People in Africa face an unlevel playing field for building their productive capacity

Atamanov, AZIZ and Cuevas, Facundo and Lebow, Jeremy (2024): People in Africa face an unlevel playing field for building their productive capacity. Published in: (2 December 2024): pp. 89-163.

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the structural drivers of inequality in building productive capacity. in Africa Structural inequality arises from the outsized role of inherited circumstances and characteristics, and it shapes who gets an education, owns assets, or has access to basic services. Unequal access to assets, basic infrastructure, and acquisition of human capital affects lifelong income-earning potential and the ability to connect to an economy’s growth engine and escape poverty. Structural inequality resulting from inherited characteristics or circumstances outside a person’s control is socially unfair, leads to suboptimal allocation of resources, and limits economic growth. It also implies lower economic mobility, making poverty and inequality persistent over time.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: inequality, opportunities, Africa
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I0 - General; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty > I30 - General

References

Almond, Douglas, and Janet Currie. 2011. “Human Capital Development before Age Five.” In Handbook of Labor Economics, vol. 4, part B, edited by Orley C. Ashenfelter and David E. Card, 1315–1486. Amsterdam: North-Holland.

Andrabi, Tahir, Benjamin Daniels, and Jishnu Das. 2023. “Human Capital Accumulation and Disasters: Evidence from the Pakistan Earthquake of 2005.” Journal of Human Resources 58 (4): 1057–96. https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.59.2.0520-10887R1.

Arias Diaz, Omar, David Evans, and Indhira Vanessa Santos. 2019. The Skills Balancing Act in Sub-Saharan Africa: Investing in Skills for Productivity, Inclusivity, and Adaptability. Washington, DC: World Bank. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/558991560840574354/The-Skills -Balancing-Act-in -Sub-Saharan-Africa-Investing-in-Skills-for-Productivity-Inclusivity-and -Adaptability.

Arias Diaz, Omar S., and Igor Kheyfets. 2023. The Adequacy of Public Expenditure on Education and the Needs Post-Covid-19. Washington, DC: World Bank http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en /099103123163731570/P1781350d855aa0170ab8f0f8644bd8efd7.

Atamanov, Aziz, Eduardo Alonso Malsquez Carbonel, Takaaki Masaki, Cara Ann Myers, Rogelio Granguillhome Ochoa, and Nistha Sinha. 2022. Uganda Poverty Assessment: Strengthening Resilience to Accelerate Poverty Reduction. Washington, DC: World Bank. http://documents .worldbank.org/curated/en/099135006292235162/P17761605286900b10899b0798dcd703d85.

Báez, Javier E., Alejandro de la Fuente, and Indhira Vanessa Santos. 2010. “Do Natural Disasters Affect Human Capital? An Assessment Based on Existing Empirical Evidence.” Discussion Paper 5164, Institute of Labor Economics, Bonn.

Bashir, Sajitha, Marlaine Lockheed, Elizabeth Ninan, and Jee-Peng Tan. 2018. Facing Forward: Schooling for Learning in Africa. Africa Development Forum series. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://doi.org/10.1596/978-1-46481260-6.

Bauluz, Luis, Yajna Govind, and Filip Novokmet. 2020. “Global Land Inequality.” Working Paper 10, World Inequality Database. https://wid.world/document/global-land-inequality-world-inequality -lab-wp-2020-10/. Beegle, Kathleen, and Alejandro de la Fuente. 2019. “Mobilizing Resources for the Poor.” In Accelerating Poverty Reduction in Africa, edited by Kathleen Beegle and Luc Christiaensen, 247–85. Washington, DC: World Bank.

Bendini, Magdalena, and Amanda E. Devercelli. 2022. Quality Early Learning: Nurturing Children’s Potential. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/education /publication/quality-early-learning-nurturing-children-s-potential.

Bhula, Radhika, Meghan Mahoney, and Kyle Murphy. 2020. “Conducting Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA).” Cambridge, MA: Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. https://www.povertyactionlab .org/resource/conducting-cost-effectiveness-analysis-cea.

Blom, Sylvia, Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, and John F. Hoddinott. 2022. “Heat Exposure and Child Nutrition: Evidence from West Africa.” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 115: 102698.

Bold, Tessa, Deon Filmer, Ezequiel Molina, and Jakob Svensson. 2019. “The Lost Human Capital: Teacher Knowledge and Student Achievement in Africa.” Policy Research Working Paper 8849, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31673.

Calderón, Cesar, and Catalina Cantu. 2021. “The Impact of Digital Infrastructure on African Development.” Policy Research Working Paper 9853, World Bank, Washington, DC. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/382651637242152978/pdf/The-Impact-of-Digital -Infrastructure-on-African-Development.pdf.

