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All children have the right to quality education that respects their human dignity and their right to be protected from violence and abuse. However, in some developing countries this is not the case. According to the latest data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), sexual violence in developing countries over the past 15 years rose by over 370%. Sexual violence on girls results in physical and psychological harm including long-lasting suffering. In this study, our interest mainly lies in the social impact sexual violence is likely to cause to the victims. This includes, but not limited to, rejection by family and community, exclusion from economic engagement, isolation, and the likelihood of further violence. All things being equal, all of the these will affect the demand for schooling and the desire to acquire formal education. Therefore, the contribution of this study is to quantify the impact of sexual violence on girl-child education in a broad range of developing countries. To achieve this, we used country-level data from 72 developing countries between 2003-2017. The pooled OLS and fixed effects techniques were then used in estimating the impact of sexual violence on different measures of girl-child education. The results of the estimations showed a negative relationship between sexual violence and the different measures of the girl-child education. For example, using the fixed effects results, an increase in sexual violence by one standard deviation from the sample mean, will reduce girls' enrolment rate and completion rate by 2.385% and 3.150% points, respectively. The results provide an interesting dimension to what is already known of the girl-child education and can aid policymakers in their interventions in improving educational outcomes for girls. With respect to policy implications from the findings, countries must formulate adequate responses to protect their young citizens from the cruelty of sexual abuse. In addition, effective support mechanisms for victims of sexual violence should be facilitated and sustained in developing countries. This will help in ameliorating some of the negative impact of their violent experiences and help to prepare them to re-enter society and return to education. JEL Classification: I20, I25, I31, O1, O50 Keywords: Girl-Child Education; Primary Schooling; Developing Countries; Sexual Violence. Contact author's email address: godwin.okafor@dmu.ac.uk, INTRODUCTION There is clear evidence to suggest that in countries with low levels of economic development, girls are less likely to be enrolled in school compared to boys. Several factors [...]

The sourcing of low-cost finance to facilitate corporate expansion on competitive terms is a major challenge to firms from emerging markets. There are additional constraints in Islamic markets as financial [...]

Using stochastic methods the impact of deregulation on South African grain cooperatives is examined. The data envelopment analysis shows that removal of subsidies and increase in competition has had a positive effect on the efficiencies of the market.

Twenty-percent of the world's population, or 1.2 billion live on less than $1 per day; 70% of these are rural and 90% are in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Research-led technological change in agriculture generates sufficient productivity growth to give high rates of return in Africa and Asia and has a substantial impact on poverty, currently reducing this number by 27 million per annum, whereas productivity growth in industry and services has no impact. The per capita 'cost' of poverty reduction by means of agricultural research expenditures in Africa is $144 and in Asia $180, or 50 cents per day, but this is covered by output growth. By contrast, the per capita cost for the richer countries of Latin America is over $11,000. Key words--agricultural productivity, poverty reduction

This paper applies the sequential Malmquist index to calculate multi-lateral, multi-factor productivity (MFP) indices for agriculture in the 18 districts and the commercial sector of Botswana from 1981 to 1996. The MFP index grew at an average rate of 1.7% per annum, led by the regions that specialize in livestock, which grew at well over 3% per annum. This growth was powered by technological change at 4% per year, but offset by technical efficiency falling at 2.4% per annum, as the commercial sector and the better regions exploited new technologies and infrastructure, whereas the less productive areas fell further behind the best practice frontier. Thus, convergence tests show that the gap between the more productive and the poorer regions widened. JEL classification: O4; Q1 Keywords: Agricultural productivity; Convergence; Botswana

The results of a two-year survey of smallholders in Makhathini Flats, KwaZulu-Natal show that farmers who adopted Bt cotton in 1999-2000 benefited according to all the measures used. Higher yields and lower chemical costs outweighed higher seed costs, giving higher gross margins. These measures showed negative benefits in 1998-99, which conflicts with continued adoption, but stochastic efficiency frontier estimation, which takes account of the labor saved, showed that adopters averaged 88% efficiency, as compared with 66% for the nonadopters. In 1999-2000, when late rains lowered yields, the gap widened to 74% for adopters and 48% for nonadopters. Key words--KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, Bt cotton, stochastic frontiers, efficiency