Digital technology and African smallholder agriculture: Implications for public policy
COVID-19 has exacerbated challenges to Africa’s food and agriculture sector and to its millions of smallholder farmers. At the same time, the pandemic has accelerated innovative efforts to develop and deploy the transformative power of digital technology to address these problems in ways that leapfrog past practices and traditional solutions. Emerging evidence from Asia and Africa suggests that digital technology holds promise to dramatically enhance smallholder productivity and incomes by increasing on-farm and off-farm efficiency, enhancing traceability, reducing vulnerability to counterfeit products, and improving farmers’ access to output, input, and financial markets. The change is driven by the introduction of new forms of intermediation and the collection, use, and analysis of massive amounts of agriculture data to disrupt existing business models. New strategic partnerships between the public and private sectors are an essential component for reaping the positive impacts of digital technology and avoiding unintended and unwelcome secondary effects.
Digital technology as a transformational force to drive scale
Digital technology is transforming the agricultural sector through the application of innovative tools and new business models. For the first time, many people in the value chain, including smallholder farmers, have access to real-time data and computational power making possible more effective selection and timing of product-to-market decisions, provision of credit, and access to micro-insurance.
Digitized agriculture data is also creating network effects to drive scale. Coupled with the increasing embrace of the sharing economy, digitization and artificial intelligence make possible new business models and e-commerce platforms that connect farmers directly with markets, service providers, and aggregators, thereby shortening the value chain and increasing the profitability of smallholder farming. The sharing economy has also made it possible for smallholder farmers to efficiently access mechanized tools to improve their crop yields.
Importantly, the benefits go beyond increased yields: Given that digital technology holds particular appeal for younger workers, integrating it into agriculture through entry points like precision farming, equipment leasing, service provision, and e-commerce can address the major challenge of attracting job-seeking and entrepreneurial youth. Given that 70 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s population is under 30 years of age, nowhere is the job creation challenge more acute.
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Already, Asia has moved ahead quickly on the use of digital innovations in smallholder agriculture. Africa is demonstrating it has the potential to do the same. Digital technologies can provide the following potential benefits in agriculture:
Empower smallholder farmers to leapfrog and harness new business models such as the sharing economy (e.g., HelloTractor, a Nigerian agricultural technology (AgTech) company that offers a farm equipment sharing application similar to Uber) or the fast-paced growth of e-commerce such as Pinduoduo in China (one of the largest e-commerce platforms for agriculture) that has grown to 800 million customers in six years.
Derive value from agriculture data and create the network effect to drive scale. A good example is Twiga in Kenya, a business-to-business, mobile-based, e-commerce marketplace platform that delivers food produce to the mass market by digitizing the supply chain, cutting out layers of middlemen, eliminating food waste, and reducing food prices.
Gain efficiency and reduce transaction costs through the digitalization of different processes to create transparency. Tanihub Group, one of the largest AgTech companies in Indonesia that connects farmers to consumers by removing the middlemen as well as providing financing to smallholder farmers is one example.
Democratize access to market intelligence to create an integrated mobile platform of digital services for farmers. DigiFarm, powered by Safaricom in Kenya and which has expanded to Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, India, and Myanmar, offers farmers one-stop access to lower-priced farm inputs, loans, learning content on farming, as well as access to markets.
Create jobs for the new generation of tech-savvy farmers driving on-farm and off-farm opportunities such as Million Farmers in Kenya and Millennial Farmers in Indonesia. These programs are designed by the ministries of agriculture in their respective countries to encourage the technology-savvy youth to become farmers.
Implications for public policy
One way to understand the process of productivity enhancement is as three interlocking gears: innovation, delivery platforms for goods and services, and the intermediation that results in moving specific innovations into wider use (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Prioritizing “intermediation”—the broken part of the innovation value chain
Source: Authors’ illustration.
Evidence suggests that the most vexing problems limiting smallholder agriculture in Africa—and thus the biggest opportunities for dramatic breakthroughs—concern this middle gear, intermediation, which actually includes a number of different, vital functions (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Functions of intermediation in the innovation value chain
Source: Authors’ illustration.
Here, especially, digital technology can play an important role, but obstacles persist. Indeed, unlike other technology-based markets where these intermediation functions are performed by venture capitalists and equity investors, the financial incentives to intermediation in smallholder agriculture have so far proven elusive in Africa.
At the same time, while public policy has an essential role to play in changing the incentives for transformational intermediation, one of the risks of enhancing the incentives for intermediation through subsidies and licensing agreements is the creation of, or acquiescence to, monopolies and monopsonies with the potential to concentrate power in ways that are politically unacceptable or potentially detrimental to the interests of the smallholders. There are, however, emerging examples of ways to address these issues through a combination of regulatory actions and stimulating enhanced competition from a new generation of innovators.
In addition, while digital technology can provide significant benefits in agriculture, it can potentially deepen the digital divide by excluding those who do not have access to connectivity or mobile phones. Therefore, it is essential to design multistakeholder partnerships between government, academia, and the private sector to support smallholder farmers across the entire agriculture value chain.
The pandemic has raised the urgency of food security for Africa. Simultaneously, there has been the overnight shift toward online digital services such as e-commerce, digital payment, and contactless experience during the COVID-19 lockdown. With the readiness of technology, we could accelerate the adoption of technology to increase the productivity, efficiency, and resilience of agricultural value chains and food systems across the African continent.
Africa in the news: Ethiopia updates, Zambia elections, and Africa’s many Olympic achievements
War in Tigray continues, and Ethiopia rejects Sudan’s mediation attempts
Ethiopia’s conflict in Tigray has escalated after the government, on August 6, warned that it could deploy its “entire defensive capability” in the region. In fact, on August 10, the government called for all capable citizens to join the country’s military to combat resurgent forces in the region, ending the ceasefire declared in June. These announcements come after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPFL) rejected calls to retreat from the Afar and Amhara regions. The Tigray conflict began back in November after fallout between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the leaders of the Tigray region, who had previously dominated the national government.