Canning, D., and T. P. Schultz. 2012. “The Economic Consequences of Reproductive Health and Family Planning.” Lancet 380 (9837): 165–71.

Caruso, Germán, Inés de Marcos, and Ilan Noy. 2024. “Climate Changes Affect Human Capital.” Economics of Disasters and Climate Change 8: 157–96. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41885-023 -00140-2.

Corral, Paul, Alexander Irwin, Nandini Krishnan, Daniel Gerszon Mahler, and Tara Vishwanath. 2020. Fragility and Conflict: On the Front Lines of the Fight against Poverty. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-1540-9.

Dabalen, Andrew, Ambar Narayan, Jaime Saavedra-Chanduvi, Alejandro Hoyos Suarez, Ana Abras, and Sailesh Tiwari. 2015. Do African Children Have an Equal Chance? A Human Opportunity Report for Sub-Saharan Africa. Directions in Development—Poverty. Washington, DC: World Bank.

Dean, Mark, and Anja Sautmann. 2022. “The Effects of Community Health Worker Visits and Primary Care Subsidies on Health Behavior and Health Outcomes for Children in Urban Mali.” Policy Research Working Paper 9986, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37245.

Deininger, Klaus, and Aparajita Goyal. 2023. “Land Institutions to Address New Challenges in Africa: Implications for the World Bank’s Land Policy.” Policy Research Working Paper 10389, World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/39634.

Dimitrova, Anna, and Jayanta Kumar Bora. 2020. “Monsoon Weather and Early Childhood Health in India.” PLOS ONE 15 (4): e0231479.

Foster, Vivien, and Cecilia Briceño-Garmendia, eds. 2010. Africa’s Infrastructure: A Time for Transformation. Washington, DC: World Bank.

Garg, Teevrat, Maulik Jagnani, and Vis Taraz. 2020. “Temperature and Human Capital in India.” Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists 7 (6): 1113–50.

Gatti, Roberta, Kathryn Andrews, Ciro Avitabile, Ruben Conner, Jigyasa Sharma, and Andres Yi Chang. 2021. The Quality of Health and Education Systems Across Africa: Evidence from a Decade of Service Delivery Indicators Surveys. Washington, DC: World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net /10986/36234.

Kaw, Jon Kher, Hyunji Lee, and Sameh Wahba. 2020. The Hidden Wealth of Cities: Creating, Financing, and Managing Public Spaces. Washington, DC: World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33186.

Kerwin, J., and Thornton, R. 2021. “Making the Grade: The Sensitivity of Education Program Effectiveness to Input Choices and Outcome Measures.” Review of Economics and Statistics 103 (2): 251–64. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_00911.

Lall, Somik V., Jon Kher Kaw, Forhad Shilpi, and Sally Beth Murray. 2023. Vibrant Cities—On the Bedrock of Stability, Prosperity, and Sustainability. Washington, DC: World Bank. http://hdl.handle .net/10986/40712.

Le, Kien, and My Nguyen. 2021. “In-Utero Exposure to Rainfall Variability and Early Childhood Health.” World Development 144: 105485.

Maina, Joseph, Paul O Ouma, Peter M. Macharia, Victor A. Alegana, Benard Mitto, Ibrahimo Socé Fall, Abdisalan M. Noor, Robert W. Snow, and Emelda A. Okiro. 2019. “A Spatial Database of Health Facilities Managed by the Public Health Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Scientific Data 6: 134.

Miller, Ray. 2017. “Childhood Health and Prenatal Exposure to Seasonal Food Scarcity in Ethiopia.” World Development 99: 350–76.

Molina, Ezequiel, Ambar Narayan, and Jaime Saavedra-Chanduvi. 2013. “Outcomes, Opportunity and Development: Why Unequal Opportunities and not Outcomes Hinder Economic Development.” Policy Research Working Paper 6735, World Bank, Washington, DC.

Narayan, Ambar, Roy van der Weide, Alexandru Cojocaru, Christoph Lakner, Silvia Redaelli, Daniel Gerszon Mahler, Rakesh Gupta N. Ramasubbaiah, and Stefan Thewissen. 2018. Fair Progress? Economic Mobility across Generations around the World. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://hdl .handle.net/10986/28428.

Paes de Barros, Ricardo, Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Jose R. Molinas Vega, Jaime Saavedra Chanduvi, Mirela De Carvalho, Samuel Franco, Samuel Freije-Rodriguez, and Jeremie Gignoux. 2009. Measuring Inequality of Opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean. Latin American Development Forum. Washington, DC: World Bank. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en /219971468045038979/Measuring-inequality-of-opportunities-in-Latin-America-and-the -Caribbean.

Palik, Júlia, Anna Marie Obermeier, and Siri Aas Rustad. 2022. “Conflict Trends in Africa, 1989–2021.” PRIO Paper. Oslo: Peace Research Institute Oslo.

