A couple of days ago on Twitter I promised to do a short reading list on economic informality. Here goes: The work that introduced the concept of informal economy: Hart, K. (1973). Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 11(1), 61–89. See also, Leys, C. (1973). Interpreting African… Read More »
Finally, something that I can agree with. If we want to fetishise numbers we should at least try to get them right. Morten Jerven at FP: Today, due to the uneven application of methods and poor availability of data, any ranking of countries by GDP is misleading. The basic problem is that many countries have… Read More »
Of course they are: A paper from the Centre for the Study of African Economies suggests that savvy Chinese companies have set up shop in Africa as a route to get their products into the US, with the added incentive of all those juicy AGOA benefits. The logic is impeccable. Not only does an Africa platform get… Read More »
From a new report by the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa on external funding of infrastructure projects in Africa: In 2011 total external financial commitments/investments in African Infrastructure declined to 2009 levels. Overall commitments totalled US$41.5billion – a decline of 26% compared with 2010 figures. Commitments from ICA Members declined by 56% to US$11.9billion as compared to 2010… Read More »
Jolyon Ford of Oxford Analytica: I wonder if we should perhaps think of sub-Saharan Africa as a collection not so much of jointly emerging markets, but of diverging ones. Last week I was privileged, under the umbrella of the commendable ‘Invest in Africa’ initiative, to join experienced businesspeople in London discussing endemic inaccurate negative perceptions by outsiders of… Read More »
The Africa editor of The Economist talks to Lizzy Donnelly of Chatham House on Boko Haram. I mostly agree with her, mainly because she made sure to express the uncertainties about Boko Haram, the disagreement among ‘Nigeria watchers’ and ‘analysts’ on the group, and the fact that there is so much that is not known… Read More »
Ken Opalo has an excellent article on drug trafficking in Africa: The problem of drug trafficking in Africa is not merely a law enforcement concern. Firstly, it is a threat to the development and consolidation of important state institutions, especially the region’s judiciaries and security agencies. In many of the African states that have been… Read More »
On August 30, president Goodluck Jonathan flew by helicopter to Aguleri Otu in Anambra state, in south-east Nigeria, to commission the construction of the country’s first privately-owned refinery and declare Anambra Nigeria’s tenth oil-producing state. Hours into the festivities, two bordering states, Kogi and Enugu, issued public statements claiming that the oilfields, OPL 915 and… Read More »
Thoughts are with Ghana at the passing of President Atta Mills, who many described as being slow but steady. The vice president was sworn in last evening as the new president. The video of the swearing-in ceremony is here. The new President John Dramani Mahama was a minister for communication between 1998 and 2001. Shortly… Read More »
The African Peacebuilding Network (APN) of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) invites research grant applications from African researchers, policy analysts, and practitioners working on conflict and peacebuilding at universities and research institutions or regional governmental and non-governmental organizations in Africa. About the African Peacebuilding Network The APN promotes independent African research and analysis on… Read More »