In recent days, Oromo Liberation Army leader Kumsa Diriba struck a military alliance with the Tigray forces, saying, “We have agreed on a level of understanding to cooperate against the same enemy, especially in military cooperation.” Moreover, Diriba stated, “The only solution now is overthrowing this government militarily, speaking the language they want to be spoken to.” The alliance is notable as, during the TPFL’s decades of control of the federal government, its leaders ostracized and committed violence against the Oromo people.
In related Ethiopia news, tensions between Ethiopia and Sudan, already high over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, have continued to rise over the war in Tigray. In fact, early this week, Sudan recalled its ambassador to Ethiopia because the Ethiopian government rejected its efforts to broker a ceasefire in the Tigray region. Meanwhile, Ethiopia stated that trust in Sudan and its leaders has eroded and accused the Sudanese army of invading its territory. In addition to Sudan’s mediation efforts, the United States and other international powers have also called for the withdrawal of Tigray forces from the Amhara and Afar regions in recent months.
Now, according to the World Health Organization, the humanitarian crisis in the Tigray region has become dire, with food and medicine deliveries blocked due to a blockade by Addis Ababa as well as insurgent and militia violence. Meanwhile thousands of refugees have fled to Sudan to escape the war-torn region. According to the Atlantic Council, more than 60,000 Tigrayan refugees have fled to Sudan and 80 percent of the citizens in Ethiopia have been cut off from humanitarian assistance.
For more on U.S. policy on this crisis, see Brookings Foreign Policy Senior Fellow and Africa Security Initiative Co-Director Vanda Felbab-Brown’s recent commentary, “Dangerous trends in Ethiopia: Time for Washington’s tough love.”
Zambia holds presidential elections in tight race
On Thursday, August 12, Zambia held its presidential elections in which incumbent President Edgar Lungu, primary opposition rival Hakainde Hichilema, and 14 other candidates faced off. As of Friday, according to Reuters, the results of the election were too close to call, and the Electoral Commission of Zambia has indicated that it aims to declare a winner by the end of Sunday. Zambia has a runoff system, so the country will return to the polls a second time if no candidate receives a majority of the votes. As of this writing, no winner has been announced.
High voter turnout and long queues at voting stations characterized Thursday’s highly anticipated election. More than half of registered voters are under the age of 35, a demographic that has seen an acute rise in unemployment during the pandemic. Among other issues, Zambia’s recent default on its debt has raised concerns from citizens over the $12 billion that Zambia owes to creditors, as the country now spends 30 to 40 percent of the its revenue on interest payments.
The election has seen some violence: After two members of his party were killed in a rally last week, Lungu, who is seeking his third term (he was first elected in a by-election in 2015 after the death of President Michael Sata), deployed the military in Lusaka and select hotspots in the western, northwestern, and southern provinces of the country. Deployment of the army has drawn criticism from citizens who fear the intimidation and organizations like Amnesty International, stating that the use of force, “is an increasingly brutal crackdown on human rights, characterized by brazen attacks on any form of dissent.”
Six-time presidential candidate Hichilema said on Wednesday that he experienced irregularities during the campaign, including being restricted twice in the past week from campaigning in the populous Copperbelt province. There were also reports from NetBlock of social media blockages on election day across Zambia that included WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
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African athletes achieve historic wins at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, despite many COVID-related challenges
African athletes brought home a host of medals and historic firsts from the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, which concluded last Sunday, August 8. This year, 13 African nations won, altogether, 37 gold, silver, and bronze medals.
Notably, the games featured many women who were the first in their nation to win gold in their events—and for some, the first-ever gold for their country as well. Among African countries, Kenya earned the most medals, placing 19th worldwide by winning 10 medals (four gold, four silver, and two bronze), followed by Egypt, which won six medals (one gold, one silver, and four bronze). Highlights from the games include:
Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge defended his title with another gold medal in the marathon run, finishing the event in 2 hours, 8 minutes, and 38 seconds. He also became the third man to win gold in the marathon in back-to-back games.
Tunisian teenager Ahmed Hafnaoui won gold in the 400 meter men’s freestyle, the country’s first gold in swimming.
Uganda’s Peruth Chemutai became the first woman to win a gold medal for the country, winning the 3,000 meter steeplechase. Joshua Cheptegei won the men’s 500 meter track race, becoming the first Ugandan to win two Olympic gold medals.
Feryal Abdelaziz’s gold medal in women’s karate kumite +61kg event was the first gold won by any Egyptian woman.
Despite these celebrated achievements, COVID-19 continued to loom over the games, as nations like Guinea pulled out of the competitions completely due to safety concerns for their athletes as COVID-19 cases surged in Tokyo. The South African team also faced difficulties during the games, as three members of its soccer team tested positive for the virus after arriving in the Olympic village. The entire team was placed under quarantine before they began to play, and their coach cited issues of stigmatization stating, “when people come across us, you see people running away. I think that’s disrespectful.”
Remote work wanted? Analyzing online job postings during COVID-19
In early 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic started to affect the health of millions around the world, epidemiologists and public health experts pointed to social distancing as the key measure to control the spread of the virus. From an economic perspective, it became immediately clear that the ability to work from home would determine workers’ outcomes.
Indeed, our estimates using Current Population Survey basic monthly samples from 2020 suggest that employment in “teleworkable” occupations (those that don’t require working outdoors, using protective equipment, moving around, or operating machinery ) contracted by 7.3 percent between February and April 2020 compared to an 18.6 percent contraction for “non-teleworkable” occupations. Since then, demand for non-teleworkable occupations surged, and the employment gap between teleworkable and non-teleworkable occupations narrowed to only a 1.7 percentage point difference.
Arguably, social distancing should have also meant greater resilience in hiring efforts for teleworkable occupations during the pandemic. However, this was not the case: By May 2020, postings in teleworkable occupations had dropped by 40 percent, while those for not-remotable had dropped only by 25 percent. As postings for non-teleworkable occupations had recovered to 13 percent below pre-pandemic levels by December 2020, teleworkable postings remained 35 percent behind their February benchmark (Figure 1).
