Business and Economics Journal

This paper critically assessed some employment poverty reducing strategies put in place in Africa. From the assessment, it was realized that the strategies did not adequately contribute to generate decent and well remunerating jobs that could substantially curb poverty. As a result of this limited success of the strategies was partly attributed to limited public investments, inadequate planning and execution of development projects, dreadful mismanagement and poor allocation of resources, etc. Consequently, Africa habours about half of the world’s poor, vulnerable and underprivileged population. Thus, in an effort to reverse the situation, it is recommended that African countries should: provide professional and scientific training and education which is relevant to the needs of their economies; put in place a range of incentives which would attract foreign investments that will transform their primary and agricultural products locally; promote the intensive use of labour in implementing sustainable projects; and increase their investment in Science, Technology and Innovatio.

The Climate change increases the risks to financial stability across economies, by exposing economic activity, assets and capital flows to exogenous shocks. This paper argues for �??Circular Monetary Economics�?�, an approach to monetary policy that seeks to green and prudentially insulate the design and implementation of liquidity and credit facilities. Central banks repo market operations and liquidity infusions occasion a structural liquidity mismatch in financial markets, but could be sued to incentivise the transition towards a greener economy. By aligning credit growth and standards with central bank liquidity, commercial banks will be incentivised to green and insulate their portfolios against extreme climate events. Circular monetary economics will lessen the probability of cross-asset contamination within financial institutions and contagion within the broader financial system, whilst simultaneously improving the transmissions from changes in the policy rate as well as macro-prudential regimes in the event of a climate or credit-driven financial shock.

This study examines the impact of Umurenge SACCOs to financial inclusion in Rwanda. Secondary data which are time series were analyses with objectives to find out whether U-SACCO have impact to financial inclusion with baseline to 3 dimensions of Quality, accessibility and usage are dimensions of financial inclusion. This study used descriptive analysis and both excel and STATA used in computing data. The finding of this study demonstrated the positive impact of U-SACCOs to financial inclusion. However, government should put more attention on quality of financial service in SACCOs by automating of all SACCOs.

The aim of this paper is to study the potential effect of the financial integration and market microstructure in informational efficiency, in the context of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. Our sample comprises ten developed and African emerging markets over the period from 2003 to 2012. Using the same methodology adopted, our findings show several interesting facts. First, the markets that are more integrated with the US market are also more efficient. Moreover, this significant and positive association is established in both subgroups of developed and African stock markets. Second, the relationship between informational efficiency and financial integration loses its explanatory power over the global financial crisis period and during which African emerging markets seem to be more volatile than their developed counterparts. Overall, our results confirm that the potential benefits of financial integration process are important in the African region, which might attract foreign investors hoping not only to maximize the expected return of their portfolio but also to minimize the associated risk.

Increases in the atmospheric concentration of carbon have significant adverse environmental and socio-economic implications, more so for developing with little climate-centric infrastructure. This paper investigates the salience of renewable energy in addressing climate risks and forming the basis of an innovation-centric growth model. It analyses the prevalence of knowledge spillovers in Cameroon using patents as a proxy for innovation and drawing from a broad-based international literature spanning. The study finds a propensity for knowledge spillovers, which occur from renewable energy to innovation due to learning-by-doing. Additionally, spatial distributions of knowledge clusters are found to result from tacit circulation of technological information within and across industries. The paper finds the need for policymakers to prioritize climate-centric infrastructure to lessen environmental externalities and redress socio-economic and regional imbalances. Meanwhile, second-round effects will incite cross-industry applications from Renewable energy technologies (Rets) and achieve broader development and socio-economic objectives ranging from poverty reduction, innovation and sustainable economic growth.

The paper aimed to assessment the structural adjustment policies in Sudan. The paper problem was formulated in following main question: What were the most important objectives of structural adjustment policies and programs? The paper was based on the following main assumption: Structural adjustment policies and programs in Sudan have not achieved the desired goals. The paper used the descriptive and analytical approaches. The study reached that GDP, Per Capita (PC) and External Debt (ED) had inverse impact on Economic Growth (EG), while inflation rate and Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER) they had a direct impact on (GR). The paper recommended that the necessity of evaluating the structural adjustment policies to know the reasons for their failure, and then adopting
alternative policies that.

The linear relationship between time series variables is normally assumed to be stationary or simply the mean and variances do not change over time and the covariance of a variable and its lagged values are constant over time. In real situations there are some major events that can influence the fluctuations of such time series variables. Structural changes can identify whether the linear relationship between independent and dependent variable changes over some time t. The main purpose of this paper is to highlight some of the major structural breaks in tobacco consumption in Kenya for the period 1980 to 2016. The data used was extracted from Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) and Government statistical abstracts. The independent variables are the prices of tobacco both before and after tax and per capita income. The Zivot-Andrews test was applied to test one structural break, but Clement-Montane and Reyes test was used to identify the multiple structural changes. The results obtained were presented in a table form and figure for visual identification. Zivot Andrews showed that there were major and significant structural breaks in tobacco consumption in the year 2007(t-statistic value is -6.366), prices before tax in the year 1999(t-statistic value is -4.882) and per capita income had a break year 2006 (t-statistic value is -2.627). Clement Montane and Reyes results indicated that the variables under study had significant break years (p-values were less than 5 per cent significance level). Based on the results obtained, the consumption of tobacco had two major break structural breaks in the year, 1994 and 2003, similarly the income per capita break years were 1999 and 2009, also, the prices before and after-tax break years were in 1996 and 2003, and in 1995 and 2009 respectively. This structural change is an important observation in analysis as it improves the efficiency of the estimates and assist researchers and governments to identify policies that can help reduce tobacco use, reduce diseases associated with tobacco for a functional healthy nation.

This Study intends the assessment of micro loan by U microfinance from females of upper Sindh. The core objective was to assess the impact of U-Microfinance on poverty level of female for improving their living standards by providing them micro loans to be used for their small-scale business which could enable them to be empowered politically, socially, economically, and assessing its impacts on the health and education of their families. Therefore, this Study was conducted on assessment of microloan interventions of U Micro finance in the rural areas of upper Sindh. Quantitative approach used to measure the impact of micro loan on the poverty status of the female along with a qualitative study to further confirm the findings. In this study quasi experimental design was used in which two groups of data from the same respondents assuming the data ‘Before-loan and After-Loan Situation’ from the female borrowers of Khairpur, Sukkur, Shikarpur, Larkana and Dadu Districts of Upper Sindh. Poverty Score Card was used as a survey instrument originally developed by World Bank for each region separately. The indicators used in questionnaire were education of self and children, number of family members, rooms in the house, basic household facilities to advanced i.e. washing machine, cooking stove heater, Air Conditioner and television along with indicators of other assets like live Stock, engine driven vehicles and agricultural land.