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This paper aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 10 to investigate the role of quality institutions in the human capital-income inequality nexus. It uses an unbalanced panel data on the Gini index (measure of income inequality), human capital index and institutional quality index on 46 sub-Saharan African countries from 2010 to 2019. The Driscoll and Kraay (Rev Econ Stat 80:549–560, 1998) panel spatial correlation consistent (PSCC) and Firpo et al. (Unconditional quantile regressions. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper, No. 339, pp 1–54, 2007. https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA6822) bootstrap unconditional quantile regression (UQR) techniques are deployed. Among others, findings reveal that: (1) human capital and institutions aggravate inequality; (2) the interaction of human capital and institution reduce inequality; (3) UQR reveals that the interaction effect is negative at lower quantiles of 0.10, 0.25 and 0.50; and (4) results across the sub-regions are mixed. In addition, evidence from the margin plots reveals that the conditional effect of human capital on income inequality is negative as institutions are strengthened. The downward trend of the plot within the 95% confidence interval shows that institutional quality enhances the impact of human capital on income inequality. These are novel contributions to the literature as it suggests that quality institutions matter in the drive towards reducing the menace of income inequality. Policy recommendations include strengthening institutions and making basic education affordable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the relationship between urban agglomeration and income inequality. The World Bank and the United Nations place Sub-Saharan Africa among the leading urbanizing regions with sizable urban agglomeration inequality challenges. Therefore, the main research question of this study was whether there is a significant relationship between urban agglomeration and income inequality. This study also aimed to determine whether the relationship is nonlinear, estimated using a dynamic panel model, an inverted U-shaped Kuznets hypothesis, and balanced panel data from 2000 to 2020 for 22 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The findings revealed a nonlinear relationship between urban agglomeration and income inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa. The findings showed that income inequality increases with urban agglomeration in the first stage and decreases in the later stages of urbanization. Based on the findings, our recommendations are to enhance governance capacity in providing urban infrastructural investment, improve industrialization capacity, and open up the peri-urban connecting rural regions through public–private development partnerships to shorten the urbanization-driven income inequality inverted U-shaped Kuznets' turning point in Sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although most studies on disease emergencies underscore the need for household readiness for shocks associated with disease outbreaks, no study to date has provided a holistic measure for profiling households based on their readiness toward disease outbreaks. This paper introduces a novel Disease Outbreak Resilience Index (DORI) using a multidimensional approach that draws on the Alkire-Foster methodology. DORI measures disease outbreak resilience in four dimensions: (a) water and hygiene, (b) physical distancing, (c) energy and communication, and (d) economic security and resilience. The paper details the development of DORI and its use by presenting findings from ten countries in sub-Saharan Africa using data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) program. In addition to serving as a resilience index, we illustrate how DORI can be used to produce a disease outbreak vulnerability index (DOVI). As a versatile index, the indicators under each dimension can be tailored to meet country- and region-specific contexts based on indicators appropriate to each context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the seminal work of Sen, poverty has been recognized as a multidimensional phenomenon. The recent availability of relevant databases renewed the interest in this approach. This paper estimates multidimensional poverty among women in fourteen Sub-Saharan African countries using the Alkire and Foster multidimensional poverty measures, whose identification method is based on a counting approach. Four dimensions are considered: assets, health, schooling and empowerment. The results show important differences in poverty among the countries of the sample. The multidimensional poverty estimates are compared with some alternative measures such as the Human Development Index, income poverty, asset poverty and the Gender-related Development Index. It is found that including additional dimensions into the analysis leads to country rankings different from those obtained with the mentioned four measures. Decompositions by geographical area and dimension indicate that rural areas are significantly poorer than urban ones and that a lack of schooling is, in general, the highest contributor to poverty. The paper also conducts robustness and sensitivity analyses of the multidimensional estimates with respect to the number of dimensions in which deprivation is required in order to be considered poor, as well as to the poverty lines within each dimension. Several cases of dominance between countries are found in the first robustness test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The millennium development goals (MDGs) were designed to realign national priorities towards human development of which healthcare is the foundation. An extension of the MDGs, the sustainable development goals (SDGs), has more recently been introduced and has become the core focus for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) regardless of her performance vis-à-vis the MDGs. A transition into accomplishing the SDGs without identifying the