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In Ghana, like many African countries, women are financially disadvantaged compared to men, which has encouraged women to form credit associations. This paper examined the “Pagwuni” Women’s Group (PWG) in the Northern region of Ghana, where over 93 percent of members are smallholder farmers. Women make regular membership and social fund contributions with records kept in a secured ‘money-box’, opened at an agreed time. Members receive their money according to the amount contributed while the ‘social fund’ is for purchasing farm inputs. This study analysed the effect of the Pagwuni Women Group (PWG) financing activities on the financial needs of the group and their households’ economic welfare. The study also examined the kind of innovation that this PWG adopts that differs from the traditional Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLA). In investigating the sustainability of this ‘money-box’ model, data was sourced from 150 participants and the group administrators using a mixed research method. Three significant findings were uncovered. First, 93.3 percent of the respondents are peasant farmers. Second, 86.7percent indicated that this money-box arrangement is their only form of savings. Hence, since PWG is a woman-only group, it offers a good opportunity to understand the interconnections between gender and the economic welfare, enhancing the potential benefits of such group savings associations. Third, access to the social fund component of money-box helped the female participants to acquire the equipment and services needed to modernise their farming activities. Policy recommendations to link such rural money box initiatives with formal financial institutions to help channel funds to small-scale female farmers are discussed. (Afr J Reprod Health 2021; 25[5s]: 147-158).

Purpose- The study complements the scant macroeconomic literature on the development outcomes of social media by examining the relationship between Facebook penetration and violent crime levels in a cross-section of 148 countries for the year 2012. Design/methodology/approach- The empirical evidence is based on Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Tobit and Quantile regressions. In order to respond to policy concerns on the limited evidence on the consequences of social media in developing countries, the dataset is disaggregated into regions and income levels. The decomposition by income levels included : low income, lower middle income, upper middle income and high income. The corresponding regions include: Europe and Central Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Findings- From OLS and Tobit regressions, there is a negative relationship between Facebook penetration and crime. However, Quantile regressions reveal that the established negative relationship is noticeable exclusively in the 90 th crime quantile. Further, when the dataset is decomposed into regions and income levels, the negative relationship is evident in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) while a positive relationship is confirmed for sub-Saharan Africa. Policy implications are discussed. Originality/value- Studies on the development outcomes of social media are sparse because of a lack of reliable macroeconomic data on social media. This study primarily complemented five existing studies that have leveraged on a newly available dataset on Facebook.

The study investigates the role of security officers and the police in dampening the effect of insecurity on homicides. Insecurity dynamics are measured in terms of access to weapons, violent crime, perception of criminality and political instability. The geographical and temporal scopes are respectively 163 countries and 2010-2015. The empirical evidence is based on Negative Binomial regressions. Three main findings are established. First , security officers and the police significantly lessen the effect of political instability and perception of criminality on homicides. Second , an extended analysis with thresholds suggest that a maximum deployment of security officers and the police is required in order to completely cancel out the impact of both insecurity dynamics on homicides. The concept of threshold represents the critical mass at which the negative conditional effect from the interaction between security officers and the police completely dampens the effect of insecurity dynamics on homicides. Third , the use of security officers and the police is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the complete eradication of insecurity-related homicides. Policy implications are discussed.

This study examines how information and communication technology (ICT) could be employed to dampen the potentially damaging effects of environmental degradation in order to promote inclusive human development in a panel of 44 Sub-Saharan African countries. ICT is captured with internet and mobile phone penetration rates whereas environmental degradation is measured in terms of CO 2 emissions per capita and CO 2 intensity. The empirical evidence is based on Fixed Effects and Tobit regressions using data from 2000-2012. In order to increase the policy relevance of this study, the dataset is decomposed into fundamental characteristics of inclusive development and environmental degradation based on income levels (Low income versus (vs.) Middle income); legal origins (English Common law vs. French Civil law); religious domination (Christianity vs. Islam); openness to sea (Landlocked vs. Co astal); resource-wealth (Oil-rich vs. O il-poor) and political stability (Stable vs. Unstable). Baseline findings broadly show that improvement in both of measures of ICT would significantly diminish the possibly harmful effect of CO 2 emissions on inclusive human development. When the analysis is extended with the abovementioned fundamental characteristics, we observe that the moderating influence of both our ICT variables on CO 2 emissions is higher in the group of English Common law, Middle income and Oil-wealthy countries than in the French Civil law, Low income countries and Oil-poor countries respectively. Theoretical and practical policy implications are discussed.

