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- Convenors:
-
Felix Danso
(Webster University (Ghana Campus))
Justice Bawole (University of Ghana Business School)
Napoleon Kurantin (Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration)
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- Formats:
- Papers
- Stream:
- Transnational political economies of development
- Location:
- Venables, S0049 Meeting Room
- Sessions:
- Thursday 20 June, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This Panel examines Africa's development and globalisation. What innovative ways can Africa (African countries) adopt to rethink the challenges of globalization and maintain an open society that promotes inclusive sustainable development?
Long Abstract:
African countries have relatively benefited less from the positive effects of globalization, compared with other parts of the world, particularly so in areas of social, economic and inclusive development. During the post independent period, many African countries adopted mainly inward- oriented development strategies which failed to take advantage of the prospects of globalization in the 1970s and 1980s. This trend has continued to date since the continent still depends on primary commodities. Rather than being more integrated into the global economy, African countries are largely marginalized resulting in socio-economic stagnation and challenges. The past two decades have also increased globalization influence in Africa as a result of domestic and international policies such as trade policies and other globalization impulses including technological development and enhanced communication. Consequently, the incident of poverty on the continent has risen. Both urban and rural poverty are evident in Africa, however, rural poverty is more prevalent and severe. The gloomy picture of the poverty and inequality situation gives little hope that Africa can reap the full benefit of globalization unless it scales up efforts and reposition itself. It is within this context that this panel invites papers that critically engage the concept of globalization with specific emphases on how Africa can reposition itself and take advantage of the full potential of globalization to promoting socio-economic and inclusive development. We welcome papers from both African and non-African scholars on the diverse perspectives of the issue.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 20 June, 2019, -David Potts (University of Bradford)
Paper short abstract:
This paper reviews evidence on the levels of inequality and economic growth of seven Sub-Saharan African economies that have experienced different forms and extent of colonial heritage.
Paper long abstract:
This paper reviews evidence on economic growth and trends in inequality for a group of Sub-Saharan African economies that have experienced different forms, levels and sources of colonial heritage, including the extent of alienation of land by settler and types and levels of infrastructural development.
The economies considered include Tanzania (Germany/UK), Ethiopia (Italy/none), Kenya (UK), Mozambique (Portugal), Cote d'Ivoire (France), Rwanda (Belgium) and Ghana (UK). Comparisons will be made between the different economies to establish potential causes of any observed differences. The paper will consider:
What are the different experiences in terms of economic growth and how can they be explained?
To what extent has this economic growth been accompanied by changes in inequality?
Are there any specific factors that can be associated with differences in the share of economic growth accruing to the poorest groups?
Do any of the specific factors related to colonial heritage help explain the differences in economic performance and levels of inequality?
To what extent has globalisation allowed these countries to diversify sources of external investment and enhance their impact?
Serena Masino (University of Westminster) Mavis Akuffobea (CSIR-Science and Technology Policy Research Institute)
Paper short abstract:
The infrastructure boom across Sub-Saharan Africa is associated to a large influx of foreign capital and technology. While this creates opportunities for local workers and companies, it also consolidates power dynamics which are difficult to overcome in the absence of appropriate local regulation.
Paper long abstract:
The Sub-Saharan African construction boom underlines the urbanisation trend across the continent; large-scale creation of employment; renewed and extended access to energy, transport, commerce. At the same time, however, the proliferation of foreign companies established itself in an institutional and legislative gap which allows for the co-existence of labour regimes and for the consolidation of casualisation trends in the labour market.
This study relies on case-study material from the real estate and construction sectors in the capital city of Ghana, Accra, to investigate the interaction between foreign employers and local employees. Extensive interviews with mangers, workers, and institutional actors help uncover a web of emerging labour and industrial relations and a matrix of winners and losers in the process. In particular, both local labourers and local companies can be winners and losers at the same time, when subjected to the flexibilisation and casualisation forces of globalisation.
Many foreign companies are found to "export" or bring with them home-country labour regimes, while hands-off local institutions effectively allow them to do so. This means that sub-optimal labour standards and work practices often prevail, in violation of local labour legislation. In addition, most companies maintain a lean core worker structure while flexibly and discontinuously tapping into an army of causal labourers whenever production pressures increase. This allows foreign contractors to stay in business in an increasingly competitive real estate and construction sector; but it also consolidates a pattern of insecure and unrewarding employment for the poorest and least empowered segments of the workforce.
Miguel Rivera-Quiñones (University of Puerto Rico)
Paper short abstract:
This papers is about Zambian policy makers views of Chinese Development Assistance in comparison to the 'West'. This research aimed at placing the 'voice' of subaltern agents of the Global South, at the centre of contemporary debates on Globalization and Development.
Paper long abstract:
During the last decade, China has become a significant player in development cooperation investments in the South Saharan African. China's involvement in Africa generated mostly two set of narratives that locates their cooperation as a constructive force for the region's development, while other depicts these initiatives as new versions of imperialism. Here I move beyond this dichotomy and analyse the perception of African's policy maker's about China's development assistance. In this paper it is argue that in order to de-colonized development studies, to research the perceptions of national policy makers seems as an essential task. The findings of the field research conducted in Zambia in 2016 shows, that China's popularity among Zambian development policy makers rest upon China's bilateral understating of development cooperation and the flexibility that Chinese capitalism have to adapt to local elite's interest. There is no doubt that there are winners and losers in this relation. However, the complexities of this relation are beyond simplistic narratives about new imperialisms or partners for development.
Rita Kiki Edozie (University of Massachusetts Boston)
Paper short abstract:
The AUC Chair, M. Mahamat, stated, stop this stereotypical idea of Africa as a hapless terrain where Europe or China has free rein! We choose our partnerships. To this end, the paper captures a global order where Africa struggles for equality using the AfCFTA to change the global political economy.