In a new working paper, we use Burning Glass Technologies (BGT) data on online job postings to disentangle this counterintuitive pattern. We find that employers’ hesitation to hire workers for whom on-site experience is crucial to their productivity could be one of the factors behind the slow recovery of postings for teleworkable occupations.
Figure 1. Job postings, employment, and “remotability” of work during 2020
Source: Authors’ analysis of Burning Glass Technologies (BGT) online job postings data and IPUMS CPS.
One plausible explanation for teleworkable occupations’ lagging job postings is that as social distancing disproportionately affected non-teleworkable occupations, the bulk of the hiring efforts focused on that group as the economy reopened. This hypothesis, however, does not explain why non-teleworkable job postings shrank by 30 percent over the first two months of the pandemic, while teleworkable postings did so by 35.8 percent, nor does it explain the persistent lag for teleworkable postings toward the end of 2020. Moreover, our analyses show that even after taking away the effect on employment losses on this trend—drop in postings—remotable occupations show a slower postings recovery than the rest.
Another factor behind the reduced hiring efforts toward teleworkable occupations could be their relatively low presence in “essential” or “critical” industries (e.g., health care, logistics, or food manufacturing), whose demand stayed strong during most of 2020. Indeed, this explains why demand for front-line workers—those in roles that are both non-teleworkable and play a large role in essential industries—surged. However, hiring efforts towards teleworkable occupations were even lower among those often required by essential industries, like administrative assistants and accounting clerks, both occupations with 40 percent fewer job postings in December 2020 than in February 2020. Interestingly, we also find that the robust hiring demand for “front-line” workers did not translate to stronger employment in these occupations during the pandemic.
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So far, the best explanation for companies’ lackluster demand for teleworkable occupations is that, though employers made special effort to retain employees performing tasks that rely on experience and can be performed from a distance, they disproportionately halted their hiring. For example, employment levels for general and operation managers at the end of 2020 were just 10 percent below February 2020, while their postings lagged by almost 28 percent. Evidently, acquiring much of the experience for—in this case—managing an organization, is challenging without initial in-person interactions.
Something’s got to give. If companies continue to extend their work from home policies, HR managers will need new ways to help workers acquire valuable experience. More generally, as the fraction of workers that will continue working remotely once the economy fully reopens is yet to be seen, our results highlight that the relatively stable employment of teleworkable occupations during the pandemic did not imply better employability for those eager to enter these occupations. In a socially distancing labor market, workers searching for remote jobs may face a more limited hiring demand than expected.
Nigeria’s Twitter ban is a misplaced priority
In early June 2021, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari announced the indefinite suspension of Twitter after the platform deleted one of his tweets and temporarily suspended his account. The tweet pertained to Nigerian secessionists and to treating “those who misbehave today” in “the language they will understand,” infringing on Twitter user rules prohibiting content that threatens or incites violence. Despite the ban, many Nigerians still have access to the site using virtual private networks (VPN) and can share their opinion on other apps, like Indian-based microblogging site Koo.
The deletion of the tweet is part of a larger conversation around the role of social media in politics and the national conversation. Indeed, in recent years, the world has seen social media platforms like Twitter impact democracy and politics, social movements, foreign relations, businesses, and economies around the world.
President Buhari’s retaliation sparked massive global and national reactions. In this piece, we analyze the reaction of Twitter users to this move using a collection of over 2.6 million tweets generated from June 4 to June 11, 2021 that contain any mention of “Nigeria” (details on the methodology can be found at the end of the blog).
Tweets within the collection pertained to several overarching topics like the ongoing kidnappings of school and university students or the #EndSARS movement that helped mobilize a campaign to end policy brutality. However, the majority of the tweets were focused on the government’s ban of Twitter, which expressed concern over the move and its implications for the state of Nigeria’s democracy. Many tweets criticized President Buhari’s actions as an infringement on their freedom of expression and access to information—both crucial pillars of democracy.
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Notably, most content on Twitter is not original, as users with a large follower base drive the discussion through retweets, likes, and comments; in fact, 85 percent of tweets in this collection are retweets. Figure 1 shows the distribution of the top 50 retweeted users, encompassing over 30 percent of the 2.6 million tweets, which can give insights into who has the most input within the conversation. Over 49 percent of the top users are political activists like Nnamdi Kanu, who was actually the most retweeted account within the collection. (Nnamdi Kanu founded the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a movement to create an independent state in southern Nigeria.) Media blogs and journalists comprise the second-largest share of top users, with accounts like the Twitter Public Policy feed and news coverage from both Nigerian and international media outlets.
Figure 1. Top 50 most retweeted users in collection
Source: Authors, using data from Twitter.
Political activists have the most dominant voice in the conversation while institutional actors and organizations have some of the smallest. While Nigerian citizens and activists continue to use the platform, the Nigerian government has effectively shut itself out from the conversation with only the governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, still maintaining a presence on Twitter.
Importantly, hashtags are a powerful way to voice an opinion or bolster a movement, as seen with the #EndSARS protests that broke out in October 2020. Taking a deeper look at the content of the tweets, as seen in Figure 2, #keepiton, #twitterban, #openinternet, #june12protest, and #twittersuspendbuharisaccount are some of the most popular hashtags.
Figure 2. Hashtag usage in response to Twitter ban
Source: Authors, using data from Twitter.
Emoji usage within the tweets can also offer insights into the reactions, with a focus on the “yellow face” emojis that can correlate to six primary emotional categories: surprise, sadness, disgust, fear, anger, and neutral. Figure 3 shows the top 10 face emojis used in the collection, with “tears of joy” being the most popular. Both of the laughing emojis typically correspond to tweets that show disbelief of the president’s ban or chided his actions with tweets like: “Using Twitter to announce the suspension of Twitter in Nigeria.” Other prominent emojis include the “sobbing face,” primarily corresponding to tweets remembering the Lekki Toll Gate Massacre and responding to the Twitter ban. Emojis like the “red angry face” are more specifically used in discussion of the ban as misplaced priority of the government when the nation is struggling with many more serious issues like poor infrastructure (particularly shortages of electricity), corruption, weak institutions, and increased insecurity and mass student kidnappings.
