Donors’ Supply of Aid for Information and Communication Technologies: Do Recipient- Countries’ Level of Access to the Internet Matter?

Author_  Sèna Kimm Gnangnon

Pages  1-15

Abstract_  In light of the importance of Internet access for developing countries in today’s world, this article investigates whether donors’ aid supply for the development of the Information and Communication technologies (ICT) sector in developing countries depends on the latter’s level of access to the Internet. The analysis is conducted using a set of 88 countries, over the period 2004-2016. Empirical results show that donors allocate higher aid for ICT to countries with a higher Internet usage and higher fixed broadband subscriptions. Specifically, least developed countries benefit much more from aid for ICT than other countries when they make an effort to increase either the access of their population to the Internet or fixed broadband.

Keywords_  Internet usage, Broadband subscriptions, Development aid for the ICT sector

Rural Household Vulnerability to Multidimensional Poverty in Ethiopia’s Degu’a Tembien District, Tigray

Author_  Desawi Kiros Gebrekidan, Abate Mekuriaw, John Cameron

Pages  33-55

Abstract_  This paper investigates household vulnerability to multidimensional poverty in Degu’a Tembien District. Cross-sectional data were collected randomly from 420 households from six rural villages. Vulnerability to multidimensional poverty was estimated using three-step FGLS. Finding shows that, on the one hand, households with greater social capital, financial capital and number of plots tend to be less vulnerable owing to their lower rates of expected multidimensional deprivation. On the other hand, households with better physical capital are found highly vulnerable with lower volatility of expected multidimensional deprivations. The analysis also shows that female-headed households are more vulnerable to future poverty than male-headed households. Household’s who experienced drought, hailed rainfall and pest attack shocks were associated with increased vulnerability. Results also show that households that rely on savings, sale of livestock and formal borrowing of money following a shock were found to be less vulnerable to multidimensional poverty. Overall, 80 percent of households were vulnerable to multidimensional poverty and the probability of experiencing multidimensional poverty in the near future exceeds the current incidence of household multidimensional poverty. This implies the need to focus on reducing household vulnerability through social protection interventions rather than reducing observed multidimensional poverty.

Keywords_ Vulnerability, Multidimensional poverty, Shock, Deprivation, Incidence

Petroleum Subsidy Reduction and Poverty in Nigeria: A Choice between Maintaining the Subsidy or Providing Infrastructural Services Equivalent to the Deadweight Loss

Author_ Matthew Oladapo Gidigbi, Kehinde Mary Bello

Pages 70-81

Abstract_ Government interventions in energy pricing can either aggravate or alleviate overall poverty, complicating efforts to reduce the burden of subsidies on developing country budgets. This issue is particularly acute for Nigeria, where a large subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) consumes a considerable portion of the country’s resources and is subject to large scale corruption and misuse, yet where there continues to be a high rate of poverty incidence and a large indigent population sensitive to any increase in the price of fuel. This study assesses the choice between maintaining the PMS subsidy and redirecting those resources to the additional provision of infrastructure services, proxied by the deadweight loss. Annual data covering the period of 1981-2016 were sourced from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Monthly Financial Operations, the NNPC Annual Statistical Bulletin, the Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin and Annual Reports. Vector Autoregression was used to regress poverty incidence on the subsidy and the deadweight value from the subsidy. The study found barely any difference between the contributions of both variables to poverty reduction, with the according coefficients 0.02 and 0.01 percent respectively. Empirically, maintaining the subsidy is the slightly better choice in terms of poverty reduction. This sup- ports the view that the PMS subsidy is important for the indigent due to the susceptibility of such households to income shock. However, greater health investment appears to be an effective intervention, and improving primary health could significantly reduce poverty incidence in the country.

Keywords_ Poverty incidence, Petroleum subsidy, Energy reforms, Education, Health, Efficiency loss