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Begin New Search Topic Climate Change Political Geography Sub-Saharan Africa

1. Surviving the storm: How climate-related disasters reshape tax morale in sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
Enrico Nichelatti and Abrams Tagem
Publication Date:
04-2025
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Climate-related disasters have increased over recent decades, with severe human and economic consequences. While research has examined their macroeconomic effects and impact on households’ income and consumption patterns, little attention has been given to their impact on tax morale—taxpayers’ intrinsic motivation to comply with tax obligations. This study fills this gap by estimating the impact of climaterelated disasters on tax morale in 26 sub-Saharan African countries using Afrobarometer survey data from 2011 to 2021. The analysis considers six climate-related shocks: droughts, earthquakes, extreme temperatures, floods, storms, and wildfires. We hypothesize that the impact of climate-related disasters on tax morale depends on the specific disasters considered, and that these heterogeneous effects work through two key mechanisms: economic inequality and trust in public institutions. First, they can exacerbate inequality by reducing government revenue, increasing economic hardship for vulnerable groups (through loss of livelihoods), and eliciting unequal policy responses from government. Climate-related disasters can also reduce inequality when associated with increased economic hardship for richer households (by destroying their productive assets. Second, tax morale declines when citizens perceive government responses as inadequate or unfair; conversely, it increases if citizens perceive the government to be responding adequately. Logistic regression results confirm this heterogeneity. Droughts, extreme temperatures, floods, and storms reduce tax morale, while earthquakes and wildfires increase it. Incorporating regional heterogeneity shows that the negative effects of disasters on tax morale are more profound in rural areas. Mediation analysis confirms inequality and institutional trust as key transmission channels. These findings underscore the need for inclusive tax policies and effective post-disaster governance to sustain revenue mobilization in sub-Saharan Africa.
Topic:
Climate Change, Natural Disasters, Tax Systems, and Economic Inequality
Political Geography:
Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa

2. Understanding electricity utilities in sub-Saharan Africa: The role of civil society in improving performance, governance, and accountability

Author:
Peter Twesigye
Publication Date:
08-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
This report provides a primer on the performance of electricity utilities in sub-Saharan Africa, reflecting on the current landscape of power sector and utility challenges, the reforms undertaken to address performance failures, opportunities for a “utility of the future” amid the global energy transition, governance frameworks available to assess performance (like the infrastructure regulatory system and World Bank’s Utility Performance and Behavior Today [UPBEAT] platform), and the prospects for changing the political economy of state-owned utilities to significantly improve transparency, accountability, and performance. It provides foundational knowledge on how to use financial statements and economic tools so that nonexperts can assess the financial health of a utility for the purposes of demanding greater accountability. It also provides insights on why energy sector power purchase agreements (PPAs) should be made more transparent for greater public accountability. Further, the primer lays out the need for an enhanced role of civil society in advocating for improved transparency and greater civil participation in the governance of state-owned utilities and how regulation can be of further help. The key takeaway is that state-owned enterprises should be subject to commercial governance arrangements, including mandatory and stringent contracts and exposure to some private capital as well as stakeholder annual general meetings, open to the public, similar to those that occur in the private sector. This report complements three other reports published for Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. Each of those reports focuses on understanding the specific governance conditions surrounding their respective national electricity utilities. All these reports together are intended to build the programmatic and campaigning capacity among civil society actors to enable them to engage in improving the governance of electricity utilities. As such, the intended audience for this report is, first, members of civil society, and then policymakers and energy sector practitioners who are concerned about the operations of their national electricity utilities and who are contemplating advocacy and programming to improve their performance.
Topic:
Civil Society, Climate Change, Governance, Electricity, Utilities, and Energy
Political Geography:
Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa

3. Good Practices in the Provision of Global Public Goods: How multilateral development banks build on global public goods in their operations

