The issue of income equality has become of great concern on a global scale. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, economists and other socioeconomic analysts have observed the state of the income and wealth gap between the top ten percent rich and the lower forty percent poor of populations, and its far-reaching impact on the lives of ordinary people. Income inequality has become a global challenge and the effects are felt in both developed and developing countries. The socioeconomic disparity between the rich and poor is pronounced in developing countries, and recent trends of growing inequality are being observed in developed countries. This research examines the effect of education on income inequality and GDP per capita, using a panel dataset of 18 selected sub-Saharan countries for the period from 1994 to 2015. The panel models are estimated, using the fixed effects, random effects and generalised methods of moments estimation techniques. The results show that the relationship of education and its impact on income inequality is dependent on the level of education being assessed. High resource input in tertiary education increases income inequality, while high resource input in lower educational levels reduces income inequality. Overall, increases in government expenditure on education lead to increase in inequality and a fall in GDP per capita. These results show possible inefficiencies in the allocation of educational resources in sub-Saharan countries during the period of investigation. Government spending on education does not reduce inequality or boost income unless it is done efficiently. To reduce income inequality and increase average income, educational resources must be efficiently allocated with priority given to the educational levels of the highest proportions of the population.

This thesis investigates the relationship between groundnut cash cropping decisions and household food security in two regions of sub-Saharan Africa.  Particular attention is paid to how the gender of groundnut growers influences this relationship.  Additionally, the thesis examines how gender influences household marketing decisions.  Household groundnut production and marketing data was obtained using surveys administered in eastern Uganda and central Ghana.  A food consumption score developed by the World Food Program is used as a quantitative measure of food security.  Measures of household groundnut cultivation intensity are specified using data on household groundnut production and marketing levels.  An OLS regression estimates the relationship between the food consumption score and measures of cash cropping intensity and other cash crop production decisions.  Apart from the OLS regression, a tobit model is employed to estimate the gender effects on household marketing decisions, examining both the decision to participate in a market and the decision concerning the amount to market.  Cash cropping decisions are found to play no role in the determination of food security.  While the presence of female groundnut growers in a household has a small positive effect on the food consumption score, there is no identifiable gender influence upon the cash cropping and food security relationship.  The tobit model results indicate no gender effect upon household marketing decisions. / Master of Science

付記する学位プログラム名: グローバル生存学大学院連携プログラム / 京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(医学) / 甲第20266号 / 医博第4225号 / 新制||医||1021(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院医学研究科医学専攻 / (主査)教授 小泉 昭夫, 教授 中山 健夫, 教授 髙折 晃史 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Medical Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(農学) / 甲第20769号 / 農博第2252号 / 新制||農||1054(附属図書館) / 学位論文||H29||N5089(農学部図書室) / 京都大学大学院農学研究科地域環境科学専攻 / (主査)教授 舟川 晋也, 教授 間藤 徹, 教授 縄田 栄治 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Agricultural Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

This dissertation examines the differences in ethnic favoritism across African countries. In the first chapter, using survey data from Afrobarometer we consider to what extent ethnic favoritism arises in sub-Saharan African countries by examining whether a person’s perception of government fairness depends on whether he shares the same ethnicity as the country’s leader. I allow associations to differ not only across time but across types of countries such as democracies versus nondemocracies. Such an approach not only can determine whether ethnic favoritism arises but in what cases it might be more pronounced. Findings indicate that the associations with perceived ethnic favoritism have held steady over time. Differences between low- and middle-income countries are also small. Greater differences arise across political regimes as democracies show less ethnic bias than do nondemocracies. More diverse countries also show more ethnic bias. In the second chapter, with the information from two rounds of the Afrobarometer survey, we consider to what extent gender and ethnicity matter for perceived access and quality of education and health facilities. We allow associations to differ not only across time but across types of countries such as democracies versus nondemocracies. Such an approach not only can determine whether ethnic and gender inequalities arise but in what circumstances they might dissipate. Our findings indicate no differences in the perceived access and quality of education and health facilities nor do differences arise in various subgroups of countries such as democracies, resource-rich countries, ethnically diverse countries, or middle-income countries. The third chapter examines how the Nigerian president’s changes in ethnicity and religion affect certain outcomes. Since 2000, Nigerian presidents have come from different ethnic groups and practiced different religions. Using several rounds of the Demographic and Health Surveys, we exploit this variation in leadership to examine if households see greater material wealth or greater access to public services when the president comes from their ethnic group or when he practices the same religion. The analysis indicates that ethnic groups do not benefit (at least, contemporaneously) from having a co-ethnic as president. In fact, co-ethnics are less likely to have access to electricity, protected water, improved sanitation, and more likely to be in the poorest quantile.

No description available.

