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42. Africa's Evolving Infosystems: A Pathway to Security and Stability
- Author:
- Steven Livingston
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Africa Center for Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- Political instability and violence in Africa are often the products of rumor and misinformation. Narrow interests have used politically biased newspapers and radio programming to spread disinformation and champion politically divisive causes. Meanwhile, reasonable opposition voices have been kept silent and shuttered from public life, often by repressive, even violent means. This remains a serious concern across Africa.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Security, Political Violence, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- Africa
43. Africa Can Feed Itself in a Generation
- Author:
- Calestous Juma
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- African agriculture is at a crossroads. Persistent food shortages are now being compounded by new threats arising from climate change. But Africa also has three major opportunities that can help transform its agriculture to be a force for economic growth. First, advances in science, technology, and engineering worldwide offer Africa new tools needed to promote sustainable agriculture. Second, efforts to create regional markets will provide new incentives for agricultural production and trade. Third, a new generation of African leaders is helping the continent focus on long-term economic transformation.
- Topic:
- Security, Agriculture, Economics, Science and Technology, and Food
- Political Geography:
- Africa
44. Bridging the Digital Gender Divide in Africa
- Publication Date:
- 01-2010
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- African Heads of States and Governments gather in Addis Ababa for the 14th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union at a time when the continent faces a huge digital divide. African women are disproportionately affected by this divide.
- Topic:
- Gender Issues and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- Africa
45. Does Digital Divide or Provide? The Impact of Cell Phones on Grain Markets in Niger
- Author:
- Jenny C. Aker
- Publication Date:
- 10-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Due partly to costly information, price dispersion across markets is common in developed and developing countries. Between 2001 and 2006, cell phone service was phased in throughout Niger, providing an alternative and cheaper search technology to grain traders and other market actors. Weconstruct a novel theoretical model of sequential search, in which traders engage in optimal search for the maximum sales price, net transport costs. The model predicts that cell phones will increase traders' reservation sales prices and the number of markets over which they search, leading to a reduction in price dispersion across markets. To test the predictions of the theoretical model, we use a unique market and trader dataset from Niger that combines data on prices, transport costs, rainfall and grain production with cell phone access and trader behavior. We first exploit the quasi-experimental nature of cell phone coverage to estimate the impact of the introduction of information technology on market performance. The results provide evidence that cell phones reduce grain price dispersion across markets by a minimum of 6.4 percent and reduce intra-annual price variation by 12 percent. Cell phones have a greater impact on price dispersion for market pairs that are farther away, and for those with lower road quality. This effect becomes larger as a higher percentage of markets have cell phone coverage. We provide empirical evidence in support of specific mechanisms that partially explain the impact of cell phones on market performance. Robustness checks suggest that the results are not driven by selection on unobservables, nor are they solely a result of general equilibrium effects. Calculations of the four-firm concentration index suggest that the grain market structure is competitive, so the observed reductions in price dispersion are not due to greater market collusion. The primary mechanism by which cell phones affect market-level outcomes appears to be a reduction in search costs, as grain traders operating in markets with cell phone coverage search over a greater number of markets and sell in more markets. The results suggest that cell phones improved consumer and trader welfare in Niger.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Nigeria
46. Uncovering Dynamics in the Accumulation of Technological Capabilities and Skills in the Mozambican Manufacturing Sector
- Author:
- Alex Warren-Rodriguez
- Publication Date:
- 03-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
- Abstract:
- This paper examines the formation and accumulation of skills and technological capabilities in the Mozambican manufacturing sector. To this effect, it deploys Sanjaya Lall’s technology capabilities conceptual and methodological framework to examine these issues for the Mozambican metalworking and light chemical sectors in the context of historical dynamics taking place in Mozambique in the economic and industrial policy spheres. This analysis shows that these two industries are experiencing a process of gradual technological obsolescence, combined with a progressive simplification of production processes that is leading to a weakening of their technology capability and skill base. In this context, neither foreign direct investment, nor other mechanisms of technology transfer identified in the literature as contributing to the process of technological and skills accumulation, appear to have been able to reverse these trends. In light of available evidence on recent industrial (policy) developments, this paper argues that this process can be seen as a response to a deteriorating policy and economic environment that in the past two decades has undermined investments in industrial technological development in Mozambique.
