The second bulletin presents progress made in the execution of the “Action Plan to Improve Statistics for Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture, and Rural Development in Africa” over the period January to May 2011. It discusses ongoing activities and includes next steps for the implementation of...

This paper aims to estimate and quantify the percentage decline in consumption expenditure, which can be attributed to changes in house wealth, after monetary policy tightening. We use the structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) approach on South African disaggregated Absa house price data, namely...

This working paper, analyzes the global manganese value chain, with the objective of understanding types and sources of project finance, and the role of development finance institutions (DFIs). This industry is of interest given growing global demand for manganese products, and the sector’s high...

Engagement with China is an important phenomenon for the African continent. Beyond the quantitative impact of growing aid, finance, trade and investment flows, this engagement may have significant qualitative impacts on African development, positive and negative. It is often alleged that the heavy...

China, as well as several other Asian economies, has achieved spectacular growth rates through opening markets to facilitate sensible price signals, operating trade and exchange rate policies that favour exports over imports in at least the initial stages, providing a sound incentives framework for...

China’s growth and its capacity to move in thirty years from under-development and extreme poverty to an emerging global power and one of the largest exporter of manufactured goods has attracted the attention of many developing countries. China has served as a development model for Africa and an...

China’s rapid growth has transformed its relationship with Africa. Industrialization has boosted China’s import demand for oil and minerals (e.g. iron ore, bauxite, nickel, copper), which Africa can satisfy. China is now Africa’s third largest trading partner; bilateral trade with Africa reached $...

China’s phenomenal growth offers an opportunity to boost development in African countries. In 2008, trade between Africa and China reached $100 billion and FDI flows from China to Africa amounted to $5.4 billion. Moreover, China’s loans and concessional assistance financed a wide range of...

This paper describes real per capita income and macroeconomic convergence in Southern African Development Community (SADC). SADC is one of the 9 regional economic communities (RECs) in Africa and currently includes 15 member statesi ( see end note) with total population of about 257.7 million and...