This study sought to examine health care decisions and choices that women make during pregnancy and childbirth in selected low-income and poor urban communities in Ghana. Specifically, it examined women's and community members' knowledge and perceptions about pregnancy and childbirth; existing forms of health care available to women during pregnancy and childbirth; and factors that influence preference for the type of health care that women use during pregnancy and childbirth. The study employed a two-phased data collection strategy involving in-depth interviews and focus group discussions to examine maternal health care seeking behavior of the target population. The findings revealed that the poor urban women have a wide range of perceptions and knowledge about pregnancy including knowledge about what constitutes a successful pregnancy and risk factors of pregnancy and childbirth complications. The study found that three major forms of health care exist for pregnant women: biomedical care; herbal-traditional birth attendant care; and spiritual care. While some women use or prefer to use either solely medical care or herbal-traditional birth attendant care for their pregnancy and delivery, others combine two or all the three forms of health care. Pregnant women seek traditional birth attendants (TBAs) and spiritual care for spiritual protection against death, due to affection and cultural attachment to TBAs, fears about medical care and health facilities, and due to cost of seeking medical care. Long waiting time and early reporting time at antenatal clinic were identified as partly limiting the use of medical care during pregnancy. Intimate partners of pregnant women were identified as negative normative influence since most of them do not support their wives during pregnancy. Quality and safety of care were the major reasons why pregnant mothers seek biomedical care other than other forms of care. However, majority of women who seek biomedical care do not seek timely antenatal care. Only 42 percent made their first antenatal visit in the first trimester. These findings have implications for policies and programs that are likely to help increase the use of skilled attendance and improve maternal health outcomes in the study population and other similar low-income urban communities in Ghana.

As of 2014, 81% of sub-Saharan population or 792 million people rely on the traditional use of biomass to provide in their cooking needs. This situation causes harmful health, environmental, and development hazards with a substantial annual economic cost of USD58.2 billion. The concern about the issue of access to clean cooking facilities is growing as international organizations and national governments define steps to transform the existing situation. Literature provides a good view on determinants for the cooking fuel choice in developing regions, but comprehensive outlooks for the future cooking fuel mix in sub-Saharan countries are limited. To this extent, the presented master's thesis aims to shed light on a history-inspired pathway for the evolution of the biomass dominated cooking fuel mix in sub-Saharan countries to 2050. A quantitative model was developed to estimate the future uptake of various cooking technologies, from which the fuel mix can be derived using energy intensities. Projections were constructed for urban and rural areas in 45 countries. Economic development, population expansion, urbanization, and to a certain extent policies are the key drivers of the model. Despite a moderate improvement in the share of population relying on traditional biomass, 808 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are expected to make use of traditional three-stone fires in 2050, an increase compared to 2014. Biomass remains the dominant cooking fuel as a result of limited switching and the low efficiency of employed stoves. Driven by higher incomes and a better developed infrastructure, urban areas experience a faster shift to modern fuels. Demand for LPG grows at an annual rate of 6% across sub-Saharan Africa, in sharp contrast with the phase out of kerosene and the limited uptake of electric cookstoves. The speed of evolutions is dissimilar across countries because of differences in economic growth and urbanization, and non-homogeneous starting points. The results demonstrate the vast size of the challenge to improve living conditions in sub-Saharan Africa and suggest that universal access by 2030, a target stated by several international organizations, is rather unrealistic.

For the past thirty years Africa has produced a more noticeably inferior reserve of human capital than other developing regions. This is puzzling because at the inception of independence, the future of Africa looked promising. However, during the 1970s both the political and economic situation in Africa began to deteriorate, and since 1980, the aggregate per capita GDP in sub-Saharan Africa has declined at almost one percent per fiscal year. Thirty-two countries are poorer now than they were twenty years ago, and sub-Saharan Africa is now the lowest-income region in the world despite the fact that during the last two decades Africa has attracted more aid per capita than other developing regions. I hypothesize that focusing primarily on economic growth as the primary means of development has undermined and deterred social development in sub-Saharan Africa. I believe that as foreign investment and debt increase, social development stagnates and even declines. I argue that because of the focus on economics and lack of focus on social and cultural considerations sustained economic growth has been devitalized in sub-Saharan Africa. For this research I employed time-series, cross-sectional regression analysis to test the relative importance of the economic development model on social development in sub-Saharan Africa. My analysis of the forty-eight countries over thirty years gives leverage to the critique of economic growth centered development policies.

This paper is a study of the effects of foreign aid on perceptions of political corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa. In keeping with the consensus on foreign aid effectiveness, this study proposed that Sub-Saharan African countries receiving more foreign aid would be more likely to maintain high levels of perceived corruption. Hypotheses were tested using multivariate regression, controlling for a number of factors which have shown to be influential on perceptions of political corruption. Two models were tested, one to show the regression over a period of nine years, and the other to show the relationship between the foreign aid and perceptions of corruption over one year. The tests resulted in showing a significantly negative relationship over nine years, but foreign aid lost its significance with perceptions of political corruption over one year. The most influential variable on political corruption in both models was the level of political rights in a country, which indicated a significantly negative relationship between the two variables. The paper also looked at Nigeria in a case study focusing on the effects of foreign aid on governance and economic policy environments, corruption being a major factor in both of these. This study resulted in the conclusion that increases in foreign aid paralleled improved perceptions of political corruption, and that Nigeria's reform initiative during the Obasanjo regime (1999-2007) was the major determining factor in this perception shift. Overall, this study supports the consensus that foreign aid given to countries with reform-minded governments is more likely to contribute to the fight against corruption.