set in the context of arising new trends such as digitalization, climate change, as well as shocks such as pandemics.

Download or read book When women hold local office Women s representation and political engagement amid conflict and climate shocks across Africa written by Kosec, Katrina and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2024-01-26 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One argument in favor of quotas for women’s representation in political office is that female politicians can break down gender barriers more broadly, inspiring individual women to participate politically. In many African countries, where gender gaps in political participation are large, identifying effective strategies to reduce gender imbalances is critical. Recurring climate and conflict shocks are making this task more urgent, to ensure that women’s voices are included when designing responses to those shocks and as it is possible that climate and conflict shocks could widen participation gaps. Using data from 13 African countries on women’s representation in subnational political offices as well as survey data on individual political participation, we find, first, that women’s representation in local office is associated with higher political participation by individual women (but not by men) in this context. Second, using geo-referenced data on shocks, we show that violent conflict shocks in particular lower political participation for everyone, although the effects are stronger for men compared to women in the 12-month frame that we consider here. Third, we find that, when women leaders hold local political office, the negative effects of conflict shocks on political participation are mitigated for women. These analyses offer important new insights into the relationship between women’s political representation and women’s individual political activity within the context of shocks.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Energy Politics written by Kathleen J. Hancock and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-10-15 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In many ways, everything we once knew about energy resources and technologies has been impacted by: the longstanding scientific consensus on climate change and related support for renewable energy; the affordability of extraction of unconventional fuels; increasing demand for energy resources by middle- and low-income nations; new regional and global stakeholders; fossil fuel discoveries and emerging renewable technologies; awareness of (trans)local politics; and rising interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the need for energy justice. Research on these and related topics now appears frequently in social science academic journals-in broad-based journals, such as International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and Review of International Political Economy, as well as those focused specifically on energy (e.g., Energy Research & Social Science and Energy Policy), the environment (Global Environmental Politics), natural resources (Resources Policy), and extractive industries (Extractive Industries and Society). The Oxford Handbook of Energy Politics synthesizes and aggregates this substantively diverse literature to provide insights into, and a foundation for teaching and research on, critical energy issues primarily in the areas of international relations and comparative politics. Its primary goals are to further develop the energy politics scholarship and community, and generate sophisticated new work that will benefit a variety of scholars working on energy issues"--

Download or read book Enhancing the Climate Resilience of Africa s Infrastructure written by Raffaello Cervigni and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book How to Achieve Inclusive Growth written by Valerie Cerra and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-22 with total page 901 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Rising inequality and widespread poverty, social unrest and polarization, gender and ethnic disparities, declining social mobility, economic fragility, unbalanced growth due to technology and globalization, and existential danger from climate change are urgent global concerns of our day. These issues are intertwined. They therefore require a holistic framework to examine their interplay and bring the various strands together. Leading academic economists have partnered with experts from several international institutions to explain the sources and scale of these challenges. They gather a wide array of empirical evidence and country experiences to lay out practical policy solutions and to devise a comprehensive and unified plan of action for combatting these economic and social disparities. This authoritative book is accessible to policy makers, students, and the general public interested in how to craft a brighter future by building a sustainable, green, and inclusive society in the years ahead.

Download or read book Women and the Informal Economy in Urban Africa written by Mary Njeri Kinyanjui and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2014-06-12 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this highly original work, Mary Njeri Kinyanjui explores the trajectory of women's movement from the margins of urbanization into the centres of business activities in Nairobi and its accompanying implications for urban planning. While women in much of Africa have struggled to gain urban citizenship and continue to be weighed down by poor education, low income and confinement to domestic responsibilities due to patriarchic norms, a new form of urban dynamism - partly informed by the informal economy - is now enabling them to manage poverty, create jobs and link to the circuits of capital and labour. Relying on social ties, reciprocity, sharing and collaboration, women's informal 'solidarity entrepreneurialism' is taking them away from the margins of business activity and catapulting them into the centre. Bringing together key issues of gender, economic informality and urban planning in Africa, Kinyanjui demonstrates that women have become a critical factor in the making of a postcolonial city.

Download or read book Lifelines written by Stephane Hallegatte and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Infrastructure—electricity, telecommunications, roads, water, and sanitation—are central to people’s lives. Without it, they cannot make a living, stay healthy, and maintain a good quality of life. Access to basic infrastructure is also a key driver of economic development. This report lays out a framework for understanding infrastructure resilience - the ability of infrastructure systems to function and meet users’ needs during and after a natural hazard. It focuses on four infrastructure systems that are essential to economic activity and people’s well-being: power systems, including the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity; water and sanitation—especially water utilities; transport systems—multiple modes such as road, rail, waterway, and airports, and multiple scales, including urban transit and rural access; and telecommunications, including telephone and Internet connections.

Download or read book Banking in Africa Delivering on Financial Inclusion Supporting Financial Stability written by European Investment Bank and published by European Investment Bank. This book was released on 2018-11-21 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its fourth edition, this report focuses on recent developments in Africa's banking sectors and the policy options for all stakeholders. The study of banking sectors across all African sub-regions includes the results of the EIB survey of banking groups operating in Africa. Three thematic chapters address challenges and opportunities for financing investment in Africa: Crowding out of private sector lending by public debt issuance The state of bank recovery and resolution laws in Africa Policy options on how to finance infrastructure development. The report finds that in many African banking markets, the last two years saw a pause in financial deepening. However, a rising share of banking groups report improving market conditions and plan a structural expansion of their operations in Africa and a continued push for new technologies.