Park, R. Jisung. 2022. “Hot Temperature and High-Stakes Performance.” Journal of Human Resources 57 (2): 400–34. Park, R. Jisung, A. Patrick Behrer, and Joshua Goodman. 2021. “Learning Is Inhibited by Heat Exposure, Both Internationally and within the United States.” Nature Human Behavior 5 (1): 19–27. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-00959-9.

Rains, Emily, and Anirudh Krishna. 2021. “Informalities, Volatility, and Precarious Social Mobility in Urban Slums.” In Social Mobility in Developing Countries: Concepts, Methods, and Determinants, edited by Vegard Iversen, Anirudh Krishna, and Kunal Sen, 351–73. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Randell, Heather, and Clark Gray. 2019. “Climate Change and Educational Attainment in the Global Tropics.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116 (18): 8840–45.

Schady, Norbert, Alaka Holla, Shwetlena Sabarwal, Joana Silva, and Andres Yi Chang. 2023. Collapse and Recovery: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Eroded Human Capital and What to Do about It. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://hdl.handle.net/10986/39403

Schütz, Gabriela, Heinrich W. Ursprung, and Ludger Wößmann. 2008. “Education Policy and Equality of Opportunity.” Kyklos 61 (2): 279–308.

Shah, Manisha, and Bryce Millett Steinberg. 2017. “Drought of Opportunities: Contemporaneous and Long-Term Impacts of Rainfall Shocks on Human Capital.” Journal of Political Economy 125 (2): 527–61.

Stanley, Andrew. 2023. African Century: A Demographic Transformation in Africa Has the Potential to Alter the World Order. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund. https://www.imf.org /en/Publications/fandd/issues/2023/09/PT-african-century

Sulla, Victor, Precious Zikhali, and Pablo Facundo Cuevas. 2022. Inequality in Southern Africa: An Assessment of the Southern African Customs Union. Washington, DC: World Bank. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099125303072236903/P1649270c02a1f06b0a3ae 02e57eadd7a82

Tetteh-Baah, Samuel, Kenneth Harttgen, Rahul Lahoti, and Isabel Günther. 2024. “Horizontal Inequalities in Africa.” Review of Income and Wealth. https://doi.org/10.1111/roiw.12669

UN DESA (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs), Population Division. 2022. “World Population Prospects 2022: Summary of Results.” UN DESA/POP/2022/TR/NO. 3.

UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund). 2021. “Analysis of Education Spending in the West and Central Africa Region: A Policy Brief for Ministers of Education and Finance.” New York: UNICEF.

UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund). 2024. “At Least 200 Million Girls and Women Alive Today Living in 31 Countries Have Undergone FGM.” New York: UNICEF. https://data.unicef.org/topic /child-protection/female-genital-mutilation/.

UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre. 2021. Time to Teach: Teacher Attendance and Time on Task in Primary Schools in The Gambia. Florence: UNICEF Office of Research—Innocenti. https://www .unicef-irc.org/publications/1233-time-to-teach-teacher-attendance-and-time-on-task-in-primary -schools-in-the-gambia.html.

van der Weide, Roy, Christoph Lakner, Daniel Gerszon Mahler, Ambar Narayan, and Rakesh Gupta. 2024. “Intergenerational Mobility around the World: A New Database.” Journal of Development Economics 166: 103167.

van der Weide, Roy, Christoph Lakner, Daniel Gerszon Mahler, Ambar Narayan, and Rakesh Ramasubbaiah. 2021. “Intergenerational Mobility around the World,” Policy Research Working Paper 9707, World Bank, Washington, DC. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en /817351624329601595/pdf/Intergenerational-Mobility-around-the-World.pdf.

WHO (World Health Organization). 2023. “Female Genital Mutilation.” Fact sheet. https://www.who .int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/female-genital-mutilation.

Wieser, Christina, Alemayehu A. Ambel, Tom Bundervoet, and Asmelash Haile Tsegay. 2020. “Monitoring COVID-19 Impacts on Households in Ethiopia (Vol. 3): Results from a High-Frequency Phone Survey of Households.” Washington, DC: World Bank.

World Bank. 2013. Turn Down the Heat: Climate Extremes, Regional Impacts, and the Case for Resilience. Washington, DC: World Bank.

World Bank. 2017. World Bank Development Report 2017: Governance and the Law. Washington, DC: World Bank.

World Bank. 2020. COVID-19 Impact Monitoring: Uganda, Round 1. Washington, DC: World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34395.

World Bank. 2021. The Human Capital Index 2020 Update: Human Capital in the Time of COVID-19. Washington, DC: World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34432.

World Bank. 2022. The Gambia Poverty and Gender Assessment 2022: Securing a Robust and Inclusive Recovery. Washington, DC: World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/