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The objective of the paper is to evaluate whether there is a change in the level or trend of food prices in fragile countries following the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. The empirical evidence is based on Interrupted Time Series Analysis. The following findings are established. Firstly, an immediate and sustained positive effect is noted, indicating that for each month that passes after the Covid-19 and Russia-Ukraine war, food prices increase in most of the fragile countries. Secondly, if the Covid-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war had not happened, the price level and its trend would have been at a significantly lower level in fragile countries. Thirdly, the Russia-Ukraine war intervention period slope is significantly and considerably higher than that of the Covid-19 indicating that the Russia-Ukraine war has increased food prices in fragile countries more proportionately than the Covid-19 pandemic did.

This study investigates how governance and infrastructure modulate the effect of natural resource rents on economic growth in a sample of 110 countries for the period 2000-2018. The empirical evidence is based on Panel Smooth Transition Regressions (PSTR). The following findings are established. First, the nexus between economic growth and natural resources is not linear and the underlying non-linearity is contingent on existing infrastructural and governance levels. Second, evidence of a "natural resource curse" is apparent in countries with extremely low levels of governance and infrastructural development. Third, the favorable effect of natural resources on economic growth requires a governance threshold of -1.210 and an infrastructure threshold of 2.583 indicating that countries with governance and infrastructure level higher than these values tend to benefit much more from the wealth of natural resources. With high levels of the transition variables (governance and infrastructure), the established thresholds are low and situated between the 5 th and the 10th percentiles. Countries identified below the established thresholds are mainly from Africa. Policy implications are discussed with specific emphasis on African countries.

Several previous studies have explored the nexus between trust and socio-economic conditions but do not attempt to examine channels through which the relation operates. In this paper, we examine how political fractionalization mitigates the positive relationship between trust institutions and national economic performance in Africa. Using Round 7 data of Afrobarometer in over 1000 districts in 34 countries, we find that trust institutions positively and significantly affect economic performance. Nevertheless, the positive effect is attenuated in districts with a high level of political diversity. More specifically, a higher level of trust is associated with lower economic performance at a higher level of political fractionalization and vice versa, with a steady linear decrease of the estimated coefficients. Policy implications are discussed.

In this paper, we develop a new index labelled the African Women Vulnerability index (AWVI) with a focus on rural women using the Round 7 Afrobarometer Survey. The AWVI comprises 59 indicators in six dimensions namely: safety, empowerment, health, education, economic prosperity and digitalisation. Our findings show that: (i) Botswana performs best while women in Guinea and Sudan are the most vulnerable. Indeed, Mauritius appears as a good example in some dimensions such as health and digitalisation. (ii) Except for the dimension digitalisation, rural women's vulnerabilities in other dimensions are very close to those at the national level. (iii) National vulnerability trends strongly explain rural women's vulnerability especially for the economic, empowerment and health dimensions.

This paper measures the macroeconomic impact of recent political crisis, protest and uprisings in Africa with the generalized synthetic control method and evaluates the role played by natural resource dependence on the modulation of the impact. We find that political crisis, protests and uprisings have a significant and negative impact on economic growth while the impact is positive on investment and price level. For economic growth, the deviation of the actual series from the counterfactual is negative, instantaneous, persistent and highly significant; indicating non-negligible costs of the shock. Indeed, dependence on natural resources amplifies the negative effect of political crisis, protests and uprisings on GDP. Finally, the more the treated country depends on natural resources, the more it becomes resilient from the investment losses caused by political crisis.

In this paper, we revisit the relationship between governance and human development in Africa during the period 2010-2019 taking into account the existence of spatial dependence and controlling the endogeneity problem through a Generalized Spatial Two Stage Least Squares (2SLS). The exploratory spatial data analysis reveals the existence of spatial dependence of human development and governance quality. Our empirical findings support that in Africa, "good fences make good neighbours" or proximity matters in the distribution of human development. Implications are discussed.

This study evaluates the economic impact of severe natural disasters in Africa using the generalized synthetic control method. In other words, it assesses how gross domestic product (GDP) would have been affected if severe natural disasters did not occur. Moreover, it explores the determinants of the destructiveness of the impact, focusing on the role played by capital. We find that severe natural disasters induce a significant and continuous reduction of GDP many years after the event. Indeed, economic losses caused by disasters depend on the level of capital (human capital, employment and capital stock) and aspects of governance quality (political stability and absence of violence). In other words, negative synergies are apparent because while capital stock, employment and human capital unconditionally reduce the macroeconomic impact of natural disasters, the corresponding conditional or interactive effects with political stability are also negative. Policy implications are discussed.

This study has: (i) analysed the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, (ii) evaluated the effectiveness and relevance of different measures against the pandemic and (iii) examined nexuses between the corresponding measures and economic outcomes. The study uses a sample of 186 countries divided into four main regions, notably: Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, Europe, Africa and America. 34 preventing and mitigating measures against the Covid19 pandemic are classified into five main categories: lockdown, movement restrictions, governance and economic, social distancing, and public health measures. The empirical evidence is based on comparative difference in means tests and correlation analyses. The findings show how the effectiveness and consequences of the Covid-19 measures are different across regions. In adopting the relevant policies to fight the ongoing pandemic, the comparative insights from the findings in the study are worthwhile. Inter alia: (i) from a holistic perspective, only European countries have favourably benefited from the Covid-19 measures; (ii) lockdown measures at the global level have not been significant in reducing the pandemic; (iii) the restriction of movement measure has been relevant in curbing the spread in the American continent; (iv) social distancing has been productive in Europe and counterproductive in Africa; (v) governance and economic measures have exclusively been relevant in Europe and (vi) overall public health measures have not had the desired outcomes in flattening the infection curve probably because most of the underlying measures are awareness decisions or oriented toward people already infected.

