Back

Africafé: Financial Constraints in the Pursuit of Economic Development in Africa

September 5, 2024
Related topics: 
Economy
Africa

Africa's economic growth is significantly hampered by financial constraints, which pose significant challenges. These constraints severely limit investments in critical areas such as infrastructure, education, and healthcare. Addressing these issues is crucial for achieving sustainable development and enhancing living standards across the continent.

In this episode, we host Miss Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi, the President & CEO of African Centre for Economic Transformation (ACET) to explore innovative transformation models adaptable within Africa to foster economic growth. We identify primary sources of financial constraints, including limited access to financing and high borrowing costs, hindering economic development in African countries. We also analyze the pivotal role of domestic financial institutions and markets in either alleviating or exacerbating these constraints, and discuss strategies to enhance access to finance, support entrepreneurship, and promote sustainable development.

Speakers
Ahmed Ouhnini
Economist, Policy Center for the New South
Ahmed Ouhnini is an Economist at the Policy Center for the New South. His research area covers agricultural economics, human and social development. Previously, he has worked as a researcher at the Paris School of Economics (PSE) and has also a record of working in consulting services in Morocco. Ahmed holds an engineering Diploma in Agriculture and Rural Development from the National School of Agriculture of Meknes and a Master’s Degree in Law, Economics and Management from the Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne Institute of Development. ...
Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi
President & CEO of the African Centre for Economic Transformation (ACET)
...

RELATED CONTENT

  • Download PDF
    Relations entre le Maroc et l’Afrique subsaharienne : Quels potentiels pour le commerce et les investissements directs étrangers ?
    Authors
    Rim Berahab
    February 1, 2017
    L’analyse des relations commerciales entre le Maroc et l’Afrique subsaharienne fait ressortir un volume des échanges croissants, reflétant ainsi une dynamisation continue des leurs relations commerciales. Une tendance similaire est observée au niveau des investissements directs étrangers, qui ne cessent de croître au cours des dernières années, traduisant la volonté du Maroc à devenir un acteur majeur dans le développement du continent africain. Ce Policy Brief présente dans un prem ...
  • Atlantic Dialogues – African Economies Integrate The New Global Context
    Authors
    Thomas Awazu Pereira da Silva
    January 2, 2017
    This year, under the patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, the OCP Policy Center (OCPPC) - in collaboration with the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS) - hosted and organized the fifth Atlantic Dialogues, gathering over 300 high-level international public- and private-sector leaders from the Atlantic Basin to discuss cross-regional issues ranging from economic and social development, security and trade, to migration, resources, and energy. This year’s event, loca ...
  • Download PDF
    Faciliter les échanges alimentaires au sein de la CEDEAO
    Authors
    Onasis Tharcisse A. Guedegbe
    December 23, 2016
    L'intégration commerciale est une condition de réussite de tout projet d’intégration économique. Les facteurs entravant cette intégration commerciale sont donc un goulot d’étranglement au projet d’intégration économique des pays de la Communauté Economique des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (CEDEAO), projet qui constitue un moyen efficace de faire face à la forte expansion de la demande alimentaire sous régionale. Cet article vise à mettre en lumière les facteurs contraignant la flui ...
  • Download PDF
    Economic Integration in Africa: A Work in Progress
    Authors
    Vera Songwe
    December 23, 2016
    Regional economic integration across the world accelerates growth and development by bringing a wide array of benefits associated with enhanced political cooperation, increased intra-regional trade, and job creation. Regions that are more integrated have proven to grow faster and have shown greater resilience in times of global economic downturns. As the world economy struggles to return to the high growth levels of a decade ago, stimulating internal and regional growth has become t ...
  • Download PDF
    Facilitating food trade within ECOWAS
    Authors
    Onasis Tharcisse A. Guedegbe
    December 23, 2016
    Trade integration is a prerequisite for the success of any economic integration project. The factors hindering trade integration therefore constitute a bottleneck to the economic integration project of the countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which is an effective means of coping with the substantial expansion of sub-regional food demand. The aim of this paper is to highlight the factors that constrain trade flows and increase the cost of trade in the ...
  • Download PDF
    L'intégration économique en Afrique: un processus en cours
    Authors
    Vera Songwe
    December 23, 2016
    Partout dans le monde, l'intégration économique régionale permet d'accélérer la croissance et le développement en apportant une panoplie d'avantages liés à une meilleure coopération politique, à un commerce intra-régional accru et à la création d'emplois. Les régions qui sont plus intégrées se sont révélées capables de connaître une croissance plus rapide et ont fait preuve d'une plus grande capacité d'adaptation en période de ralentissement de l'économie mondiale. Alors que l'écono ...
  • Download PDF
    Argentina’s Shifting Politics: New Prospects for Collaboration with Africa?
    Authors
    Rafael Benke
    December 14, 2016
    The government of Argentina’s new president, Mauricio Macri, has many challenges ahead. In the initial 10 months of his government, he has devalued the currency, lifted significant trade and capital barriers, and launched conversations with international investors and creditors, and has changed international perceptions toward Argentina. Macri’s election immediately generated a positive reaction from the private sector toward the new government. However, indicators for 2016 show a w ...
  • Download PDF
    Morocco’s 2014- 2020 Industrial Strategy and its potential implications for the structural transformation process
    Authors
    Karim EL Mokri
    October 13, 2016
    Morocco is now more than ever threatened by the trap of middle-income economies. On one hand, it is caught between increased competition from low-income countries in low productivity and labor-intensive sectors and, on the other hand, the difficulty of accelerating its pace of structural transformation towards activities with higher value added and higher technological content. International experience shows that few countries have managed to climb to the status of an advanced econo ...
  • Download PDF
    Regional analysis of domestic integration in Egypt: an interregional CGE approach
    Authors
    Eduardo Amaral Haddad
    Michael L. Lahr
    Dina N. Elshahawany
    Moisés Vassallo
    October 13, 2016
    We develop an interregional computable general equilibrium model to help assess the ex ante impact of transportation infrastructure policies in Egypt. The model is integrated with a GIS network. We illustrate the analytical capabilities of the model by looking at the domestic integration of the country. Improvements of transportation costs among Egyptian governorates and of their links to the broader world economy are considered in stylized simulations. The results provide quantitat ...
  • Tales of Emerging Markets
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan
    August 15, 2016
    Emerging market economies (EM) as a special class of financial assets have recently been subject to two competing tales. On the one hand, there is evidence of continued financial deepening and further integration within the global financial system, while the offer of higher yields remains hard to find elsewhere. On the other hand, there are frequent bouts of fear of systemic unwinding of positions triggered by investors “exiting” EM that exhibit signs of weak or unclear macroeconomi ...