efficiency and determinants of the shortfall in achieving the MDGs is a flawed approach. This paper seeks to estimate the efficiency of healthcare systems in SSA based on health focused MDGs. We estimate the technical efficiency and total factor productivity of these systems, and rank the annual performance of SSA's healthcare systems from 2010 to 2015 using a robust data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. Regression analysis is applied to the determinants of healthcare system efficiency. The DEA results show healthcare systems in SSA to be inefficient, with only three countries; Botswana in 2015, Rwanda in 2014 and 2015, and Tanzania in 2015; identified as efficient over the evaluated period. Failure to achieve technological advancements is the identified leading cause of a decrease in productivity. Scale inefficiency is determined to be the primary cause of technical inefficiency. The study also shows that governance measures, i.e., the rule of law and government efficacy, impact healthcare system efficiency more than public expenditure on health, indicating that the volume of resources invested in healthcare systems is not as important as the efficient management of the said resources in SSA countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As we approach 2015 the question of what, if anything, should replace the MDGs becomes increasingly important. This paper presents findings from studies on the implementation of the poverty, education and gender MDGs in Kenya and South Africa. These show how top-down processes associated with meeting the MDG targets led by government or large NGOs are disassociated from bottom-up engagements with gender, education and poverty by households or communities. A missing middle linked with professional action by teachers or civil servants and enhanced information flow means that groups from the top and the bottom talk past each other. We therefore argue that these experiences with implementing the MDGs, coupled with a variety of global changes since 2000s, mean that a major concern in developing a set of post 2015 goals is the need to address the disarticulation between 'top down' and 'bottom up' approaches in international development. We link this challenge with five principles put forward for post 2015 goals and indicators: holism, equity, sustainability, ownership and global obligation. The application of this approach to work on goals and targets is illustrated in relation to nutrition/food security and secondary education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Substantial literature has studied gender differences in political participation in Western industrialized democracies, but little is known about such gaps in sub-Saharan African nations. Using 2005 Afrobarometer data, this paper presents a systematic investigation of the gender gap in political participation across 18 sub-Saharan African countries. In line with cultural isomorphism, patterns in gender gaps across different types of participation generally mirror those of Western democracies, with small to no gender gaps in registration to vote, but substantial gaps in less institutionalized types of participation. Yet, the remaining large gaps cannot be explained by gender differences in socioeconomic characteristics and political attitudes as suggested in studies on Western industrialized nations. Finally, substantial cross-national differences within the sub-Saharan African are found, substantiating the importance of more fine-grained examinations of variation across sub-Saharan African nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study utilized instrumental variable techniques and the Driscoll-Kraay estimator to examine the effect of democracy and natural resources on income inequality using a comprehensive panel dataset from 43 sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The findings from our empirical analysis indicated that natural resources and democracy indices such as electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian drive income inequality in SSA. Regional comparative analysis also showed that the democracy indices increase income inequality in West, Central, and Southern Africa while having a neutral effect on income inequality in Eastern Africa. Natural resources were revealed to reduce income inequality in West and Southern African countries while increasing income inequality in Eastern Africa. In the case of Central Africa, natural resources play an insignificant role in income inequality. The interactive effect analysis indicates that the democracy indices interact with natural resources to increase income inequality in SSA. Finally, the democracy indices interacted with natural resources to drive income inequality in Eastern and Southern African countries while exerting an insignificant effect on income inequality in West and Central African countries. The policy implications of the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data for low- and middle- income countries (LMICs) are used to investigate the effect of the demographic transition on economic growth at sub-national level. We introduce a detailed classification of demographic window phases, determine how these phases are distributed among and within LMICs, and analyze the relationship between the demographic window of opportunity (DWO) and economic growth for 1921 urban and rural areas of sub-national regions within 91 LMICs. Many areas in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East have entered the window, but most of Sub-Saharan Africa is still in the traditional or pre-window phase. Our analyses reveal higher growth rates in areas passing through the DWO. Positive growth effects are particularly strong in rural and more educated regions and in countries with lower levels of corruption. Policy measures aimed at effectively using the DW for achieving growth should combine investments in education and rural development with better governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trust is a social capital with burgeoning research interests from diverse disciplines in the social