The study complements the extant literature by constructing Covid-19 economic vulnerability and resilience indexes using a global sample of 150 countries which are categorized into four principal regions, namely: Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, America and Europe. Seven variables are used for the vulnerability index and nine for the resilience index. Both regions and sampled countries are classified in terms of the two proposed and computed indexes. The classification of countries is also provided in terms of four scenarios pertaining to vulnerability and resilience characteristics, notably: low vulnerability-low resilience, high vulnerability-low resilience, high vulnerability-high resilience and low vulnerability-high resilience to respectively illustrate, sensitive, severe, asymptomatic and best cases. The findings are relevant to policy makers especially as it pertains to decision making in resources allocation in the fight against the global pandemic.

The purpose of this study is to understand how countries have leveraged on their economic resilience to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. The focus is on a global sample of 150 countries divided into four main regions, namely: Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, America and Europe. The study develops a health vulnerability index (HVI) and leverages on an existing economic resilience index (ERI) to provide four main scenarios from which to understand the problem statement, namely: 'low HVI-low ERI', 'high HVI-low ERI', 'high HVI-high ERI' and 'low HVI-high ERI' quadrants. It is assumed that countries that have robustly fought the pandemic are those in the 'low HVI-high ERI' quadrant and to a less extent, countries in the 'low HVI-low ERI' quadrant. Most European countries, one African country (i.e. Rwanda), four Asian countries (Japan, China, South Korea and Thailand) and six American countries (USA, Canada, Uruguay, Panama, Argentina and Costa Rica) are apparent in the ideal quadrant.

The study provides thresholds of income inequality that if exceeded will nullify the positive effect of governance dynamics on gender-inclusive education in 42 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for the period 2004-2014. The Generalised Method of Moments is used as an estimation strategy. The following findings are established. First, the unconditional effects of governance dynamics on inclusive education are consistently positive whereas the corresponding conditional effects from the interaction between inequality and governance dynamics are consistently negative. Second, the levels of inequality that completely crowdout the positive incidence of governance on inclusive "primary and secondary education" are: 0.587 for the rule of law and 0.565 for corruption-control. Third, the levels of inequality that completely dampen the positive incidence of governance on inclusive "secondary education" are: 0.601 for "voice & accountability" and 0.700 for regulation quality. Fourth, for tertiary education, inequality thresholds are respectively 0.568 for political stability and 0.562 for corruption-control. The main policy implication is that for governance dynamics to promote inclusive education in the sampled countries, income inequality levels should be kept within the established thresholds. Other implications are discussed in the light of Sustainable Development Goals.

This exploratory study aims to assess Africa's lagging position in global heath in relation to some health care infrastructure before critically examining the situation of Africa in the light of pressing Covid-19 healthcare infrastructural needs in terms of number of hospital beds, intensive care units (ICU) beds and ventilators per 100 000 people. A comparative analysis is provided to showcase which regions are leading in the health facilities in the world in general and Africa in particular as well as countries that are lagging in the attendant healthcare facilities. Analytical insights are provided to illustrate that the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed how Africa cannot reach most Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG-3 on health and wellbeing. Moreover, corresponding inferences suggest that the continent is unprepared for future pandemics in terms of health facilities.

This study assesses the incidence of the Covid-19 pandemic on poverty levels in 50 African countries by employing the PovcalNet computational tool for poverty monitoring. The empirical evidence is based on: (i) Pre Covid-19 macroeconomic projections of October 2019 and revised macroeconomic projections of April 2020 and (ii) three poverty thresholds, notably, US$1.90, US$3.20, and US$5.50 per day for the extreme, middle and higher poverty lines. The following main findings are established. First, the extreme poverty line of US$1.90 per day has increased by US$0.1 per day while the middle poverty line and the higher line have increased by US0.19$ and US0.32$, respectively. Second, the poverty headcount has increased to 35.85% for the US1.90$ poverty line, 57.55% for the US3.20$ per day poverty line and 76.42% for the higher poverty line (US5.5$ per day). Third, the corresponding additional percentage points in poverty headcount ratio are: (i) an increase of 2.09% for the poverty thresholds of US1.90$ per day and US3.2$ per day, corresponding to 28, 140, 345 and 26, 418, 200 million, respectively of the new poor in absolute terms and (ii) a boost of 1.78% for the higher poverty line of US5.5$ per day, corresponding to 19, 062, 643 million of the new poor. Fourth, country-specific tendencies are also provided for more targeted policy implications.

This study improves the African Regional Integration Index (ARII) proposed by the African Union, the African Development Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa by providing a theoretical framework and addressing shortcomings related to weighting and aggregation of the indicator. This paper measures monetary integration in the eight African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) by constructing an Index of African Monetary Integration (IAMI). It proposes an Optimal Currency Area as theoretical framework and uses a panel approach to appreciate the dynamics of the index over different periods of time. The findings show that: (i) inflation and finance (trade and mobility) present the highest (lowest) score while ECOWAS is (EAC and IGAD are) the highest (least) performing. (ii) Surprisingly, in most RECs, the highest contributors to wealth creation are not the top performers in regional monetary integration. (iii) The RECs in Africa are characterized by a stable monetary integration which is different from the gradual process usually observed in monetary integration because with the exception of the EAC and UMA, the dynamics of IAMI show a steady trend in the overall index across time. Policy implications are discussed.