- Topic:
- Science and Technology, Foreign Direct Investment, Manufacturing, and Industrialization
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Mozambique, and Sub-Saharan Africa
47. An Exploration of Factors Shaping Technology-Upgrading Efforts in Mozambican Manufacturing Firms
- Author:
- Alex Warren-Rodriguez
- Publication Date:
- 05-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
- Abstract:
- This paper presents an analysis of factors shaping technology-upgrading efforts in the Mozambican manufacturing sector. It uses firm-level data to examine these issues for the metalworking and light chemicals sectors, using Logit regression analysis to identify factors associated with firms’ decisions to engage in technology-upgrading efforts in three areas: (i) product development; (ii) production technology development aimed at upgrading existing equipment or purchasing entirely new manufacturing technologies; (iii) and process engineering. In line with much of the literature on industrial organization and the microeconomics of technology change, this paper finds that existing production and technological conditions in manufacturing firms do play an important role in shaping their technological efforts. However, this association is not always linear, cumulative or uniform across the various relevant spheres of manufacturing, underscoring the multifaceted nature of technology change at this level. Moreover, factors identified in the literature as being instrumental in shaping technology development efforts, such as skills or foreign ownership, play no role in dynamics of this kind in Mozambique. At the same time, other factors that have received less attention, such as the ability of firms to engage in technology cooperation arrangements or the role played by demand and market conditions appear as important factors shaping these technology-upgrading efforts. Altogether, these findings serve to underscore the importance of defining policy interventions for private sector development that go beyond investment climate concerns and take into account issues such as the promotion of linkages, technology cooperation and demand/market management considerations.
- Topic:
- Science and Technology, Demand, Manufacturing, and Private Sector
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Mozambique, and Sub-Saharan Africa
48. Linking Technology Development to Enterprise Growth: Evidence from the Mozambican Manufacturing Sector
- Author:
- Alex Warren-Rodriguez
- Publication Date:
- 09-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
- Abstract:
- This paper examines the relationship between firm-level technological development and enterprise performance in the Mozambican manufacturing sector. It does this on the basis of primary data collected for two industries – metalworking and light chemicals – and the triangulation of quantitative and qualitative information. Overall, the analysis presented in this paper only identifies a weak and, in some cases counterintuitive, association between levels of technological capability and innovation and enterprise performance. There are, however, some isolated exceptions to this finding, in which technology development has played a more decisive role in driving enterprise growth, such as the cluster of firms subcontracting work with the Mozal aluminium smelting plant. The case study of this cluster of firms allows the identification and illustration of conditions that might be required to facilitate a process of technology-led manufacturing growth.
- Topic:
- Industrial Policy, Science and Technology, Economic growth, and Innovation
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Mozambique, and Sub-Saharan Africa
49. Global Public Health and Biosecurity: Managing Twenty-First Century Risks
- Author:
- Margaret E. Kruk
- Publication Date:
- 07-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Peace Institute
- Abstract:
- In this first decade of the twenty-first century, we have reason both to commend and to decry the state of human health and our ability to improve it. We have achieved a maximum life expectancy of eighty-six years and have found a way to manage, though not cure, the most deadly epidemic since the Black Plague, AIDS. We can keep up with mutating viruses to produce a new flu vaccine every year and we can save babies born only twenty-three weeks into a pregnancy. Yet that is only half the picture. We also live in a world where a Nigerian newborn has a nearly one in five chance of dying before reaching age five and her mother a one in sixteen chance of dying in one of her pregnancies. Life expectancy in parts of sub-Saharan Africa has fallen below forty years. We have experienced remarkable scientific advances over the past fifty years, although we have not been able to apply many of these to the bedside or to public health policy. And so we have powerful genetic tools to study the components of viral RNA but cannot predict when or even if the bird flu will spread to humans.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Globalization, Health, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Nigeria
50. Health, Shocks and Poverty Persistence
- Author:
- Stefan Dercon and John Hoddinott
- Publication Date:
- 01-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- In this paper we review the evidence on the impact of large shocks, such as drought, on child and adult health, with particular emphasis on Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. Our focus is on the impact of shocks on long-term outcomes, and we ask whether there are intrahousehold differences in these effects. The evidence suggests substantial fluctuations in body weight and growth retardation in response to shocks. While there appears to be no differential impact between boys and girls, adult women are often worse affected by these shocks. For children, there is no full recovery from these losses, affecting adult health and education outcomes, as well as lifetime earnings. For adults, there is no evidence of persistent effects from transitory shocks in our data.
- Topic:
- Development, Poverty, Science and Technology, and Third World
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia