Policy Briefs

Since the early 1980s, many governments have investigated the possibility of utilising access to microloans, as a pathway to grow economies out of unemployment and thereby improve people’s quality of life. Studies that have previously investigated the impact of microloans, found a positive...

Background The conventional approach to measuring quality of life was centred on the use of income measures such as GDP. There has, however, been growing acceptance of the limitations of this approach and of the need for a more multifaceted measure of quality of life. For example, the Report by the...

Local communities in Africa benefit from protected areas through a number of activities such as grazing their livestock and revenues gained from touristic activities. These two activities are not independent because the feeding habits of large herbivores such as elephants prevent bush encroachment...

This study investigates the impact of order flow on the rand/dollar exchange rate over the short and long term. It uses a hybrid model which combines microeconomic and macroeconomic determinants of the exchange rate in the short and long term. The analysis uses monthly series from January 2004 to...

This paper examines gender gaps in entrepreneurship in developing and emerging countries through linking entrepreneurship to skills and productivity. The approach reflects the stylized facts that women in less developed countries are often starting their own businesses with less education, work...

Under-pricing of electricity is prevalent in nearly 70 percent of all sub-Saharan African countries. Consequently, the electricity sectors are financially unviable and unable to maintain or expand the electricity infrastructure, leading to unendurable power deficits and outages in the region. The...

The perceptions of indigenous people towards protected areas greatly determine the success of integrated conservation and development projects in most 3rd world countries as their perceptions affect their attitude and behaviour towards conservation. Local communities living adjacent to national...

Zimbabwe’s community-based conservation model, which brings together peasant farmers in a tourism-focused approach to wildlife management, has enjoyed limited success since its inception during the mid-1980s due to a number of reasons. Community involvement in wildlife conservation is one of the...

Like many developing countries, the achievement gap between rural and urban areas in Zambia remains substantial. For example, the share of students scoring well on the Primary School Leaving Examinations (the Grade 7 Examinations) in rural areas is about half what it is in urban areas, according to...

African countries (including the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries) have recently considered additional robust means of mobilising tax revenue in order to meet revenue targets and consistently provide for the developmental needs of its citizens. For instance, countries have been considering Domestic Resource Mobilisation (DRM) initiatives (as opposed to External Resource Mobilisation - ERM), via improved management of taxation and reduction of tax leakages, in line with the general agenda of enhanced fiscal policy coordination (African Economic Outlook (AEO) 2013). The argument is that DRM would lead to Africa achieving greater economic development, independence and better mobilisation of revenue. Enhanced mobilisation of revenue entails expanding the tax base in these countries by capturing in the tax net, activities not adequately taxed because of policy or administrative weaknesses. Efficient means of taxation could help improve the governments’ revenue positions, reduce public sector borrowing requirement (PSBR), reduce dependency on aid and increase countries’ ownership of their development agenda (including the UN’s post-2015 development agenda or the Sustainable Development Goals - SDGs).