Author:
Johanna Neuhoff and Hannah Zick
Publication Date:
07-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Oxford Economics
Abstract:
In our flagship report, ‘Multilateral Development Banks for Global Public Goods’, commissioned by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Oxford Economics highlighted the positive role that the use of GPGs can play in preventing and addressing crises that cross national boundaries. As part of that work, we wanted to identify and share promising practices and good examples of how the provision of GPGs can be supported through international funding—and in particular through MDBs. We gathered a longlist of 99 examples of MDBs supporting GPG provision based on comprehensive desk research and interviews with over 30 key actors in the realm of project development. From this, we selected 20 case studies to carry out “deep dive” research to showcase good practices of provision of GPGs by MDBs based on whether the intervention: benefitted not only people inside the country of implementation but also beyond the country’s borders; supported the implementation of framework conditions that change the incentive structure for the provision of GPGs; could be replicated in other countries; and rated a good practice in reports or named a good practice by interview partners from MDBs. As a result, we gathered examples of GPG projects supported by MDBs and multilateral institutions at the country level that might not have been intended to only support GPG provision—such as those GPG projects mostly financed via Trust Funds and FIFs—but which also produced high GPG effects by maximising the synergies between national and global benefits. The case studies are designed to inform stakeholders from MDBs and receiving countries involved in the programming and project designing of development cooperation alike. The case studies showcase promising and highly replicable ways of supporting the provision of GPGs in the MDBs’ country engagement—considering both national and cross-country benefits of an intervention. Furthermore, valuable lessons can be learned on the institutional set-up, financing, quantification etc. concerning the support of GPGs by MDBs. They include examples of projects in sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia & Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and South Asia, and which covered issues such as climate and the environment, global public health, peace and security, financial resilience, and a fair international trading system. In a synthesis report, we set out 12 recommendations to organisations implementing GPGs to ensure they maximise the benefits on the ground, based on our findings from the analysis of the case studies. These range from using cost-benefit analysis and focusing on projects with high cross-country benefits to helping coordination of in-country provision and encouraging regional learning.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Environment, International Trade and Finance, Institutions, Public Health, and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs)
Political Geography:
South Asia, East Asia, Germany, Latin America, Caribbean, Asia-Pacific, Global Focus, and Sub-Saharan Africa

4. Cumulative climate shocks and migratory flows: evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
Salvatore Di Falco, Anna B. Kis, and Martina Viarengo
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
Abstract:
We re-examine the effects of negative weather anomalies during the growing season on the decision to migrate in rural households in five sub-Saharan African countries. To this end we combine a multi-country household panel dataset with high-resolution gridded precipitation data. We find that while the effect of recent adverse weather shocks is on average modest, the cumulative effect of a persistent exposure to droughts over several years leads to a significant increase in the probability to migrate. The results show that more frequent adverse shocks can have more significant and long-lasting consequences in challenging economic environments.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Migration, and Drought
Political Geography:
Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa

5. Climate Change Impacts on Agriculture and Conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
Munsu Kang
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP)
Abstract:
This study investigates the climate change impacts on agriculture and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). SSA is the most vulnerable region responding to the weather shocks such as drought and flood. Furthermore, more than half of population in SSA are engaged in agricultural production that is highly affected by the rainfall pattern and temperature increases. For this reason, disruption of agriculture caused by the weather shock also can increase the probability of conflict such as demonstration and riot. This study focuses on 43 SSA countries after excluded small islands. Using scenario analysis, we find that temperature increases rather than precipitation might affect maize and sorghum production negatively while it is unclear for the rice production. We also find that increases in average temperature and maximum temperature might increase the probability of conflicts even if the effects of climate on riot and demonstration are U-shape pattern while it is reverse U-shape for battle and civilian conflicts.
Topic:
Agriculture, Climate Change, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa

6. Weathering shocks: the effects of weather shocks on farm input use in sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
Aimable Nsabimana
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
: There has been much discussion on climate change and its adverse effects on agriculture, including excessive loss of food production. In regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, where agriculture is the major source of household livelihoods, shocks in weather patterns affect farmers’ expectations of farm yield and hence the decision to adopt farm inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides and the extent of their utilization, particularly given the relatively high cost of these inputs. In this study, I explore the relationship between weather shocks and the intensity of inputs use at the plot level using large-scale national panel data from three African countries: Niger, Nigeria, and Tanzania. By combining monthly drought index data with a rich Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture dataset, I find that the intensity of chemical fertilizer use reduces much more in drought-prone areas than in less drought-prone areas during growing seasons. I also find that drought during lean seasons is associated with higher pesticide uptake. The evidence suggests that drought induces farmers to purposively reduce farm investments, including yield-enhancing technology such as chemical fertilizer, hence worsening adverse farm yield effects.
Topic:
Agriculture, Climate Change, Food Security, Weather, and Chemical Fertilizer
Political Geography:
Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa

7. Cumulative Climate Shocks and Migratory Flows: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
Salvatore Di Falco, Anna B. Kis, and Martina Viarengo
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
Abstract:
We re-examine the effects of negative weather anomalies during the growing season on the decision to migrate in rural households in five sub-Saharan African countries. To this end we combine a multi-country household panel dataset with high-resolution gridded precipitation data. We find that while the effect of recent adverse weather shocks is on average modest, the cumulative effect of a persistent exposure to droughts over several years leads to a significant increase in the probability to migrate. The results show that more frequent adverse shocks can have more significant and long-lasting consequences in challenging economic environments.
Topic:
Climate Change, Migration, Urban, Rural, and Economic Development
Political Geography:
Sub-Saharan Africa

8. Establishing the empirical basis for tracing the development outcomes of agricultural investments

Author:
Helle Munk Ravnborg, Bernard Bashaasha, Rikke Broegaard, Michael Byaruhanga, Evelyne Lazaro, Festo Maro, Khamaldin Mutabazi, Teddy Nakanwagi, and David Tumusiime
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
This DIIS Working Paper describes the design of a questionnaire survey developed and implemented in order to trace the development outcomes of foreign agricultural investments in six research locations in Tanzania and Uganda. The questionnaire survey was conducted as part of the Agricultural Investors as Development Actors (henceforward AIDA) research programme which, in particular, focuses on development outcomes in terms of employment, migration, food security and wider dynamic economic effects, such as access to technology, infrastructure and markets; land markets and perceived security of land tenure; and water access and security of tenure. The working paper which serves as a methodological reference document describes the approach which was employed for drawing six independent samples of 400 respondents each, as well as the approach developed for computing a foreign agricultural investment exposure index and for computing a locally informed household poverty index.
Topic:
Agriculture, Climate Change, Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, Environment, Poverty, Water, Food, Governance, Inequality, Investment, and Land Rights
Political Geography:
Sub-Saharan Africa and Africa

9. Renewable energy in Africa is about more than climate change: Aid needed for both clean energy and local capacity

Author:
Rasmus Hundsbæk Pedersen and Ole Winckler Andersen
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
Development assistance for new renewable energy in Sub-Saharan Africa is increasingly being used to mobilise additional private capital. Recipient countries do not always share the priorities of donors. Realism and long-term support are key. RECOMMENDATIONS: Continue funding, but also acknowledge different interests and objectives, in order to move new renewable energy to scale. Balance the support for market development with support to government entities. Support longer-term capacity-building to ensure energy sector sustainability in recipient countries. Adopt flexible approaches and ensure independent advice to governments and institutions.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Foreign Aid, and Renewable Energy
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Denmark, and Sub-Saharan Africa

10. Increasing Access to Affordable Agricultural Microinsurance in Sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
Brenden McKinney
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University (ISID)
Abstract:
The effects of climate change are causing risk management to become an increasingly essential tool to help farmers anticipate and react to weather-related shocks like droughts and floods. When an efficient risk management system is implemented, it improves the standard of living of those who depend on farming, strengthens agricultural businesses, and supports investment; such a system can decrease the overall risk profiles of individuals and increase the confidence of farmers in their ability to take on risks that could improve their income. 1 While risk mitigation plays a key role in socio-economic development, the system must be affordable in order to successfully reduce poverty levels for those at the base of the economic pyramid.
Topic:
Agriculture, Climate Change, Development, and Microinsurance
Political Geography:
Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa