Life insurance has over the years emerged as one of the drivers of financial sector development. The savings mobilisation and financial intermediation functions have backed the growing importance of this investment source. Low penetration levels in Zambia have pointed to a vast untapped market and a potential source of financial sector development. Life insurance growth prospects in the country remain optimistic on the back of a growing population and increasing urbanisation. This study examined the impact of selected macroeconomic variables, namely income, inflation and financial development on life insurance demand in Zambia using annual time series secondary data from the period 1995 to 2017. The study utilised the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test, Vector Autoregressive model (VAR) Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and the Error Correction Model (ECM) in conducting econometric investigations. Findings from the study show that financial development negatively influences life insurance, while inflation has a positive effect at a 5% significance level. Further, the study finds no significant long-term relationship between income and life insurance. However, in the shortrun, a unidirectional causal relationship between life penetration and income exist. In conclusion, the study recommends that the Government prioritises the expansion of the financial sector through the central bank and other regulators in the industry. Policy reforms should be aimed at increasing financial inclusion and deepening the financial sector, as well as increasing access to financial services and products. The study further recommends that life insurance companies should augment Government efforts by increasing sensitisation and marketing of life insurance products and services.

Regional integration has been a key ambition, vision and standing agenda of the African continent for the past two decades. The recent signing of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) (signed by 54 of the 55 members of the African Union as of July 2019) brings to the fore the urgent need to accelerate the implementation of what has been thus far an elongated period of planning and discussion. One of the key mandates of the AfCFTA is to ensure acceleration of intra-African trade and boost Africa's trading position in the global market by strengthening Africa's common voice and policy space in global trade negotiations (African Union, 2018). Intra-regional trade can be considered as a quick avenue for the continent and its respective Regional Economic Communities (RECs) such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC), to implement this agenda by leveraging collective resources and opportunities such as increased focus on the establishment of regional value chains (RVCs). Currently, the SADC region has been at the forefront of driving regional trade integration (RTI) in the continent; however, intra-regional trade is still only but a fraction of the RECs total global trade, averaging 5-7% of total trade in 2015-2017. Because of the myriad of challenges in the region – including but not limited to the low rate of RTI, poor infrastructure, poor institutions, unstable political environments, and slow economic growth – RECs, let alone the continent as a whole, cannot take part in and capitalise on the opportunities from complex trade networks through global and regional value chains. Moreover, when African countries do participate in global value chains, they find themselves at the lower end of the value chain where it is harder to reap the benefits due to the unequal distributional effects of such trade activities. This study therefore examined the key factors that drive RTI, and sought to ascertain the relationship between regional value chains and regional trade integration. Lastly, the study aimed to uncover the contribution to economic growth of such trade activities. Thirteen SADC countries are observed over the period 2000-2017 using panel data analysis and various key estimation techniques to ensure robustness of the models used. The study finds that there are definitely key factors that drive regional trade integration in the REC that require increased focus from policy makers and trade activity participants as they have the potential to change the trajectory of the region and the continent's trade landscape. The study also indisputably finds a two-way relationship between RTI and RVCs, suggesting that if key aspects of these activities are addressed, this would lead to a mutual increase in iv these factors as they are highly complementary activities. Lastly, the study confirms the positive impact that RTI and RVCs would have on economic growth attributed to an increase in the level of productive economic trade activity thereby contributing to the gross domestic product (GDP) of countries as individuals and as a collective. The study therefore concludes that there should be more focus from policy makers and all key trade activity stakeholders on driving regional trade integration and participation in regional value chains as the benefits could prove highly rewarding to the SADC RECs and the continent as a whole. Such increased focus will ensure that the region is fully capitalising on the unique strengths of the African continent and driving collective growth and development.

This study examines the interactions between derivatives trading, portfolio flows and economic growth in South Africa over the period 2000: Q1 to 2018: Q4. As derivatives are widely accepted as effective risk management solutions in developed nations, and can facilitate capital flows to emerging markets, there is a need to investigate the empirical relationships between derivatives, portfolio inflows and economic growth. A vector error correction model was used in addition to conducting Granger causality, impulse response functions and variance decomposition tests to analyse the relationship between the factors of interest. The efficiency of the model was established using standard diagnostics, which confirmed the overall significance of the model. The VECM results find a positive short- and long-run relationship between portfolio flows, derivatives trading and economic growth in South Africa. The Granger causality tests, impulse response analysis and variance decompositions find a short-run relationship only between portfolio flows and derivatives trading. The implications are thus that derivatives trading can lead to an increase in portfolio flows.

