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- Convenors:
-
Florence Dafe
(TUM)
Babette Never (German Development Institute)
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- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- BS001
- Start time:
- 1 July, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Zurich
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
The papers in this panel examine how the transformation of African private and financial sectors towards sustainability can be achieved. The panel welcomes both theoretical and empirical contributions on this question.
Long Abstract:
This panel examines the potential and challenges of transformative research on economic development in Africa. The view is gaining ground in the public and among funding organisations that research should be transformative, that is aiming at achieving societal impact and informing policymakers about how to advance transformations to sustainability in its economic, social and ecologic dimensions. However, extant research on economic development in Africa has largely maintained its traditional focus on structural transformation, examining the drivers and obstacles to economic growth, productivity, structural diversification and upgrading of enterprises. The papers in this panel seek to contribute to filling this gap by examining how the transformation of African private and financial sectors towards sustainability can be achieved. Particular questions to be addressed include: How can African governments simultaneously achieve structural change and sustainable economic development? How and why does this vary across countries? How do international organisations shape the decisions of African governments to promote the transformation of African private and financial sectors towards sustainability? What are the policy dilemmas and trade-offs that governments face in promoting structural transformation and the transformation towards sustainability simultaneously? How are governments resolving such tradeoffs? The panel also welcomes theoretical and empirical contributions that examine the pros and cons of transformative, sustainability-oriented research on economic development in Africa, potentially contrasting it with the traditional research focus on structural transformation in Africa.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
Article 2(1)(c) of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change should influence financial sector reform in Africa. The paper provides theoretical and empirical contributions to support how this objective may be achieved through collaboration.
Paper long abstract:
The changing paradigms of financial sector policies and regulations in Africa since independence in the 1960s and 1970s have generated alternative perspectives on the role of public and private finance in responding to development challenges. These paradigms were initially influenced by a Keynesian worldview suggesting a dominant role for public sector. As 'neo-liberal' orthodoxy gained prominence in the late 1970's, adoption of the 'Washington Consensus' meant a lesser role for the state. Aziakpono (2016) argues that a new consensus is evolving for more balanced engagement of public and private sector and suggests that collaboration is needed within the financial sector. Building on this work, the paper argues that such collaboration will contribute to achieving Article 2(1)(c) of the Paris Accord on Climate Change, whose objective it is to make all finance flows consistent with greenhouse gas emission and climate resilient development. Empirical work by UNEP Inquiry on sustainable finance practices in Kenya and South Africa will be drawn upon in this paper to frame the emerging roles of public and private sector in achieving sustainability (i.e. environmental, social and governance factors). The paper proposes a pathways approach to support policymakers in meeting the objectives of Article 2(1)(c) of the Paris Accord. Specifically, to enable them to i) understand the capacity of the national finance system to promote climate response; and ii) differentiate among the different roles for public, private and development assistance in the climate response.
Paper short abstract:
How can sustainable development be achieved in global BioEconomies? Under the forthcoming Namibian Access and Benefit-sharing (ABS) regulation a market for biodiversity is created were actors negotiate about “Nature”. The concept of “reverse bioprospecting” will be discussed.
Paper long abstract:
The commercial utilization of bio-based resources is the central premise of today's development policy-making. BioEconomy is promoted as an ‘engine‘ for sustainable development in order to address the challenges of humanity: the overexploitation of natural resources, poverty, climate change and economic crisis. The vision is created to build global BioEconomies characterized by an exchange of knowledge and capacity between the global North and South.
How can sustainable development in its economic, social and ecological dimensions be achieved in global BioEconomies?
In the present paper I will explore the creation of global BioEconomies at the example of bioprospecting negotiations in Namibia by drawing on the New Institutional Economics (NIE). Special reference will be made to the forthcoming Namibian Access and Benefit-sharing (ABS) regulation. Under ABS a market for biodiversity will be created where users and providers negotiate over the conditions of exchange.
However, I do understand bioprospecting negotiations not only as a market were user and provider bargain over the conditions of exchange, furthermore, actors involved negotiate about “Nature”. There is a need to conduct a theoretically-based deconstruction of the “selling nature to save it” logic in order to draw attention upon the underlying power asymmetries and hierarchies, potentially prohibiting the fair and equitable allocation of benefits. The opportunities and limitation of the concept of reverse bioprospecting (Kashila C. Chinsembu et al. 2011) will be discussed.
Paper short abstract:
The paper explores Africa’s distinctive “culturalist” path to engage the international political economy, and reveals ways that Africapitalism and Ubuntu economics are hybrid international political-economic models that draw from local, national, and regional African contexts.
Paper long abstract:
Africapitalism calls for the empowerment of Africans with the view that Africa can only be developed by Africans themselves and not through aid and handouts from developed nations. Ubuntu Business asserts that humans' very beings derive from each other's. Both business and economic philosophies draw from African humanist economic principles and invoke African culture to be a key driver of change in the continent. Are Africapitalism and Ubuntu Business alternative, hybrid, international political economics (IPE's) that Africans are forging in response to contemporary globalization? Which is likely to enhance, contradict, undermine, or complicate the pan-African project, and how does each engage with neoliberal Africa Rising and Pan Africanist worldviews? Answering these questions, the paper explores Africa's distinctive "culturalist" path to engage the international political economy, and reveals ways that Africapitalism and Ubuntu economics are hybrid international political-economic models that draw from local, national, and regional African contexts. This customized approach to African international political economy dovetails the models of China's "market-socialism" or Latin America's "21st C Socialism" to reveal ways that political economies are derived from the perspectives and subject conditions of the peoples and communities that are the object of the political-economic practice and policies. Using Nigeria's Africapitalism and South Africa's Ubuntu Business as case studies, the paper objective serves to reconcile this tension between neoliberal Africa Rising economic policy narratives and Pan African economics presenting their convergence as a viable Third Way route both of which engages the international political economy as well as contributes to global development.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the value of transformative research for the study of economic development in Africa. We find that transformative research may enrich the study of African economic development by illuminating pathways to environmentally, socially and economically sustainable structural change.
Paper long abstract:
Transformative research can be broadly defined as research with a normative commitment and a clear orientation towards societal impact. Since this type of research receives growing support from funding bodies, its meaning and effects in practice merit debate in African Studies. The rise of transformative research is highly relevant for African Studies because it re-casts the light on the normative starting points of research, research independence and the function of research on African societies. This paper contributes to the debate by examining the value of transformative research for the study of economic development in Africa. It clarifies the concept and discusses the limitations and potential of transformative research. We find that transformative research may enrich the study of African economic development by illuminating pathways to environmentally, socially and economically sustainable structural change. Transformative research may expand the methodological and disciplinary scope of research on economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa, but trade-offs in terms of its normative base and researcher independence need to be considered.