Figure 3. Top 10 emojis used in response to Twitter ban
Source: Authors’ calculations using data from Twitter.
Nearly 70 percent (over 850,000) of the tweets with location entries are from Nigeria, with the most common locations being Lagos, Aduja, and “Biafra”—a former secessionist state in the southeast region of Nigeria. While the discussion is primarily centered in Nigeria, many tweets are from users all over the world, with the top three countries after Nigeria being the United States, United Kingdom, and India. Within Africa, countries like Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya have the highest rates of tweets discussing the ban in Nigeria, and their responses largely echo the same concerns and anger as the rest of the world.
This brief examination reveals that this move has led to damage of Nigeria’s image on the world stage, as key diplomatic and economic allies like the EU and U.S. have condemned the ban at a time when the country “needs to foster inclusive dialogue and expression of opinions, as well as share vital information in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria. The global spotlight from the ban also highlights the government’s evident ineffectiveness in addressing serious economic, social, security, and political challenges.
The ban can also harm Nigeria’s growth as foreign investors pivot business and funding to other African countries, jeopardizing Nigeria’s role as the unofficial tech hub of Africa. In a recent example, Twitter chose Ghana for its regional headquarters even though Ghana has a much smaller population and economy than Nigeria but was perceived to have an attractive environment for external investors. Many startup business models also require an active social media presence, which may make it more difficult for Nigerian technology entrepreneurs to attract investors.
Small- and medium-sized Nigerian businesses have been particularly affected, as they rely on Twitter to raise awareness of their brands and for customer service and other engagement. According to Telecompaper, Nigeria’s e-commerce sector has lost over 2 billion naira ($4.86 million) daily since the ban, as businesses have had to severely cut their operations or stop them completely, otherwise risking potential fines and arrest. These losses put added pressure on an already volatile Nigerian economy, as unemployment rates reach 35 percent—among the world’s highest—particularly affecting its youth.
These events add to a concerning global trend of tightening information access and freedom of expression as countries like Ethiopia and Uganda create barriers through internet shutdowns ahead of presidential elections or internal conflict, and other countries like India, Vietnam, and Thailand recruit “cyber crime volunteers” and censor social media in an attempt to deal with vague issues like “fake news.” Nigeria’s Twitter ban, while hurting its citizens and alienating its allies, can embolden other nations to take similar authoritarian steps to discourage civic dissent and restrict essential components of a democratic society.
Note on methodology: This study utilizes a collection of over 2.6 million tweets that contain the mention of “Nigeria” generated from June 4th to June 11th 2021, and were archived using the open-source program called Twarc. Each tweet contains more than 150 different data variables but for the analysis shown here, we focus on the time when the tweets was created, location of the user, the full text of the tweet or retweet, and who originally generated the tweet. Hashtag and emoji usage were extracted from the full text of the tweet, the emojis were converted from Unicode to their written-out names and the hashtags were formatted to account for inconsistencies in spelling and capitalization. A greater discussion on the methodology and drawbacks of Twitter data can be found in the blog “How misinformation spreads on Twitter.”
What if teaching mirrored how human brains learn?
“Here we are again.” These are the words of one art teacher in Tennessee that reflect educators’ wariness about the new school year as a recent surge in COVID-19 threatens plans to resume in-person learning. Yet in the face of all this continued uncertainty, heroic educators still ask: How can I support my students? They consider both their students’ socio-emotional skills and “unfinished” academic content.
Educators are right to worry about these issues. A 2020 Pew Research Center survey of over 2,500 parents found that 65 percent of them were at least somewhat concerned about their child generally “falling behind” in school, and the majority of them were concerned about their child’s social relationships (60 percent) and emotional well-being (59 percent). Indeed, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that virtual learning “might present more risks than in-person instruction” when it comes to mental and emotional health. Academically, widespread reports paint an alarming picture of projected and measured losses in reading and math assessment scores for many students, especially those in underserved communities. This is particularly concerning given recent data revealing that over 1 million students, mostly kindergarteners, did not enroll in school—an alarming trend referred to as the “kindergarten exodus.”
As schools and communities work to better education for the next year, it is vital that they also use the best science of learning to teach children in ways that reflect how the human brain learns.
As the new academic year begins, schools are encouraged to “accelerate learning”—rather than practice deficit-oriented remediation—a charge that will help educators move children forward after a year of tumult by addressing any unfinished content from the previous year within grade-level lessons. As schools and communities work to better education for the next year, it is vital that they also use the best science of learning to teach children in ways that reflect how the human brain learns.
Our education system has always struggled with this task. Educators and scientists alike often fall prey to a problem we call “binning.” We think of socio-emotional skills as independent from academic outcomes. We evaluate student achievement with separate reading and math assessments. In older grades, we assign each subject its own classroom and teacher.
But the science tells us that this is not the way in which human brains learn. Children don’t learn math content only in math class or out-of-school activities pre-labeled “math.” The same holds true for reading. In fact, reading and math skills are built on a similar foundation. Imagine the human brain as a house with a foundation forming a base for learning all kinds of things, like social skills, math, and reading. In the human brain, this foundation is a suite of skills referred to as executive functioning.
A new study investigated whether reading and math skills share the same cognitive base. The researchers measured first graders’ basic reading, math, and executive function skills. The scientists found that children’s outcomes in reading and math were associated with a common set of skills in both subjects, as well as executive function skills. The “house” of reading and math rested on the same psychological foundation.
This and other studies reveal that young children’s learning is not a one-to-one correspondence between a subject bin and required skills. Learning does not work like that. It is more integrated across bins and abilities. Reading is not dependent solely on the ability to identify speech sounds. Math achievement is not dependent solely on the ability to count, and even involves early literacy skills. It is crucial that educators target the foundation, which includes executive function and general knowledge. And we know how to do this through active learning—a holistic, child-centered approach to teaching.
