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While the literature on the economic effects of migration and remittances is well established, emerging literature has been exploring the political and social effects of international migration. Existing evidence argue that through the transmission of norms and knowledge, returnees and migrants may influence their left-behinds behaviours, which in turn may drive social and political change (Höckel et al, 2018; Ivlevs and King, 2017; Batista et al, 2019; Chauvet and Mercier, 2014; Tuccio et al,2019). For instance, exploring the case of Morocco, Tuccio and colleagues (2019) used a new micro-dataset to examine whether households with a returnee or a current migrant are more or less likely to demand political and social changes. Their findings highlight mixed effects, and that democratic norms in the host countries play an important role. In the case of Mali, Chauvet and Mercier (2014) found that returnees positively affect participation and electoral competitiveness but only among returnees from non-African countries. Recently, there is a growing interest in the effect of migration on harmful practices and gender-sensitive norms. In their recent paper, Tuccio and Wahba (2018) find that, in the Middle East, where cultural and religious norms are root causes of gender equality, households with a returnee family member are more likely to bear traditional gender norms than women in households with no migration experience. Using the case studies of Pakistan, Mitra and colleagues (2021) find that domestic violence on women in households that receive remittances is significantly lower than in households that do not depend on remittances. There is little evidence on how migrants and returnees can shape social norms and beliefs in sub-Saharan African countries, and empirical studies on how migration may affect harmful practices and gender-sensitive norms are scarce. This study explores the effect of having either a returnee or a current migrant in the family on gender norms. These norms are assessed by general attitudes towards discrimination as well as within family gender discrimination measured by the desired girl’s educational attainment and girls’ minimum age for marriage.

Despite the contribution of previous studies to unravel the implications of mobile money in the developing world, the effect of this innovation on an important source of external finance, trade credit, has not been properly accounted for particularly in the informal sector. Using the 2016 FinAccess Household Survey, we investigate the relationship between mobile money adoption and the probability to receive goods and services on credit from suppliers based on a sample of entrepreneurs who operate informal businesses. We further explore the effect of mobile money adoption on the likelihood to offer goods and services on credit to customers. Our estimations suggest that entrepreneurs with mobile money are more likely to receive goods and sesrvices on credit from suppliers. We also find a positive and significant relationship between mobile money adoption and the likelihood to offer goods and services on credit to customers. The evidence supports the promotion of mobile money adoption among entrepreneurs in the informal sector to facilitate access to credit.

The links between migration and corruption have started receiving increasing attention by scholars and policy makers, focussing mostly on the role that corruption plays as a push factor and facilitator of migration. This chapter adds to this newly developing literature by investigating how the experiences of corruption of irregular and forced migrants in Africa are gendered. It analyses both how corruption plays a role in the home country in shaping the migration path and how it continues to be important throughout the journey. The chapter finds that corruption comes into play whenever legal options for migration are limited and is a constant throughout all stages of the migration process for several migrant groups. While both men and women routinely encounter corruption during different stages of the migration process, this chapter finds that women are especially vulnerable to atypical forms of corruption, including sexual extortion (‘sextortion’). Women travelling alone are also especially exposed to corruption and sexual exploitation along the way. The paper also discusses the large impact of underlying gender norms on the experiences of corruption both in the home country and throughout the journey.

This paper investigates the local effects of mining on the quality of public services and on people's optimism about their future living conditions. It also assesses the mediating role of local institutions and local governments~^!!^ taxing rights in shaping the proximity-to-mine effects. The empirical framework connects more than 130,000 respondents from the Afrobarometer survey data (2005-2015) to their closest mines based on the geolocation coordinates of the enumeration areas (EA) and data on the mines and their respective status from the SNL Metals & Mining. The geo-referenced data are matched with new indicators on local governments~^!!^ taxing rights across the African continent. The results suggest that citizens living near an active mine are less likely to approve government performance in key public goods and services -- including health, job creation and improving living standards of the poor. On the mediating role of local governance and local taxing rights, the findings point to a negative effect of local corruption, yet a positive effect of local authorities’ discretion over tax and revenues. However, the positive marginal effect of local taxing powers tends to reduce in environments with poor quality of local governance, high incidence of bribe payment and low level of trust in local government officials. Residents of mining communities with low corruption and comparatively high-level of raising revenue ability have the highest rate of positive appraisal compared to the other scenarios.

It is an undeniable fact that financial inclusion has become a global policy priority. Despite its popularity in the policy sphere, the concept of financial inclusion lacks a comprehensive measure to monitor and evaluate inclusive financial systems across the globe. To fill this gap, we combine macro-level data from the Financial Access Survey of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank’s Global Findex database to construct novel indices of financial inclusion. First, we compute new financial inclusion indices that incorporate access to financial services by groups prone to exclusion. Second, we account for the recent upsurge in mobile money adoption in the developing world by computing a novel mobile money inclusion index. We further relate the financial inclusion indices with legal origin to ascertain the role of initial conditions of the regulatory environment in countries’ financial inclusion achievements. We find that whereas developed countries continue to lead in banking inclusion, developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa are at the frontiers of mobile money inclusion. Also, we find evidence suggesting that the regulatory environment matters for financial inclusion.

International audience; Technology US President Donald Trump has called global warming a " hoax " perpetrated by the Chinese

Little investigation has been made to explain why women are less likely than are men to support democracy in sub-Saharan Africa. This gender difference in politics has been found in numerous studies and may hinder the much needed legitimation of democracy in this region. This paper addresses the question of whether this observed gender gap is due to the omission of social institutions related to gender inequality, something that affects women's daily life and deprives them of autonomy at home. We hypothesize that women who live under autocracy at home are less likely to support democracy outside, because it does not affect their private life; this follows the idea that the way women are treated in a society might have major implications for the economic, social, and political functioning of that society. We find that the gender difference in support for democracy is no longer signicant after we control for gender discrimination in the family code, in physical integrity or in civil liberties. This study also provides evidence that women living in countries with favourable laws toward women are more supportive of democracy than women who do not, suggesting that democratic regimes may be more willing than are authoritarian regimes to protect laws friendly to women.

This paper investigates the local effects of mining on the quality of public services and on people’s optimism about their future living conditions in Africa. Most importantly, it assesses the moderating role of local institutions and local governments’ taxing rights in shaping the proximity-to-mine effects. The empirical framework connects more than 130,000 respondents from the Afrobarometer survey data (2005–2015) to their closest mines based on the geolocation coordinates of the enumeration areas (EA) and data on the mines and their respective status from the SNL Metals & Mining by the S&P. The geo-referenced data are matched with new indicators on local governments’ taxing rights across the African continent. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, the results indicate that citizens living near an active mine are less likely to approve government performance in key public goods and services – including health, job creation and improving living standards of the poor. On the moderating role of local governance and local taxing rights, the findings point to a negative impact of local corruption, yet a positive impact of local authorities’ discretion over tax and revenues. However, the positive impact of local taxing powers tends to reduce in environments with poor quality of local governance, high incidence of bribe payment and low level of trust in local government officials. Residents of mining communities with low corruption and comparatively high-level of raising revenue ability have the highest rate of positive appraisal compared to the other scenarios., World Development, 140, ISSN:0305-750X