Paper long abstract:
A stern warning by the African Union Commission Chair, Moussa Faki Mahamat, to the European Union, proclaimed that the world should, "Stop this stereotypical idea of Africa as a hapless terrain where Europe, China or others have free rein to battle for influence! We choose our partnerships, and create conditions based on mutual interest and benefit". The statement captures the complexity of a global order in which developing world regions struggle for equality and recognition in the transaction of international relations. The current paper uses Africa's newly ratified Continental Free Trade Act (AfCFTA) to examine the continent's sustained but changing struggle to reverse its peripheral positioning in the global political economy. The AU's AfCFTA is a pan African economic institution through which the AU engages the international political economy. The AU uses pan African economic policy as strategies to engage the continent's political economic relations with China, the EU, the US, and the global economy. As Mahamat's states, the AU strategically chooses its partners in a multipolar world be it the West or China, but differently from the old neo-colonialist dependent partnership; in a multiplex world, the AU insists on equitable and mutually beneficial partnerships. To this end, global power competition for trade in Africa need not be seen as a neocolonial scramble; but rather an instance of the AU's new Pan African economic restructuring to represents the continent's own socially constructed economic imaginaries and aspirations and capacities to co-produce global development for Africans on their own terms.
Nkechinyere Uwajumogu (Alex Ekwueme Federal University)
Paper short abstract:
The major dimension of poverty is seen to be lack of access to assets, opportunities and markets. It is often taunted that making markets work better will enable the poor build their assets and productive resources and thereby alleviate poverty.
Paper long abstract:
The endemic and pervasiveness of poverty in Nigeria over time and across regions has been a fundamental issue facing the Nigerian people and government. Despite huge abundance of natural and human resources in Nigeria, the nation is riddled with many economic malaise including but not limited to poverty, non-inclusive economic growth, over-dependence on oil resources etc. Many attempts have been made in the past to revamp the economy but with minimal success. Most of these attempts bothered on economic programmes and policies which were hinged on orthodox economic theory. A typical example is the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) of 1986 which is basically hinged on the principle of invisible and the power of markets. The dynamism of the world; progress in science and technology (especially Information and Communication Technology); and the increasing inter-connection between economics, politics, psychology, sociology etc have elicited a strong paradigm shift from orthodox economic theory to rethinking alternative growth trajectories especially for Africa. Studies of poverty have shown that poverty is multidimensional with the causes and consequences interacting and reinforcing each other. However, the major dimension of poverty is seen to be lack of access to assets, opportunities and markets. It is often taunted that making markets work better will enable the poor build their assets and productive resources and thereby alleviate poverty. Our focus in this paper is to identify the particular market(s) that will alleviate poverty in Nigeria. We used econometric methods to stimulate which of the various markets have profound impact on poverty.
Sanna Ojanperä (University of Oxford) Mark Graham (University of Oxford)
Paper short abstract:
This paper investigates the employment trajectories of Africans working on online labour platforms and analyses the potentials and limitations of digital labour to contribute to inclusive socio-economic development on the continent.
Paper long abstract:
While globalization-induced changes together with technological development are reshaping the fabric of economic activity in Africa via various avenues, the emergence of digital platforms facilitating work online is a novel phenomenon with potentially significant impacts on the continent's labour markets. These online labour platforms (OLPs) are growing fast, host diverse types of work, and afford unforeseen connectivity across labour markets around the world. The increase in African OLP workers has been met with both concerns and aspirations about potential advantages for labour markets on the continent. Since the extent of the African workforce on OLPs and the socio-economic impacts of this work remain largely unknown, initial efforts to quantify and analyse this growth have recently gained visibility and contributed to a lively discourse around the suspected transformative impact of Africa's digital transformation. On one hand, working on OLPs may offer flexibility, increase incomes, and utilise and develop skills in professions that may not be as readily available in the local job markets. On the other, working on OLPs may only be an option for a subsection of the population and might additionally have unfavourable characteristics similar to the negative aspects of informal work such as low productivity, limited level of skill development, and low remuneration. This paper examines a novel dataset containing employment trajectories of Africans working on OLPs and through investigating the patterns in their income and skill development, analyses what may be the potentials and limitations of digital labour to contribute to inclusive socio-economic development on the continent.
Davina Osei (Leiden University)
Paper short abstract:
We focus on how religious and civic networks impact on access to public services for the poor and non-poor in Africa. We find that, the poor are likely to benefit from their networks only through its appropriation for corrupt gains. Likely reason is the presence of network subversion and homophily.
Paper long abstract:
The study focuses on how religious and other civic networks impact on access to public services for the poor and non-poor in Africa. The findings indicate that, despite the pro-social nature of religious and civic networks, they are more likely to increase access to public services for the rich more than the poor. The poor are only able to appropriate their civic networks to access non-monopoly life threatening basic services such as healthcare. Even in accessing healthcare, the poor are only able to appropriate their networks through corrupt exchanges.
Two reasons could account for these findings. First, value (i.e. social capital) within networks play a crucial role. Some studies have shown that, individuals are likely to associate themselves with others similar to themselves in characteristics such as gender, social class, race, among others - otherwise referred to as homophily. Due to this tendency for homophily, the poor are less likely to generate any capital from their networks, which could enable them access services easier.
Second, it might be problematic to assume that because certain networks have a pro-social agenda, they will translate into pro-social norms and behaviours among their members. This is because, norms of reciprocity and conformity is likely to thrive in such networks, which may create opportunities for network subversion. The danger of network subversion then arises as some individuals will have the opportunity to demand reciprocal exchanges that serve their personal gains rather than the network's interests.