Our team’s report for the Brookings Policy 2020 series offers an evidence-based—but flexible—framework for educators to employ this approach while leveraging their own expertise and knowledge of their students. It outlines both how children learn best and what skills children need to learn in the 21st century, and provides a checklist that educators can use to guide them through the implementation process. Pilot data even show that teachers are happier and enjoy teaching more when using a more holistic, rather than a binned, approach.
As we begin another school year filled with trepidation and hope, let’s reimagine our schools and our classrooms as places where all children can learn through methods that are informed by science, while celebrating our students and teachers.
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Africa in the news: Politics, security, and wildlife poaching updates
South Sudan’s Machar deposed as head of party; South Africa’s Zuma hospitalized
On Wednesday, the military wing of South Sudanese Vice President Riek Machar’s political party (the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition) announced that it had deposed him as party head after a three-day meeting of senior officials. The military wing indicated that Machar had “completely failed” to strengthen the party’s position since forming a coalition government with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, the party of current President Salva Kiir. In Machar’s place, the military wing named its chief of staff, First Lieutenant General Simon Gatwech Dual, the interim leader of the opposition party. The political reshuffling comes at a time when the world’s youngest country faces its worst hunger crisis since independence.
Elsewhere on the continent, former South African President Jacob Zuma was scheduled to appear in court on August 10 to resume his suspended corruption case, but his appearance is now uncertain after his hospitalization—the cause of which was not disclosed—on Friday following a routine medical appointment. Zuma, currently in jail serving a 15-month unrelated sentence, had been given permission to attend the hearing in person after his lawyers complained that a video-call trial was unconstitutional. Sixteen charges of fraud, graft, and racketeering still face Zuma, whose court appearances have, according to al-Jazeera, incited violence in South Africa that has seen the deaths of at least 337 people.
Ethiopia suspends two aid groups in Tigray region; conflicts continue in Niger, CAR, and Nigeria
On July 30, the Ethiopian government suspended part or all operations of two international aid groups, Doctors Without Borders and the Norwegian Refugee Council, further injuring the hundreds of thousands of civilians facing famine-like conditions in the Tigray region. The Ethiopian government claims that these aid groups were spreading misinformation, did not have appropriate work permits, and were using satellite radio equipment not authorized by the government. United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths rejected the claims, stating that blanket accusations, “need to be backed up by evidence if there is any and, frankly, it’s dangerous.”
Meanwhile, conflict continues in Ethiopia as forces in the Tigray region expand into neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar, forcing around 250,000 people to flee the region. On Thursday, Tigrayan forces took control of a town called Lalibela, located in northern Ethiopia, although with no reported fighting. The town contains 11 monolithic churches constructed out of rock over 900 years ago and a historical holy site for Ethiopian Orthodox Christians as well as a major tourist destination.
Other African nations continue to face internal conflict as well. In southwestern Niger, jihadist rebels attacked a military supply mission on Saturday, killing at least 15 soldiers. In the Central African Republic, rebels from the Funali ethnic group killed six civilians and wounded several others in the village of Mann last Saturday. Russia has sent at least 500 instructors to assist the Central African Republic’s army, but their deployment has been controversial as the U.N. claims that the instructors participate in “indiscriminate killings and lootings”.
Nigeria, too, faces internal conflicts with the separatists of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). Violence within the southeast region has escalated this year, resulting in at least 127 civilians, gunmen, and security forces dead. Amnesty International blames the government forces, namely the Eastern Security Network, for escalating the violence with arbitrary arrests, ill treatment, and torture of civilians.
Illegal animal and plant trade rising in Nigeria and South Africa
On Wednesday, Nigerian officials seized a substantial amount of pangolin scales, claws, and elephant tusks worth 22 billion naira ($54 million) in a recent attempt to combat the illegal trading of these items. Notably, pangolin has become one of the most trafficked mammals on earth due to the demand of its scales for traditional Chinese medicine. In 2019, according to Reuters, Nigeria became Africa’s staging ground for the illegal trade, with two-thirds of major seizures of the animals coming from the country in 2018, doubling the 2016 number.
In South Africa, rhino poaching has increased as lockdown restrictions have eased. According to South Africa’s Minister of Environment Barbara Creecy, in the first half of 2021 alone, 249 rhinos have been poached in South Africa, leading to a total of 125 arrests. In addition to protecting South Africa’s threatened southern white rhino and endangered black rhino populations, scientists are also trying to save the northern white rhinos from complete extinction. There are only two known living northern white rhinos in the world, both of which are female and living in Kenya.
Also in South Africa, officers from the Stock Theft and Endangered Species Unit arrested an individual smuggling boxes of Conophytums, succulents indigenous to the region, in the latest example of succulent poaching driven by demand particularly from collectors in Korea and China. Poaching has increased during the pandemic, as some plants can sell for thousands of dollars a piece. Poaching of this plant is most prolific in the Northern Cape and Western Cape provinces, which offer dry, arid climates in which succulents grow best. As officials crack down on poaching in these areas, botanists are struggling to deal with what to do with newly confiscated plants, with some facilities receiving about 2,500 plants per week.
A case study comparison of industries without smokestacks in Senegal and Ghana
In collaboration with think tank partners on the continent, the Brookings Africa Growth Initiative team recently published a series of reports examining industries without smokestacks (IWOSS) in various countries in the region. For the purpose of the research, IWOSS activities are defined as those that are tradable, have high value added per worker relative to average economywide productivity, exhibit capacity for technological change and productivity growth, and can absorb large numbers of moderately skilled labor.
The research seeks to widen the policy options for structural change and job growth in Africa, especially among African youth. Indeed, sub-Saharan Africa will need to create 18 million jobs each year until 2035 to accommodate youth market entrants Therefore, the AGI team and its partners have examined the employment creation potential of IWOSS in Africa to assess whether these subsectors can successfully contribute to addressing youth unemployment in the region. As part of the larger study, AGI published case studies examining whether and how IWOSS might improve youth employment prospects in Ghana and Senegal.