sciences, behavioral sciences and health fields. Despite these abundant literatures, trust research in sub-Saharan Africa is limited. The overwhelming area of interest on trustworthiness have also been focused on the trustee, with little consideration of the extent to which individuals perceive themselves to be trustworthy and the factors that may predict trustworthiness. The present study examined the contributions of personality and religiosity to propensity to trust and trustworthiness in a Nigerian student sample. Data was obtained using self-report measures of the Big Five Personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience), religiosity (operationalised as attendance to religious activities), trust, and trustworthiness. Results showed that agreeableness predicted increased trust, whereas conscientiousness and neuroticism predicted lower trust. Neither trust nor trustworthiness was significantly predicted by extraversion and openness to experience. Greater trustworthiness was predicted by high agreeableness, while high conscientiousness predicted reduced trustworthiness. Neuroticism did not predict trustworthiness. Religious involvement did not predict trust, but greater frequency of attendance to religious activities predicted lower trustworthiness. Findings suggest that agreeableness and conscientiousness may be important traits of interest in relation to trust and trustworthiness among youth in the sub-Saharan African context. Externalities of religion such as regular attendance to religious worship may not result to trust and may not foster trustworthiness. Researchers should give more attention to this area of research in order to clearly show their implications for social policy in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite significant progress in poverty measurement, few studies have undertaken an in-depth comparison of monetary and multidimensional measures in the context of low-income countries and fewer still in Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet the differences can be particularly consequential in these settings. We address this gap by applying a distinct analytical strategy to the case of Rwanda. Using data from two waves of the Rwandan Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey, we combine comparing poverty rates cross-sectionally and over time, examining the overlaps and differences in the two measures, investigating poverty rates within population sub-groups, and estimating several statistical models to assess the differences between the two measures in identifying poverty risk factors. We find that using a monetary measure alone does not capture high incidence of multidimensional poverty in both waves, that it is possible to be multidimensional poor without being monetary poor, and that using a monetary measure alone overlooks significant change in multidimensional poverty over time. The two measures also differ in which poverty risk factors they put emphasis on. Relying only on monetary measures in low-income sub-Saharan Africa can send inaccurate signals to policymakers regarding the optimal design of social policies as well as monitoring their effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigates the impact of business regulations, policies and institutions on welfare in Sub-Saharan Africa. The HDI and GDP per capita are used as measures of welfare or poverty. The World Bank doing business indicators are used as business regulatory measures and the Country Policy and Institutional Assessment are also used as policies and institutional quality measures. The study employs systems GMM estimation technique in examining these relationships. The results show improved welfare in SSA countries to be associated with less burdensome regulations on starting business. The results reveal that merely pursing regulations in respect of business operations and closure such as those related to getting electricity, protecting minority interest, paying taxes and resolving insolvency as a strategy to improve welfare directly does not work unless done within a milieu of sound policies and institutions. There are however threshold values at which policy and institutional quality indexes can complement regulations to improve welfare. Following a formal sample-splitting, the study finds some differences in these relationships explained by the income status as well as the legal origin of the countries. Policy implications are well discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on the causes of income differences between the rich and the poor have received an extensive attention in the inequality empirics. While ethnic diversity has also been identified as one of the fundamental causes of income inequality, the role of institutions as a mediating factor in the ethnicity-inequality nexus has not received the scholarly attention it deserves. To this end, this study complements the existing literature by investigating the extent to which institutional framework corrects the noisy influence originating from the nexus between "ethnic diversity" and inequality in 26 sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1996–2015. The empirical evidence is based on pooled OLS, fixed effects and system GMM estimators. The main findings reveal that the mediating influences of institutional settings are defective, thus making it extremely difficult to modulate the noisy impacts of ethno-linguistic and religious heterogeneity on inequality. In addition, the negative influences orchestrated by ethno-linguistic and religious diversities on inequality fail to attenuate the impact of income disparity even when interacted with institutions. On the policy front, institutional reforms tailored toward economic, political and institutional governances should be targeted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how information and communication technology (ICT) could be employed to dampen the potentially damaging effects of environmental degradation in order to promote inclusive human development in a panel of 44 Sub-Saharan African countries. ICT is captured with internet