3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Technical cooperation and sub-Saharan Africa’s development dilemma(2022) Siyanbola, Adedamola AkeemIt has been established by Chenery and Strout (1966) that developing countries do not have sufficient capital that can bring about their much-needed growth and development. In addition to foreign investment (in terms of foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign portfolio investment), foreign aid has in recent times become a much sought after method of augmenting their stock of capital. This thesis examines the impact of technical cooperation (TC), a subset of foreign aid on the development dilemma that plays out in Sub-Saharan Africa. We chose TC because of its direct impact on development, particularly human development. This thesis employs a three essay method to achieve its objective. Chapter one and chapter five give the introduction and conclusion of the thesis respectively. The middle chapters examine the impact of technical cooperation on development in the region with the assistance of three interlinked essays. The first examines the role of technical cooperation in the development of human capacities in Sub-Saharan Africa while the second essay looks at the impact of technical cooperation on educational development in the region. The third essay focuses on the role of technical cooperation on health outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa. The objective of the first essay is to examine the role of TC in the development of human capacities through the use of the Human Development Index (HDI) of the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP). It further examines whether the impact is predicated on good policy and institutional quality and whether productivity is the transmission mechanism for TC to human development in Sub-Saharan Africa. We use the Kripfganz (2017) variant of the generalized method of moment (GMM), which permits both linear and non-linear moment conditions and the two-stage sequential regression with analytical second-stage standard error correction of Kripfganz and Schwarz (2015) to analyse our data. Our results show that TC significantly influences human development in SubSaharan Africa (SSA). It also enhances policy formulation, coordination, evaluation, and 6 institutional quality which leads to improved human development. The study also indicates that improvement in productivity is a veritable transmission channel through which TC is routed to human development. The second paper (Chapter three) examines the effectiveness of technical cooperation on educational outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa. The study analyses panel data of Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1996 -2018 based on a dynamic autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique. The result suggests that technical cooperation and institutional quality have a significant negative effect on educational attainment while per capital income and gender inequality have a significant positive effect on educational attainment in SSA. In addition, it was found that the lag of educational attainment affects the current, indicating that there is a consistent relationship between the past periods of educational attainment and the present. The study recommends the need to reposition the institutional and policy environment in SSA countries by instituting a more serious and swift legal prosecution of corrupt cases especially those that have to do with foreign aid and grants for education The third essay (Chapter four) investigates the effect of technical cooperation on health outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa. Previous literature has either focused on SDG-related or non-SDG-related health targets but not both. This study estimates a pool of data from SubSaharan Africa from 1996 to 2018 via the dynamic panel Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) approach. The estimates of the static model suggest that technical cooperation flows to Sub-Saharan Africa translate to an increase in infant mortality rate and immunization. The result of the dynamic panel model finds that immunization is the only component among all the health targets that increase with technical cooperation in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, government health expenditure shows a significant effect on both the SDG and non-SDGrelated health targets tested in the study. It was shown to increase with increased life expectancy, health facilities, and infectious diseases and to decrease with infant mortality rate. The study emphasises the need to reposition technical cooperation to directly stimulate not only immunisation but also other SDG and non-SDG-related health targets. This may be through a prototype model used in the immunisation programme that engages the local government in the provision of house-to-house technical assistance in areas that can improve life expectancy, health facilities and reduce infant mortality rate and infectious diseases in SSAItem Financial contagion in African emerging economies(2013-08-01) Ahwireng-Obeng, Asabea ShirleyCannot copy abstractItem An evaluation of orthodox and emerging alternative approaches to the industrial policy in the context of economic development(2013-07-11) Lamola, Leonard SekhohliweIn a broad sense, an industrial policy is aimed at influencing the structure of an economy. Justin Lin (2010), argues that the best way to upgrade a country’s endowment structure is to develop its industries according to the comparative advantages determined by its given endowment structure at that time. Then he assumes that the economy would be most competitive, the economic surplus predominant, and the capital accumulation and the upgrading of factor endowment structure will be the fastest possible. He further proposes that the private enterprises should enter industries according to the country’s comparative advantages, relative factor prices must fully reflect the relative abundance of those factors as prices can only be determined through competition in a ―well-functioning‖ market. Therefore, the market should be the basic institution of the economy. The proposed essay will conduct a critical analysis of structuralism and industrial policy as propagated within the ―New Structural Economics‖ realm as proposed by Justin Lin, a former World Bank chief economist. The proposed inquiry would attempt to underline that the Newly Industrialised Countries showed that specific institutions have performed a critical role in guiding market forces towards industrial development. Notably is the state as an institution in its developmental role in guiding economic strategy and industrial policies. Therefore, the basic argument is that despite the eminence of the orthodox economic approach and its responses to the recent economic crises there are numerous contradictions, including weaknesses as advocated by Lin’s approach to developmental issues and the role of industrial policy, expressly with regard to the developing world.Item Predicting intention to participate in mobile crowdsourcing initiatives : a study of local Kenyan communities(2013-02-22) Gatara, MaradonaCrowdsourcing is the outsourcing of a job or task to a large group of individuals. Crowdsourcing has emerged from the concepts of Outsourcing, Open Source Software (OSS) Collaboration, Open Innovation, and User Innovation. While Crowdsourcing has provided an innovative way in which work can be outsourced to a large group of people, the advent of Mobile Telephony in Africa has provided a whole new dimension. This is the merging of the concepts of Crowdsourcing and Mobile Telephony, to form Mobile Crowdsourcing. Mobile Crowdsourcing has the potential to contribute significantly to the use of Information Technology (IT) in developing countries by providing a platform that would enable people such as those in peri-urban Kenyan communities, to utilise their mobile handsets to perform a set of mobile-based tasks. Payment for these tasks is made possible through mobile money platforms such as “M-Pesa”. Such innovation could provide a means for social empowerment for many of these unemployed technology users. This study sets forth to examine a set of factors that are likely to predict the “participation intention” of peri-urban Kenyan youths in Mobile Crowdsourcing. Motivational Theory, and the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) form the core of the theoretical framework used for this study. The McKnight Model is used as a supporting theory, to examine “trusting beliefs”. In addition, the constructs “perceived credibility”, “social influence” and “community identification” are derived from prior studies that use Socio Cognitive Theory and an extended version of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). These also play a supporting role. Using a survey instrument, data was collected from peri-urban youths in four peri-urban communities, and 279 usable responses were obtained for this study. Findings show that “self-development”, “integrity”, and “reputation” are the most significant predictors of “participation intention”. These three variables account for 17% of the variance in “participation intention”. Contrary to suggestions made in prior literature on Crowdsourcing, “monetary compensation” was not found to be a key motivator. This finding will no doubt spark future debate as to the role money plays in Crowdsourcing, especially in Africa. Additional findings show that “attitude” was found to be a strong mediator of the relationship between “technology anxiety” and “participation intention”. Moreover, “community identification” was found to be a full moderator of the relationship between “social influence” and “participation intention”. Findings made uncovered new insights about the perceptions and attitudes of mobile phone users in developing countries. Contributions made to theory and practice are also discussed.