In short, both case study teams find that IWOSS sectors will create more jobs in coming years than other sectors. Figure 1 shows the projected share of new jobs created by 2035 by sectoral grouping: Notably, in both Ghana and Senegal, IWOSS sectors are projected to create more than half of new jobs by the year 2035.
Figure 1. Projected share of new jobs created by 2035 by sectoral grouping
Source: Coulibaly, B. and Page, J. Addressing youth unemployment in Africa through industries without smokestacks: A synthesis on prospects, constraints, and policies. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2021).
While the IWOSS definition includes a number of different sectors, the case study teams identified the subsectors in which their countries have a distinct comparative advantage. In Senegal, the team examined how horticulture, agro-industry, and tourism might generate much-needed jobs for youth. In Ghana, the team examined how agro-processing and tourism could accomplish this important task.
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In Senegal, the research shows that a thriving IWOSS sector can stimulate the economy and provide sustainable opportunities for the ever-growing working-age population; however, before Senegal can reach achieve this goal, it must address specific constraints that affect the business environment throughout the country. In Ghana, the research suggests that the same can be done if the country addresses the regulatory environment in which firms operate. Research also showed that IWOSS sectors in both countries have higher output per worker than non-IWOSS sectors. This higher productivity rate is important because higher productivity can be accompanied by higher wages.
As noted above, the research teams predict that IWOSS sectors will create more than half of the new jobs in these countries by the year 2035. More specifically, in Senegal, the case study authors project that, by 2035, IWOSS sectors will make up 52.8 percent of total employment, versus 3.3 percent from manufacturing and 44.0 percent from all other sectors (Table 1).
Table 1. Projected GDP and labor demand, Senegal
Source: Beye, Dia Gueye, Mbaya, and Mbaye. Employment creation potential labor skills requirements, and skills gaps for young people: A Senegal case study. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2021).
Similar trends can be seen in Ghana (Table 2). The Ghana team project that, by 2035, IWOSS sectors will make up 53.6 percent of total employment, versus 9.3 percent from manufacturing and 37.1 percent from all other sectors.
Table 2. Projected GDP and labor demand, Ghana
Source: Aryeetey, Baffour, and Turkson. Employment creation potential labor skills requirements, and skills gaps for young people: A Ghana case study. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2021).
For more a more detailed discussion of IWOSS in Senegal, please see the full case study, COVID update, and summary blog. For more on the Ghana case study, see the full case study and summary blog.
It takes a village: The role of mentorship in supporting India’s young women in the workforce
Despite important gains in the formal education of girls in the last decade and half, women in India are conspicuously missing from the workforce. The country achieved universal girls’ enrollment in primary education in 2003, secondary-school enrollment currently stands at 74.5 percent, and in higher education, women participate in close to equal numbers as men. Yet, between 2005 and 2019, India’s female labor force participation fell from 32 percent to 21—a loss of more than 1 out of every 3 formally employed women.
Many factors are behind the decline: family-enforced social norms that place women predominantly in caregiving roles, deeply ingrained stereotypes around occupations that stymie aspirations, traditionally low levels of self-confidence, and information and network asymmetries. With so many job sectors that are traditionally male-dominated, women do not have access to the same amount of information and opportunities.
Mentor Together, the organization I founded in 2009, created a virtual mentoring program in 2018 for university students across India—with the goal of supporting workforce readiness through soft skill development, career planning, and network building. As the COVID-19 pandemic forced education institutions in India to close on-campus classes for the better part of 2020, we conducted virtual townhall meetings through which we onboarded 8,000 students from more than 10 states. We were heartened that more than 60 percent of our new sign-ups were young women. Female mentees also outnumbered their male counterparts 3 to 1 in accessing our six-month mentoring program!
Young women like Manjula (name changed for privacy), a graduate student of technology, are well aware of the challenges that face them and actively seek out mentorship that helps sharpen their skills and develop a plan of action to counter these challenges:
“This program is most recommended for students from rural backgrounds because we interact with a mentor who is a working professional, who is dedicated and committed to help students… Whenever I’m speaking with [my mentor], I feel like I’m speaking with my elder sister because she supports and cares so much. … She always shares her experiences in the field which is very important for me because I don’t have much knowledge about work life and programming. That was quite challenging and worrying for me, but now I am learning and understanding programming languages and got more confidence about myself because of my mentor.”
As an Echidna Global Scholar, my research at Brookings will focus on understanding the role of mentorship in the personal and professional journeys of young women. I will study the prevalence and interplay of factors that support or obstruct women’s professional aspirations and plans. I will also examine the role of mentorship in helping young women improve their work-readiness skills, career decisionmaking, and self-efficacy. Additionally, I will explore the possibilities, as well as the limitations, of the virtual mentoring format.
Young women are persevering in education against so many obstacles; it is our collective responsibility as a society to back up young women like Manjula with a “village” of mentors that champion their dreams.
A United Nations Development Programme study of the current policy landscape in India for women’s labor force participation found that out of 53 policies evaluated, the most frequent support provided to women was financial assistance (67 percent of the policies). Support to tackle challenges around social norms, beliefs, and information asymmetries were scarce. Less than half the policies focused on the capacity building of women, and less than a quarter on job placement and mentoring. Through my research, I hope to map out a richer framework of policies that can bring together actors across sectors to provide a broader range of supports to young women as they transition to the world of work.
If even half of Indian women were in the labor force, income per capita could increase by an estimated 20 percent by 2030. Young women are persevering in education against so many obstacles; it is our collective responsibility as a society to back up young women like Manjula with a “village” of mentors that champion their dreams.