and mobile phone penetration rates whereas environmental degradation is measured in terms of CO2 emissions per capita and CO2 intensity. The empirical evidence is based on fixed effects and Tobit regressions using data from 2000 to 2012. In order to increase the policy relevance of this study, the dataset is decomposed into fundamental characteristics of inclusive development and environmental degradation based on income levels (low income vs. middle income); legal origins (English Common law vs. French Civil law); religious domination (Christianity vs. Islam); openness to sea (landlocked vs. coastal); resource-wealth (oil-rich vs. oil-poor) and political stability (stable vs. unstable). Baseline findings broadly show that improvement in both of measures of ICT would significantly diminish the possibly harmful effect of CO2 emissions on inclusive human development. When the analysis is extended with the above mentioned fundamental characteristics, we observe that the moderating influence of both our ICT variables on CO2 emissions is higher in the group of English Common law, middle income and oil-wealthy countries than in the French Civil law, low income countries and oil-poor countries respectively. Theoretical and practical policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Living with HIV in a context of adversity may impact on a person's sense of well-being. Little is however known about factors associated with subjective well-being (SWB) among persons living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHAs) in sub-Saharan Africa. This study examined the relationship between SWB, resilience and social capital. Participants were 263 HIV-positive, black South Africans living in poverty. Data were collected using three questionnaires measuring resilience, social capital and SWB, and analyzed using correlations and multiple regressions. The results showed that for all participants, SWB was associated with household income, the resilience factor being able to plan for the future, the social capital factors trust, reciprocity, solidarity, collective action, and perceived support and close ties to family and people of different religious groups. However, household income, resilience as a whole and the social capital factors reciprocity, solidarity and perceived support did not account for the any significant variation in SWB. For women, SWB was related to low collective action, having contacts of different religions and being able to plan for the future. For men, SWB was related to low trust in neighbors and being able to plan for the future. In conclusion, this indicates that what matters in terms of SWB among these PLWHAs is who and how they trust and relate to at a community level. It is proposed that through factors of social capital, HIV-positive persons living in contexts of adversity can secure access to resources and social support that are important for their sense of well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the regional differences in the role of wealth and mothers' educational attainment in explaining infant and child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Specifically, this study investigates the role of wealth and mothers' educational attainment in urban-rural and regional differences of SSA. We use data from Demographic and Health Surveys and the World Bank African Development Indicators to document these regional differences in infant and child mortality rates in SSA. Our findings show small variability in the risk of infant and child mortality attributable to regional differences in SSA. There is a statistically negative significant difference in infant and child mortality with urban dwellers compared to rural dwellers in SSA. Also, we found the risk of infant and child mortality to be correlated with per capita gross domestic product equal to or greater than five hundred US dollars ($500). Our findings show mother's education to be negatively correlated with infant and child mortality in SSA. These findings give credence to previous studies which highlighted the significance of wealth, education of the mother, and location in explaining infant and child mortality differences in SSA. Our study finds no evidence of a statistically significant difference in the risk of infant and child mortality between the urban poorest and poorer wealth quintile households and their rural counterparts in SSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using 2008 Afrobarometer survey data, we examine the relationship between religion and subjective well-being (SWB) in Ghana, as well as religious group differences in their experiences of SWB. Two measures of religion-religious affiliation and religious importance, and two measures of SWB-absolute SWB (own perceived living conditions) and relative SWB (own living conditions compared to those of other Ghanaians) are employed in this study. Results show that religious affiliation is significantly related to both measures of SWB although associations depicted for such relationships were not strong. Religious importance significantly related to relative SWB only (with a weak-to-moderate association). Significant religious affiliation and religious importance group differences are found on both SWB outcomes via non-parametric test procedures (Kruskal-Wallis H test, followed by post hoc tests). On balance, the None/Traditional religious group experienced less favorable SWB than Other Christian, Evangelical/Pentecostal, and Muslim groups, especially for absolute SWB, while the None/Traditional group experienced particularly less favorable relative SWB than the Protestant group. Religious importance groups also significantly differed in such a way that the group that considered religion very important had more favorable experiences of both types of SWB than the group that considered religion not at all/not very important. Other significant differences on both outcomes are found among ethnic, educational, and regional groups. In view of the findings, the study contributes to SWB research and suggests policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]