Political Science > Agriculture & Food Policy

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International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This Selected Issues paper highlights mobilizing mining revenue in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone is a resource-rich economy, and its mining sector can generate revenue to finance its development goals and ensure debt sustainability. It previously incorporated its mining fiscal regime for industrial miners into mineral license agreements that are difficult to modify. Negotiated tax concessions, combined with acute capacity challenges in revenue administration, are hindering revenue performances and have led to an elevated reliance on fees and trade taxes which increase investor costs, hindering competitiveness. Sierra Leone legislated a new fiscal regime—the Extractive Industries Revenue Act (EIRA)—in 2018 for new investments. Applying the EIRA could significantly boost revenue performance, whilst also ensuring taxes are responsive to changes in economic conditions. Stronger revenue performance will require a stronger revenue administration. Efforts to improve mineral royalty compliance are starting to pay dividends but NRA will need to bolster its resources and widen its skill sets.
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This Selected Issues paper highlights trends, impacts, and policy implications in Burkina Faso. Regional insecurity has also created increased cross-border displacement, both into and out of Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso has devised several policy responses, including in cooperation with international partners. Despite these measures, the persistent crisis of forced displacement means that the need for humanitarian assistance remains. A successful strategy for addressing the displacement crisis should be broad-based in terms of partners and approaches. Given the country's economic and financial challenges, an in-depth understanding is needed of the economic impact of forced displacement and possible solutions. In other countries, studies show positive economic outcomes to host regions of forced displacement. The inclusion of forced displaced persons in the Unified Social Register and national social nets programs would facilitate the implementation of assistance and, along with other national repositories help improve urban management and budget planning.
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
Le Burkina Faso est confronté à d’importants besoins en matière de balance des paiements et de sécurité aggravés par une insécurité alimentaire aiguë et une instabilité politique. Les autorités ont obtenu en mars 2023 un financement d’urgence de la part du FMI au titre du guichet « chocs alimentaires » de la facilité de crédit rapide pour répondre à la crise provoquée par l’insécurité alimentaire, qui demeure très vive dans certaines régions. L’aide internationale au développement a diminué après les deux coups d’État militaires survenus en 2022. Le Burkina Faso est parvenu à un accord avec la Communauté économique des États d’Afrique de l’Ouest (CEDEAO) sur un retour à l’ordre constitutionnel et des élections doivent se dérouler d’ici juillet 2024.
Hany Abdel-Latif
and
Mahmoud El-Gamal
This study investigates the factors leading to exclusion and their detrimental impacts in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It employs two-levels of analysis: a macro-level estimation of the influence of exclusion and marginalization on violent conflict, and a micro-level investigation identifying the triggers of exclusion sentiments. We construct statistical summaries from multiple measures of exclusion, producing an overall exclusion index as well as social, economic, and political exclusion sub-indices. Our results show the importance of mitigating exclusion and marginalization within SSA nations, and pinpoint the most effective policy levers that governments may use to minimize destabilizing feelings of exclusion.
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This paper discusses Burkina Faso’s Request for a Four-Year Arrangement Under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF). Burkina Faso faces protracted balance of payments problems, reflecting large development needs and the impact of shocks such as the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, adverse weather conditions, deteriorating domestic security, the food insecurity crisis, and spillovers from Russia’s war in Ukraine. These shocks have disrupted economic activity, affected livelihoods, and exacerbated macroeconomic imbalances. The ECF will help create fiscal space for priority spending, strengthen resilience to shocks while reducing poverty, and bolster fiscal discipline, transparency and governance. It will also help close financing gaps reflecting tight financial conditions, large fiscal deficits, debt vulnerabilities, food insecurity, and fragile security conditions. For the country’s long-term development process, it remains essential to sustain structural reforms to foster economic growth and diversification as well as to reduce poverty. In this context, further efforts to improve the business environment, reinforce governance and anticorruption efforts, and address the security crisis are critical.
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This Selected Issues paper on the fintech and crypto assets in the Central African Republic (CAR). CAR’s initial steps in the form of the 2022 crypto law have created legal uncertainties at the Central African Economic and Monetary Community level and raised numerous concerns but some of the most controversial provisions have been recently revised. The authorities have proceeded with the launch of a digital coin named Sango and namesake platform-ecosystem with multifaceted features. While only a limited amount of coins have been issued and other elements of the project have not been launched, project Sango has attracted considerable interest as it can potentially bring opportunities through digitization, while also raising complex risks. This range from macro-fiscal and financial to financial integrity, governance, consumer protection and others. The Sango project appears too complex, creating interconnectedness between multiple sectors and private and public balance sheets in a manner, which could raise systemic risks, pointing to the importance of reconsidering the existing blueprint.
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This Selected Issues paper takes stock of developments in education, health, and social assistance and offers policy options in the Republic of Madagascar. The quality of education in Madagascar is falling with low school completion rates, a high share of untrained teachers, and declining test scores. Finding fiscal space to allocate more public resources to the education, health, and social protection sectors should be a key government priority. The resources currently budgeted for these sectors remain much lower than in other Sub-Saharan African countries and insufficient to improve development outcomes. Madagascar made some progress in improving access to primary education and basic health services, but the quality of the education system has deteriorated, significant human resource gaps remain in the health sector, and the poverty rate has increased. The paper recommends that in the area of social protection, identify clear and predictable funding sources with a view to gradually scale up existing social programs, while developing a national social registry to harmonize the social response among different interventions and actors and set a strong basis to gradually increase social assistance coverage of the vulnerable population.
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This Selected Issues paper takes stock of developments in education, health, and social assistance and offers policy options in the Republic of Madagascar. The quality of education in Madagascar is falling with low school completion rates, a high share of untrained teachers, and declining test scores. Finding fiscal space to allocate more public resources to the education, health, and social protection sectors should be a key government priority. The resources currently budgeted for these sectors remain much lower than in other Sub-Saharan African countries and insufficient to improve development outcomes. Madagascar made some progress in improving access to primary education and basic health services, but the quality of the education system has deteriorated, significant human resource gaps remain in the health sector, and the poverty rate has increased. The paper recommends that in the area of social protection, identify clear and predictable funding sources with a view to gradually scale up existing social programs, while developing a national social registry to harmonize the social response among different interventions and actors and set a strong basis to gradually increase social assistance coverage of the vulnerable population.
International Monetary Fund
The global policy agenda that follows recalibrates priorities to meet the new reality we are facing. The IMF also continues to adjust to respond to the rapidly evolving needs of our membership. Our flexibility has been evident over the past two years of the COVID crisis: unprecedented emergency financing; a historic Special Drawing Rights (SDR) allocation; an innovative plan to end the pandemic. Now, as we face another crisis on top of a crisis, we will continue to step up and support our member countries in every way we can—with financial resources, policy advice, and capacity development—working in collaboration with our international partners.