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CFA franc zone: Economic development and the post-COVID recovery
Comprising many of the poorest countries in Africa, the CFA franc zone faces particularly daunting challenges to economic development and growth in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Encompassing 14 countries in francophone West and Central Africa, the CFA franc zone faces climate change, poverty traps, demographic pressures, and natural resource management hurdles. Furthermore, the trifecta of high energy costs, financing constraints, and expensive transport creates barriers to competitiveness. In addition, despite decades of international aid flows, the region has struggled to gain the upper hand in reducing poverty. The COVID-19 pandemic has further amplified the challenges faced by the countries of the CFA franc zone and has simultaneously led to questions about the fiscal and monetary policies most conducive to driving recovery and growth as the world economy adapts to post-COVID-19 market realities.
Since the 1940s, the CFA has been pegged to European currencies—first to the French franc, and, since 1999, to the euro. Until recently, the CFA countries deposited 50 percent of their reserves in the French Treasury in return for a convertibility guarantee. While this arrangement generally resulted in lower inflation than other countries in Africa and some degree of fiscal restraint, it significantly limited the macroeconomic policy options available to its member countries. The trade-off for lower inflation has been slower per capita growth (Figure 1) and diminished poverty reduction.
However, the current exchange rate regime presents several macroeconomic problems that impede these countries’ ability to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. First, the anchor to a strong currency diminishes private sector competitiveness by effectively subsidizing imports and penalizing exports. As measured by a simple CGE model, in 2020 the CFA franc in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU, or UEMOA in French) was 20 percent overvalued, and in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (known by its French acronym, CEMAC) it was 30 percent overvalued. Second, exchange rate rigidity forces adjustments to trade shocks on the fiscal side via cuts to public investment or additional debt accumulation. Third, the current system worsens inequality between urban elites and rural poor by constraining incentives for commercial agriculture. Fourth, since the monetary policy is fixed, the CFA countries face credit constraints and are unable to use interest rate policy to stimulate small and medium enterprise development. Finally, the currency union has failed to accelerate growth for the poorest members as seen in the lack of economic convergence over time (Figure 2).
As the CFA member countries plan for a post-COVID-19 future, taking the next step on meaningful currency reform must be part of the package. Specifically, while the Macron-Ouattara reform of 2019 ended the reserve deposit obligation and removed French representatives from the Central Bank of West African States (known by its French acronym, BCEAO), it stopped short of overhauling the exchange rate framework. Modernizing the system must include a serious discussion about alternative exchange rate frameworks that would enable greater monetary flexibility while improving competitiveness, opening the door to export-led growth, and realigning incentives for agricultural producers.
For more on this issue, see my book, “CFA Franc Zone: Economic Development and the Post-Covid Recovery,” in which I lay out a policy road map with a number of steps. First, the exchange rate regime should evolve from the peg to the euro, to a basket (tripartite) peg to the euro-dollar-renminbi that reflects West Africa’s changing trade patterns with the world. For CEMAC, which is an oil-rich region, I propose a peg to a basket, including the euro, dollar, and price of oil. This reform will balance stability and flexibility, make the currency more market-based, and support African exporters and entrepreneurs. In the CEMAC zone, it will help the countries adjust to oil price volatility, while in the WAEMU zone, the countries can even embrace integration with specific anglophone countries like Ghana and create a stronger economic space. Second, it is important to modernize the French convertibility guarantee for the CFA franc, which is unclear, and negotiate a clear swap line with the European Central Bank to provide a financial buffer during the transition period and downturns.
Finally, the ultimate goal of the reforms is to have greater African sovereignty and widen the options for fiscal and monetary management in a post-pandemic world. A richer and more prosperous CFA zone will be beneficial not only for West and Central Africa but also for France and the world at large.
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Leveraging IWOSS and soft skills to address slow structural transformation and youth unemployment in Uganda
In recent years, Uganda’s economic growth has been among sub-Saharan Africa’s strongest, averaging 5.4 percent between 2010 and 2019 (World Bank, 2020). However, the rate of growth has failed to match the rate at which employment opportunities are created to both absorb the burgeoning labor force and improve livelihoods. The high population growth rate (recorded at 3.1 percent per year) has resulted in a high labor-force growth rate that has outpaced the rate of job creation, resulting in increasing unemployment and pervasive underemployment rates.
Moreover, in this tough labor market, young and female workers remain disadvantaged, and overall employment numbers often mask other problems in the labor market. For example, as we find in our recent working paper, while the number of unemployed actually declined between 2012/13 and 2016/17 for both young female Ugandans (23.1 percent vs. 18.5 percent) and young male Ugandans (18.5 percent vs. 9.6 percent), the annualized growth rate of discouraged workers—potential workers who would like to work but are unable to secure a job and so have given up on the process—is extremely high and more acute among Uganda’s youth.
A solution?
Like in many other African countries, the slow growth of Uganda’s manufacturing sector—a sector that historically has led to the absorption of low-skilled workers and structural transformation in much of the developing world—has constrained labor outcomes in the country. To address this issue, recent research points to other sectors—termed “industries without smokestacks” (IWOSS)—that share much in common with manufacturing, especially their tradability and tendency to absorb large numbers of low-skilled workers. Examples of IWOSS include agro-industry, horticulture, tourism, business services, transit trade, and some information and communication technology (ICT)-based services. To better assess the potential of these sectors to drive structural transformation, we recently published a case study examining the constraints to growth of select IWOSS sectors (horticulture, agro-processing, and tourism) and skills requirements for those sectors.
IWOSS sectors’ growth contributing to employment growth
IWOSS are well-positioned to help Uganda achieve its growth objectives: Indeed, while the contribution of IWOSS to GDP in recent years has been less than non-IWOSS sectors, it has been higher than manufacturing (Table 1). Moreover, growth in IWOSS sectors (22.9 percent) has been higher than either manufacturing (17.2 percent) or non-IWOSS (18.4), implying that the contribution of IWOSS to GDP is increasing.
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In terms of employment, IWOSS sectors show higher elasticities than non-IWOSS and manufacturing: A 1 percentage point increase in GDP in an average IWOSS sector is associated with a 0.96 percent increase in employment. For manufacturing, the employment elasticity is negative and sizable, which could suggest that automation in the sector is replacing workers, having the opposite historic effect of industry. Despite agriculture being the biggest employer, it has a very low employment elasticity.