Download or read book FinTech in Sub Saharan African Countries written by Mr.Amadou N Sy and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2019-02-14 with total page 61 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FinTech is a major force shaping the structure of the financial industry in sub-Saharan Africa. New technologies are being developed and implemented in sub-Saharan Africa with the potential to change the competitive landscape in the financial industry. While it raises concerns on the emergence of vulnerabilities, FinTech challenges traditional structures and creates efficiency gains by opening up the financial services value chain. Today, FinTech is emerging as a technological enabler in the region, improving financial inclusion and serving as a catalyst for the emergence of innovations in other sectors, such as agriculture and infrastructure.

Download or read book The Impact of School Infrastructure on Learning written by Peter Barrett and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2019-02-04 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Impact of School Infrastructure on Learning: A Synthesis of the Evidence provides an excellent literature review of the resources that explore the areas of focus for improved student learning, particularly the aspiration for “accessible, well-built, child-centered, synergetic and fully realized learning environments.†? Written in a style which is both clear and accessible, it is a practical reference for senior government officials and professionals involved in the planning and design of educational facilities, as well as for educators and school leaders. --Yuri Belfali, Head of Division, Early Childhood and Schools, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills This is an important and welcome addition to the surprisingly small, evidence base on the impacts of school infrastructure given the capital investment involved. It will provide policy makers, practitioners, and those who are about to commission a new build with an important and comprehensive point of reference. The emphasis on safe and healthy spaces for teaching and learning is particularly welcome. --Harry Daniels, Professor of Education, Department of Education, Oxford University, UK This report offers a useful library of recent research to support the, connection between facility quality and student outcomes. At the same time, it also points to the unmet need for research to provide verifiable and reliable information on this connection. With such evidence, decisionmakers will be better positioned to accurately balance the allocation of limited resources among the multiple competing dimensions of school policy, including the construction and maintenance of the school facility. --David Lever, K-12 Facility Planner, Former Executive Director of the Interagency Committee on School Construction, Maryland Many planners and designers are seeking a succinct body of research defining both the issues surrounding the global planning of facilities as well as the educational outcomes based on the quality of the space provided. The authors have finally brought that body of evidence together in this well-structured report. The case for better educational facilities is clearly defined and resources are succinctly identified to stimulate the dialogue to come. We should all join this conversation to further the process of globally enhancing learning-environment quality! --David Schrader, AIA, Educational Facility Planner and Designer, Former Chairman of the Board of Directors, Association for Learning Environments (A4LE)

Download or read book Yes Africa Can written by Punam Chuhan-Pole and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2011-06-24 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Takes an in-depth look at twenty-six economic and social development successes in Sub-Saharan African countries, and addresses how these countries have overcome major developmental challenges.

Download or read book Information and Communication Technologies for Women s Socioeconomic Empowerment written by Samia Melhem and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2009-10-02 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper reviews how women in the developing world access and use information and communication technology (ICT). It examines the discourse and controversies surrounding the digital gender divide, including links to poverty and illiteracy. Major themes concerning women and ICTs are explored, such as women in the ICT workforce, how girls and women relate differently to ICT, and opportunities and barriers for women in science and technology in general. Current research relating to gender and ICT is often country-specific and is more prevalent in developed countries than in developing countries. This paper suggests where additional research is needed on barriers to women s entry and access to ICT. The overall objective of this paper is to influence policy dialogue around women and ICT for development by raising awareness of the digital gender divide. Economic opportunity for women in ICT will not be realized until policies address gender considerations and ensure that ICT investment contributes to more sustainable and equitable development.

Download or read book Inclusive Peacebuilding written by Herbert Bangura and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Economic Development in Africa Report 2021 written by UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT. and published by . This book was released on 2022-01-07 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The African Continental Free Trade Area is expected to be a game changer for development ambitions in Africa.

Download or read book The State of Peacebuilding in Africa written by Terence McNamee and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-11-02 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book on the state of peacebuilding in Africa brings together the work of distinguished scholars, practitioners, and decision makers to reflect on key experiences and lessons learned in peacebuilding in Africa over the past half century. The core themes addressed by the contributors include conflict prevention, mediation, and management; post-conflict reconstruction, justice and Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration; the role of women, religion, humanitarianism, grassroots organizations, and early warning systems; and the impact of global, regional, and continental bodies. The book's thematic chapters are complemented by six country/region case studies: The Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan/South Sudan, Mozambique and the Sahel/Mali. Each chapter concludes with a set of key lessons learned that could be used to inform the building of a more sustainable peace in Africa. The State of Peacebuilding in Africa was born out of the activities of the Southern Voices Network for Peacebuilding (SVNP), a Carnegie-funded, continent-wide network of African organizations that works with the Wilson Center to bring African knowledge and perspectives to U.S., African, and international policy on peacebuilding in Africa. The research for this book was made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Download or read book Infrastructure Development in Nigeria written by Michael O. Onolememen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-01-22 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the politics and economics of infrastructure development in Nigeria from Independence in 1960 up to 2015, and the role of good governance in promoting the socioeconomic wellbeing of citizens. Arguing for the need for transformational leadership in infrastructure development, the chapters examine policy issues and survey the various administrative, economic, and social-political reforms that have impacted infrastructure development in Nigeria. The author also discusses current national development plans and Vision 20:2020; challenges to infrastructure development, including corruption; and the future potential of a strong infrastructure network for the economy and citizens. Drawing upon his experience within government departments, as well as existing models of leadership and governance, the author explores the role of infrastructure development in promoting the wellbeing and growth of Nigeria. Combining theory with practical examples of good governance, this book will be of interest for students and researchers of political science and infrastructure development in Africa.