The South African economy has been lagging its forecasted economic growth statistics in recent years, particularly following the worldwide economic recession of 2008. The year-on-year economic growth of South Africa is forecasted to continue to be lower than other developing countries. SMMEs are a significant contributor to a countries GDP and most franchises are classified as SMMEs. Entrepreneurs in the SMME space often use franchises to not only penetrate the market but to grow existing ventures. In its annual report for the year 2016, the Franchise Association of South Africa (FASA) states that the franchise industry contributed an estimated 11.6% to South Africa's GDP. When applying for finance at most institutions, prospective franchisees are required to also contribute to the total funding required; this is known as owner's contribution. This study explores what challenges franchisees experience in trying to raise owners' contribution and how the y overcame these challenges. It further explores what prospective franchisees can learn from the experiences of the participants. Through research conducted predominantly through an online survey and interviews to a limited extent, this study found that the franchise model has many advantages, but also has disadvantages. One of the main disadvantages remains the accessibility of finance, particularly that most financiers and franchisors require substantial owners' contribution. Many participants faced challenges when having to raise owner's contribution They most used personal savings and donations or borrowings from friends and family. The negative impacts that were identified were mainly personal stress and anxiety, strained personal relationships and delays in personal and/or business plans. In conclusion, in attempting to address these challenges highlighted by participants, recommendations are made to all stakeholders on how to overcome some of the challenges identified.

A stark worldwide reality is that there is a shortage of affordable housing, which is a fundamental economic indicator and key to addressing social policy objectives including poverty reduction. Post-independence, housing in Namibia has been classified a national priority, and as such, the government has passed legislation in favour of committing to housing delivery. The housing demand continues to outstrip the supply, and this is further intensified by urbanisation, high unemployment in the country, high house prices, and a shortage of serviced land. Resultantly, the Namibian government is continually targeting to increase land supply and to incentivise the private sector. This research was centred on the challenges faced by multiple stakeholders that are challenged with financing affordable housing. The stakeholders included a private equity fund manager tasked with a mandate of providing affordable residential property, property developers, and beneficiaries of affordable housing (homeowners). The efforts in support of affordable housing finance are not solely limited to end-user housing finance (e.g. mortgage financing), but additionally include the implementation of the housing value chain, including the land acquisition process, title deed registrations and transfers, and the construction process. The mortgage market is focused on the middle and higher-income market segments. Some financial institutions offer products that do not require down payments. Despite this, many Namibians cannot access loan financing due to affordability, bureaucratic processes, high indebtedness and lack of education about the mortgage process. Therefore, this study undertook to understand the challenges in financing affordable housing covering three main stakeholders: a fund manager, developers and homeowners. This study employed a qualitative approach to analyse data from the fund manager and developers while the sequential explanatory mixed-method approach was used to analyse the data from homeowners. From the analysis, we identified the challenges pertaining to the fund manager to be the length of land titling and registration process, acquisition of unserviced land from local authorities, the reliance of funding from single investor participants, and end-user financing bureaucracy (mortgage financers). The challenges faced by the developers were found to be linked to land acquisition, funding acquisition, building plan approvals, as well as other issues such as the high cost of building materials. The homeowner challenges were identified from the quantitative analysis as the lengthy bank application process, associated costs, and lengthy approval processes. From the qualitative analysis, the challenges identified pertained to the lengthy application processes at the financial institutions, the associated costs and lengthy bureaucratic approval processes. Based on the findings, the research proposed the need for increased engagement and negotiations to lift the stringent conditions placed by local authorities in order to provide serviced land for the purposes of affordable housing; the availing of additional capital to fund managers; the revision of the systems used in order to shorten the time it takes to register and transfer properties; in addition to the lengthy, bureaucratic, and stringent bank requirements and processes.