In this study, we investigate the role of development assistance in reducing a hypothetically negative impact of terrorism on economic growth, using a panel of 78 developing nations with data for the period 1984-2008. The empirical evidence is based on interactive Quantile regressions. Domestic, transnational, unclear and total terrorism dynamics are employed while development assistance measurements comprised: bilateral and multilateral aid variables. With regard to the investigated hypothesis, we consistently confirm that: (i) In quantiles where terrorism is found to increase (decrease) economic growth, its interaction with foreign aid decreases (increases) economic growth. (ii) Comparing thresholds of the modifying aid variables for which the hypothesis is either rejected or accepted reveals that higher levels of multilateral (bilateral) aid are needed to reverse the negative effect of total (unclear) terrorism on growth, than the quantity needed to reverse the positive impact of transnational (domestic and total) terrorism(s) on growth. (iii) There is scant evidence of positive net effects. Overall the findings broadly indicate that foreign aid is a necessary but not a sufficient policy tool for completely dampening the effects of terrorism on economic growth.

Today, the West faces a considerable dilemma in their support for the Washington Consensus as a dominant approach for development because the Beijing model has grown to become an unavoidable process which can only be neglected at the cost of standing on the wrong side of economic history. The Washington Consensus, the hitherto dominant scheme, is being encroached on by the Beijing model. Many African nations are increasingly embracing this later method because the prevailing Western model has failed to deliver on a number of objectives. This is increasingly evident because China's economic diplomacy has been politely and strategically coined to achieve it. A case study is used herein to articulate the different strands of the survey. The paper puts some structure on China's economic diplomatic strategies and discusses lessons for Africa, China and the West. It contributes to existing literature by critically assessing why it is necessary for the West to modify the conception and definition of the Washington Consensus as a counterpart to the Beijing model. In order to remain relevant in the 21st century and beyond, the Washington Consensus should incorporate those ideas which are in conformity with Moyo's (2013) conjecture. This postulates that, while the Beijing model is optimal in the short-run, the Washington Consensus remains the ideal long-term development model because it is more inclusive of the rights demanded by individuals at different income categories.

Purpose- The study investigates the role of inclusive human development and military expenditure in modulating the effect of terrorism on governance. Design/methodology/approach- It is based on 53 African countries for the period 1998-2012 and interactive Generalised Method of Moments is employed. Six governance indicators from the World Bank and two terrorism variables are used, namely: domestic and transnational terrorism dynamics. Findings- The following main findings are established. There is a negative net effect on governance (regulation quality and corruption-control) when inclusive human development is used to reduce terrorism. There is a positive net impact on governance ("voice and accountability" and rule of law) when military expenditure is used to reduce domestic terrorism. Originality/value- We have complemented the sparse literature on the use of policy variables to mitigate the effect of policy syndromes on macroeconomic outcomes.

This study compares the responsiveness of microcredit interest rates to age, scale of lending and organisational charter. It uses an unbalanced panel of 300 MFIs from 107 developing countries from 2005 to 2015. Three key trends emerge from the results of a 2SLS regression. First, the adoption of formal microbanking practices raises interest rates compared with other forms of microlending. Second, large scale lending lowers interest rates only for those MFIs that already hold legal banking status. Third, age of operation in excess of eight years exerts a negative impact on interest rates, regardless of scale and charter type of MFI. Collectively, our results indicate that policies which incentivise mature MFIs to share their knowledge will be more effective in helping the nascent institutions to overcome their cost disadvantages compared with reforms to transform them into licensed banks. For MFIs which already hold permits to operate as banks, initiatives to increase loan sizes are key strategic pricing decisions, irrespective of the institution's age. This study is original in its differentiation of the impact on interest rates of regulations which promote formal banking principles, credit market extension vis-à-vis knowledge sharing between mature and nascent MFIs.

