HCD Think Tanks Policy Brief

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Now showing 1 - 14 of 14
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    Building a Robust Workforce: Why does FDI Motive Matter?
    (African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-04-05) Omisakin, Olusegun; Adekunle, Wasiu; Vincent, Oluwaseyi; Erumebor, Wilson; Taiwo, Shakirudeen; Iyoha, Faith; Olofin, Sodik; Oluwaserantimi, Ore
    Over the years, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows are often associated with the increased availability of a robust workforce. This is because FDI assists recipient countries in building human capital through technology and knowledge transfer. However, emerging trends indicate that motive(s) guiding FDI inflow immensely influence its role in capacity building activities of the available workforce in the host country. In Nigeria, recent FDI inflows are becoming more sensitive to the characteristics of the country's labour force. In the past years, FDI inflows usually focus on the oil-sector - resource-seeking activities, which have resulted in little or zero gains for the country in terms of employment creation, capacity building for the existing workforce, and insignificant human capital gains.
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    Crisis of Low Health Insurance Absorption: What Drivers are Culprits?
    (African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-04-05) Omisakin, Olusegun; Adekunle, Wasiu; Vincent, Oluwaseyi; Erumebor, Wilson; Taiwo, Shakirudeen; Iyoha, Faith; Olofin, Sodik; Oluwaserantimi, Ore
    Health insurance coverage in Nigeria has historically been low, with less than 5 percent of Nigeria's over 200 million people being covered by private and public health insurance. This is not unprecedented as financing healthcare through health insurance accounts for about 1.9 percent of total current health spending, which is a far cry from the average shares of 26 percent and 18 percent in high income and upper-middle-income countries, respectively. In 2021, the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) Act was introduced, making health insurance mandatory for all citizens and legal Nigerian residents. However, using compulsion alone to increase the uptake of healthcare insurance might not guarantee the expected outcome.
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    From Brain Drain to Skills Gain: Policy Recommendations for the Successful Integration of Return Migrants in Senegal
    (African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-04-05) Diallo, M.A; Diallo, S. CRES.
    Senegal is one of the sub-Saharan African countries that has the highest number of emigrants. In 2019, out of a population of close to 16 million people, 640 thousand people that were born in Senegal, lived in another country, of which 45% were to be found in Africa, and 48% in Europe. The main factor that influences migration is the search for better standards of living and employment; wages, social security and employment opportunities being drivers for migration. A focus on Economic issues related to return migrants is important for two reasons: The first is that a significant number of return migrants (37%) consider migrating once more just six months after their return to Senegal. The second is that there are very few studies on the subject. This policy brief aims to fill this gap by examining the impact of return migration on professional insertion in Senegal.
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    “From Fear to Caution: Overcoming the Health Care Crisis in Madagascar”
    (African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-04-05) Razakamanana, Marilys Victoire; Rakotonirainy, Miora; Ramiandrisoa, Tiarinisaina Olivier
    SDG 3 is aimed at “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.” Yet, despite the fact that the covid pandemic affected everybody, it did not increase access to health care services. Indeed, during the COVID-19 pandemic,fear of contracting the virus and restrictions on movement of people led to a decrease in the use of healthcare services in Madagascar. People who displayed obvious symptoms such as fever, received immediate treatment, but those that displayed symptoms not directly related to COVID-19, such as diarrhoea, avoided going to receive treatment at healthcare facilities out of fear. However, as it had been observed during previous pandemics like Ebola, for example, the decrease in the use of healthcare facilities was followed by an increase in morbidity and mortality through diseases that are unrelated to Ebola, such as diarrhoea.
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    Learn or Stagnate? Lesson from Ethiopia
    (African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-04-05) Yeshineh, Alekaw Kebede; Woldeyes , Firew Bekele
    With a decreasing agricultural land per holder, the potential of the agricultural sector to support the youth is not promising. If not proactively managed, the youth would not find employment opportunities, and jobless youth could be unused potential and a source of social unrest. With the right policy, however, the youthful population could be an asset. The Incheon Declaration has underpinned that spending on education is important, for implementing SDG4 and it is recommended to spend 4 to 6 percent of GDP or 15 to 20 percent of total government expenditure on education. Ethiopia improved its expenditure on education and reached 24 percent of total government expenditure in 2018 up from 14 percent in 1994 although decreased in recent years. It’s been spending about 4 percent of GDP on Education since 2005. As a result, access to education has improved although anecdotal evidence suggests the impact on development has fallen short of expectation. Generally human capital is essential for economic growth and poverty reduction. However, Ethiopia has a shortage of skilled and semi-skilled labor. This is due to a number of factors, including low school enrollment rates and high dropout rates due to low education budget.
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    Rethinking Basic Education Funding in Kenya
    (African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-04-05) Ngigi, Samuel; Njoka, John; Kamau, Paul; Oleche, Martine; Muriithi, Moses
    The right to education is well articulated in SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) as well as in Articles 43 and 53 of the Constitution of Kenya. In addition, the Basic Education Act 2013 guarantees every Kenyan citizen access to basic education and the legal mechanisms enshrined in the Act should operationalize quality, free and compulsory basic education in Kenya (Mulinya and Orodho, 2015). Despite Kenya being party to these instruments, the country is yet to have this right realized. This necessitates an examination of the situation with a view to accelerating basic education in Kenya.
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    Schooling without Learning: Lessons from Ethiopia
    (African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-04-05) Adem, Jemal Mohammed; Weldesilassie, Alebel B.
    Ethiopia has achieved a remarkable economic growth rate of 11% per annum in the last 12 years. At the same time, the government of Ethiopia has been heavily investing in education in the last two or more decades, and managed to expand access to education at an extraordinary rate. In contrast, educational quality has been low and with the current trend the country risks missing on the target for SDG4. The growing number of graduates is met with limited structural transformation in the economy as the government pursued agriculture-led development strategy for a long time. The agricultural sector and the service sector with both comparable shares account for 80% GDP while the industrial sector accounts for only 20%, which in turn is dominated by the construction sector. Also, the country has witnessed increased rate of educated unemployment and underemployment while industries suffer from lack of skilled manpower and high level of labour turnover.
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    Shocks to School Attendance
    (African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-04-05) Oleche, Martine; Kamau, Paul; Muriithi, Moses; Njoka, John; Ngigi, Samuel
    The COVID-19 pandemic affected the way children experience education and, by extension, the learning capability. It is evidenced that the longer they stayed out of school, the greater the risk of the poorest among them dropping out completely. Furthermore, even when they returned back to school their performance was dismal (Miguel and Kremer, 2004; UN, 2020). Access to learning technology during the period of closure in Kenya seems to have favored disproportionately the private schools’ pupils at the expense of public-school pupils. This in a sense introduced inequality in school attendance which to large extent was not justifiable. In addition, it contravened the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on quality education and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)10 on reduction of inequality. It is therefore clear that the pandemic adversely affected quality and quantity of learning outcomes in Kenya and more severely the poor households.
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    Targeted School Feeding Towards Improved Enrolment
    (African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-04-05) Nyabaro, Violet; Ogolla, Michael
    Access to education is a priority for the Kenyan government reflected in increased budgetary allocation towards the sector, provision of free primary education and implementation of free day secondary school since 2003 and 2008, respectively. These policy decisions have led to an improvement in various education sector indicators including enrolment and dropout rates, higher retention and better transition rates across levels of basic education. The result of these efforts saw a 57 percent increase in primary school enrolment between 2003 and 2020 and secondary school enrolment increased by 79 percent between 2007 and 2020.The Kenyan government invests billions of shillings in School Feeding Programme (SFP)to encourage school enrollment, attendance, and completion, and to reduce regional and social disparities in education attainment. School feeding programme began in 1979 with a government led school milk program commonly called the “Nyayo Milk.” Subsequently, various school feeding programmes (SFPs) have been implemented by the national and county governments in conjunction with the World Food Programme (WFP), and other Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).
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    Targeted School Feeding Towards Improved Enrolment
    (African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-04-05) Nyabaro, Violet; Ogolla, Michael
    Access to education is a priority for the Kenyan government reflected in increased budgetary allocation towards the sector, provision of free primary education and implementation of free day secondary school since 2003 and 2008, respectively. These policy decisions have led to an improvement in various education sector indicators including enrolment and dropout rates, higher retention and better transition rates across levels of basic education. The result of these efforts saw a 57 percent increase in primary school enrolment between 2003 and 2020 and secondary school enrolment increased by 79 percent between 2007 and 2020.The Kenyan government invests billions of shillings in School Feeding Programme (SFP)to encourage school enrollment, attendance, and completion, and to reduce regional and social disparities in education attainment. School feeding programme began in 1979 with a government led school milk program commonly called the “Nyayo Milk.” Subsequently, various school feeding programmes (SFPs) have been implemented by the national and county governments in conjunction with the World Food Programme (WFP), and other Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).
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    The Golden Ticket: How Foreign Investments Finance the Education System: Proof from Burkina Faso
    (African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-04-05) Bazie, Porto; Siri, Alain
    The challenge of human capital development remains an interesting subject for developing countries, notably in Burkina Faso, as stipulated in the key objectives of the SDGs. Countries are struggling to achieve the objectives of inclusive and quality education in accordance with ordinance n° 59-45 of 6th January 1959 on the compulsory right to education for children aged 6 to 16 years, and to spread that to tertiary levels. Education indicators have experienced a decrease. For example, the Gross Enrolment Rate experienced a decrease of 2.0 percentage points between 2019 and 2020, being placed at 47.3% and 49.3% in 2020/2021 and 2019/2020 respectively. The completion rate, which is at 36.7%, has experienced a decrease by 2.3 percentage points as compared to 2019/2020.
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    The Hunger Games of Education: School Canteen Program in Madagascar
    (African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-04-05) Rakotonirainy, Miora; Razakamanana, Marilys Victoire; Ramiandrisoa, Tiarinisaina Olivier
    Child malnutrition and food insecurity are widespread in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, students in developing countries tend to have low academic performance. To address this problem, MDG 2 calls for "eradicating hunger, ensuring food security, improving nutrition, ..." and MDG 4 "ensuring equal access to quality education for all, ...".
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    The Puzzling Relationship between Human Capital and Prosperity: Lessons from Case Studies on Burkina Faso
    (African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-04-05) Siri, Alain; Combray, Omer
    The development of human caapital is recognised as being a significant factor in the growth and prosperity of individuals and Countries. An increase in levels of education,training, and improvement of health and nutrition, will lead to a rise in the incomes of the citizenry. Also, since the beginning of the 1980s, the Burkina Faso government has prioritised the evelopment of human capital in the conduct of public policy. To quote only a few figures, public expenditure on education, which represented only 1.4% of the GDP in 1996, was increased to 6% of the GDP in 2018. In regard to public expenditure on health, it almost doubled, increasing from 1.1% of the GDP in 2003 to 2.4% of the GDP in 2018.
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    Universal Health Coverage (CMU) in Senegal: A Profitable Solution for the Improvement of Health and Productivity
    (African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-04-05) Diagne, S.; Sylla, F. N.; Henov, K. C.
    Difficulties in accessing health care services constitute a major challenge being experienced by Senegal’s government. One of the main reasons behind the difficulty in accessing healthcare services is the low coverage in regard to access to universal healthcare. It is for this reason that the government put in place the Universal Healthcare coverage programme (CMU) in order to allow its vulnerable citizens to access health insurance services. Despite the efforts undertaken, more than 50% of the citizens remain uncovered. The actual coverage rate of the programme has been calculated at 49% whereas the government targeted to cover 75% of the population by 2019. The government must pursue effort to allow for a higher number of people to benefit from a health insurance cover. This study examines the expected results of the programme in place in terms of improving access to healthcare services as well as profitability