The major challenges confronting municipalities in South Africa are poor governance, lack of effective performance, backlogs in service delivery, over- and in most cases under-spending on capital infrastructure, and poor audit outcomes. It is therefore very important for municipalities to deliver on the constitutional mandate as enshrined in the South African Constitution in terms of Section 153. Municipalities need to structure and manage the organisation's budgeting, administration and planning processes effectively in terms of their strategic five-year Integrated Development Plan (IDP). The research problem of this study encompasses the assessment of the capital budget planning processes and expenditure patterns in relation to capital infrastructure to determine whether the planning processes followed are in alignment with the IDP and the relevant legislation. The core objective of the research was to investigate the extent to which the Overstrand Municipality funded their capital budget with external borrowing in terms of the budget planning process in relation to capital infrastructure spending over a three year period in compliance with the relevant legislation.

The study analysed the impact of financial development (measured by depth, stability, efficiency and access) on private investment in South Africa over the period 1977 (Q1) to 2015 (Q4). Autoregressive distributive lag model was used in addition to conducting further tests to establish the efficiency of the model using standard diagnostics which confirmed the overall significance of the model. The results find the relationship between financial development and private investment in South Africa to be long-run in nature. The statistically significant variables found to explain the variance of private investment for South Africa in both the short- and long-run are market capitalization, domestic credit, growth in output as well as trade openness. Interest rate spread was found significant only in the short-run.

The need for foreign direct investment in Zambia emanated from the country's search for finance to support the diversification agenda backed by the private sector. Sectors that will see a diversified export earning capacity were identified as target areas for foreign direct investment. The expectation from such investments was that the country will see improved production capacities leading to the increase of NTEs and production of products that could only be accessed through the foreign markets. This research therefore aimed at investigating the impact of FDIs on NTEs and imports by category. This is on the theoretical backdrop of both the modernisation and dependency theories which highlights that the effects of FDI on the host country could either be negative or positive. The research looked at time series data for NTEs and imports by category for the period 1994 to 2014. A simple Ordinary least squares regression was used. Besides FDIs, two other variables namely trade openness and real effective exchange rate index were included in the study. The results indicate that FDI have a positive effect on both NTEs and all the four categories of imports. The magnitude of the impact on NTEs was as high as that of imports in all the four categories. The implication is that much as FDI can be said to contribute to the increased NTEs, its impact on imports are equally the same and therefore has not necessarily improved the countries overall trade performance during the periods under consideration.

The agriculture sector in Kenya contributes about 34% of the GDP and is a major employer both formally and informally. The sector has historically experienced challenges in accessing commercial financing, with banks committing less than 5% of their portfolio to agriculture, which has limited the sector's growth. In August 2016, the Kenyan government introduced interest rate ceilings in a bid to reduce the cost of borrowing, thereby releasing more capital to all enterprises, including those in the agricultural sector. This study sought to examine the effect of these interest rate ceilings on the growth in lending to the agricultural sector in Kenya. The study estimated a panel multiple regression model for 26 commercial banks, spanning a 5-year period between 2014 and 2018. The analysis revealed that the amount of credit supply to the agricultural sector increased following the imposition of interest rate ceilings. The findings from the panel regression analysis confirmed that variations in the amount of loans to the agricultural sector were affected by the imposition of interest ceilings. The finding held after controlling for bank-specific characteristics, such as firm size, equity, asset quality, liquidity and interest spread, suggesting that interest rate ceilings, if prudently applied, could lead to increased access to credit for the agricultural sector. However, the subsequent reversal of the interest rate capping law demonstrated that this is a blunt tool for enabling access to credit not only because of its ineffectiveness but due to the fact that it is prone to politicisation. This study, therefore, recommends that the government creates a favourable policy environment that enhances competition and information sharing in the banking sector which will lead to lower costs of credit. If they are deemed necessary, interest rate caps should be selectively used to enhance lending only to sectors where there is sufficient empirical evidence of their effectiveness.

This study examines the impact of foreign exchange reserve accumulation on macroeconomic stability in South Africa over the period 1995-2016 using a vector error correction model. The results show that foreign exchange reserve accumulation has a positive impact on macroeconomic stability.