The overarching question tackled in this paper is: to what degree has financial development contributed to providing opportunities of human development for those on low-incomes and by what information technology mechanisms? We systematically review about 180 recently published papers to provide recent information technology advances in finance for inclusive development. Retained financial innovations are structured along three themes. They are: (i) the rural-urban divide, (ii) women empowerment and (iii) human capital in terms of skills and training. The financial instruments are articulated with case studies, innovations and investment strategies with particular emphasis, inter alia on: informal finance, microfinance, mobile banking, crowdfunding, micro insurance, Islamic finance, remittances, Payment for Environmental Services (PES) and the Diaspora Investment in Agriculture (D IA) initiative.

Purpose- This study presents theoretical and empirical arguments for the role of mobile telephony in promoting good governance in 47 sub-Saharan African countries for the period 2000-2012. Design/methodology/approach- The empirical inquiry uses an endogeneity-robust GMM approach with forward orthogonal deviations to analyse the linkage between mobile phone usage and the variation in three broad governance categories − political, economic and institutional. Findings- Three key findings are established: First, in terms of individual governance indicators, mobile phones consistently stimulated good governance by the same magnitude, with the exception of the effect on the regulation component of economic governance. Second, when indicators are combined, the effect of mobile phones on general governance is three times higher than that on the institutional governance category. Third, countries with lower levels of governance indicators are catching-up with their counterparts with more advanced dynamics. Originality/value- The study makes both theoretical and empirical contributions by highlighting the importance of various combinations of governance indicators and their responsiveness to mobile phone usage.

In this paper, we investigate the role of security officers, the police and armed service personnel in dampening the effect of terrorism externalities on tourist arrivals. The temporal and geographic scopes are respectively 2010-2015 and 163 countries. Four terrorism measurements are used. They include the number of: incidents, injuries, fatalities and property damages. The main findings indicate that armed service personnel can effectively be used to modulate the damaging influence of all four terrorism externalities in order to achieve a positive net effect on tourist arrivals. Conversely, the corresponding moderating role of security officers and the police is not statistically significant. Moreover, violent demonstrations and homicides have a harmful effect on tourist arrivals while the number of incarcerations displays the opposite effect. Policy implications are discussed.

The paper investigates the effects of information asymmetry (between the realised return and the expected return) on market timing in the mutual fund industry. For the purpose, we use a panel of 1488 active open-end mutual funds for the period 2004-2013. We use fund-specific time-dynamic betas. Information asymmetry is measured as the standard deviation of idiosyncratic risk. The dataset is decomposed into five market fundamentals in order to emphasis the policy implications of our findings with respect to (i) equity, (ii) fixed income, (iii) allocation, (iv) alternative and (v) tax preferred mutual funds. The empirical evidence is based on endogeneity-robust Difference and System Generalised Method of Moments. The following findings are established. First, information asymmetry broadly follows the same trend as volatility, with a higher sensitivity to market risk exposure. Second, fund managers tend to raise (cutback) their risk exposure in time of high (low) market liquidity. Third, there is evidence of convergence in equity funds. We may therefore infer that equity funds with lower market risk exposure are catching-up with their counterparts with higher exposure to fluctuation in market conditions. The paper complements the scarce literature on market timing in the mutual fund industry with time-dynamic betas, information asymmetry and an endogeneity-robust empirical approach.

This study employs interactive quantile regressions to assess the conditional role of foreign aid in reducing the potentially negative effect of terrorism on fuel exports in 78 developing countries for the period 1984-2008. Bilateral and multilateral aid indicators are used whereas terrorism includes: domestic, transnational, unclear and total terrorism dynamics. Interactive quantile regressions are used. The following findings are established. First, the effects of terrorism are both positive and negative across quantiles and specifications, with the impact most apparent in the highest and lowest quantiles. Second, while bilateral aid consistently decreases (increases) fuel exports at the top (bottom) quantiles, multilateral aid regularly decreases fuel exports in the top quantiles. Third, for negative thresholds in the 50th quartile and 90th decile, interaction effects between bilateral aid and terrorism dynamics are overwhelmingly not significant. Conversely, for transnational terrorism, the interaction effects between multilateral aid and terrorism dynamics significantly have negative thresholds. The hypothesis of a positive threshold is only confirmed for transnational terrorism and multilateral aid at the 90th decile. Justifications for unexpected signs and implications for fuel export policy and the management of multinational companies are discussed. This study contributes to the literature on the role of external flows in reducing the negative externalities of terrorism on development outcomes.