Table 1. Change in GDP and employment from 2012/13 to 2016/17 by sector
Source: Authors own calculations’ using UBOS Statistical Abstracts and Survey data sets.Note: This is Table 5 in the case study.
What sectors are driving structural transformation?
As seen in Figure 1, which combines GDP/output and employment growth to get a full picture of industry changes over time, by and large, little structural transformation has taken place over the time period under consideration. While growth in IWOSS overall has contributed to employment growth, the subsector “finance, business, and professional services” seems to have significantly driven the structural growth agenda in the country—much like in South Africa. While tourism, horticulture and export crops and agro-processing—the three IWOSS sectors we explore in this paper due to their significant contributions to revenue, potential for absorbing many Ugandan laborers, and strong backward and forward linkages–do provide great contributions to GDP and employment, they also have had mixed impacts on the economy’s structural growth. For example, while agro-processing seems to have spurred transformation, this change seems to have been driven by its contribution to GDP, not necessarily as an employment avenue.
Figure 1. Correlation between sectoral productivity and change in employment in Uganda, 2016/17
Notes: Uses methodology in McMillan and Rodrik (2011); yellow indicates IWOSS sectors; purple indicates manufacturing; and light blue indicates other non-IWOSS sectors.Source: Authors’ own illustration using 2016/17 UNHS dataset.
What does the future hold for growth and employment in IWOSS sectors?
The outlook for the Ugandan economy over the next 10 years suggests its makeup will shift, leading to a concentration of employment in tourism, finance and business services, ICT, and agro-processing. In our recent paper, we use a 7 percent GDP growth scenario (Table 2) to examine the prospects for job creation in the country. We find that IWOSS sectors will expand somewhat faster (8 percent) than non-IWOSS (6 percent) and twice as fast as manufacturing (4 percent) by 2029/30. In the same vein, employment is expected to grow at about 4.5 percent, largely driven by employment growth in the IWOSS sectors (6.3 percent).
Table 2. Sectoral distribution of GDP and employment in 2029/30—an illustrative 7%-growth scenario
Source: Extracted from Table 20 in the case study.
But are young people ready for these jobs?
While in other countries, IWOSS looks to readily absorb low-skilled workers, our research finds the trend in Uganda to be more nuanced. In fact, in line with the projected strong growth in IWOSS sectors, we find that the skill profile of workers in IWOSS will shift distinctively toward skilled and high-skilled workers, which could be problematic since we predict that, by 2029/30, 54 percent of Ugandan workers in IWOSS will need to be skilled or high-skilled. For a detailed discussion at the sector-specific level, see Table 21 in the full case study).
Figure 2. Uganda’s 7%-growth scenario—Projected employment by skill level
Note: MFG = manufacturing; non-IWOSS excludes manufacturing.Source: Derived from Table 21 in the Uganda case study.
Requisite skills needed for new jobs in horticulture, agro-processing, and tourism
To better advise Uganda on how it can prepare its young people to enter a labor market in which IWOSS are expanding, we need to assess which skills are both available in and needed for the market. To do so, we conducted firm surveys and found, among other trends, that gaps in problem-solving skills among employees inhibit firms from meeting their full potential. More specifically we found that tourism firms place a heavy emphasis on problem-solving and basic skills; horticulture, on problem-solving and social skills; and agro-processing on basic skills, At the same time, the surveys revealed that while the youth were overskilled for the jobs they were holding, the majority had skills gaps in problem-solving in all three IWOSS sectors of focus. Figure 3 illustrates this trend for the tourism sector (see details in full case study).
Figure 3. Skills gap by occupation type in the tourism sector—hotels
Source: Authors’ own calculations based on field survey data (2020).
Importantly, beyond these needs, we also find that digital skills will be paramount for future occupations likely to hire the youth. Indeed, future digital-skills needs were identified as a must by the interviewed firms in the tourism sector. In horticulture, digital skills will be needed for the use of computerized mechanisms in the production of fresh fruits and vegetables while in agro-processing, as automation progresses, digital skills will be needed for the production of primary raw materials.
Constraints to aspired growth
In addition, as our paper points out, to leverage IWOSS sectors and soft skills as avenues for addressing Uganda’s current slow structural transformation and youth unemployment challenges, several constraints to the growth of these sectors must be addressed. Outstanding among these obstacles are: limited access to finance; poor and costly infrastructure (roads, electricity, water, internet, and phone coverage); inherent nontariff barriers; government bureaucracy; and skill gaps (noted briefly above).
Unfortunately, the emergence of COVID-19 has only exacerbated challenges facing IWOSS sectors and the economy in general (see our paper updating our original case study as Uganda now faces the COVID-19 pandemic). Indeed, the three IWOSS subsectors on which we focused experienced significant losses due to reduction of earnings as business operations declined owing to the pandemic-induced lockdown across both the country and the globe. Indeed, many firms responded by laying off some workers, both temporarily and permanently.
Recommendations
In the original case study, we offered a number of high-level policy recommendations that, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, remain extremely relevant for Uganda’s growth and job-creation potential. If anything, the pandemic has made our recommendations all the more urgent. These include, among others:
Develop avenues to improve the soft and digital skills of workers and reduce the cost of trading through investing in physical and digital infrastructure. Such a push could eradicate the skills mismatch reported by employers as one of the obstacles to their operations. We continue to see the importance of this recommendation now: When facing COVID-19, sectors and firms that adopted ICT/digital technologies continued to survive within the measures that the government took to control the spread of COVID-19.
Ensure increased access to affordable financing. Already, a step has been taken in this direction by recapitalizing the Uganda Development Bank (UDB), the Uganda Development Corporation (UDC), and the Micro Finance Support Centre (MFSC) in order to offer affordable credit and facilitate the COVID-19 economic recovery. Such a program is an opportunity for agro-processing firms to acquire long-awaited financing, which historically has been one of their most difficult operating constraints.
For a deeper dive into our research as well as sector-specific recommendations, see our working paper, “Industries without smokestacks in Africa: A Uganda case study.”