Infusion (South Africa)

This paper estimates the long-run impact of the exchange rate depreciation on GDP in South Africa and whether it changed after the 2008 global financial crisis. The paper further determines whether certain channels amplified or dampened the transmission of exchange rate deprecation to GDP after the crisis. The long-run relationship estimated using fully modified ordinary least squares, dynamic ordinary least squares, and ordinary least squares indicates a one percent exchange rate depreciation raises GDP by less than 1.4 percent. Evidence from the model with the interactive global financial crisis dummy and exchange rate shows that the impact of the exchange rate depreciation on GDP was diminished after the crisis. The counterfactual analysis reveals that the exchange rate volatility, foreign demand, investment, imported intermediate inputs, consumption, consumer price level, and export volume channels dampened the stimulative effects of the exchange rate depreciation on GDP post-2008. This evidence indicates a disconnect between the exchange rate depreciation and the GDP relationship. This implies that policymakers cannot rely on the exchange rate depreciation as a potent macroeconomic stabilization policy tool and may not achieve the National Development Plan growth objective via an export-led growth strategy.

There remains widespread doubt among clinicians that mere lifestyle advice and counseling provided in routine care can achieve improvements in health. We aimed to determine the health effects of the largest behavior change program for pre-diabetes globally (the English Diabetes Prevention Programme) when implemented at scale in routine care. We exploited the threshold in glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) used to decide on program eligibility by applying a regression discontinuity design, one of the most credible quasi-experimental strategies for causal inference, to electronic health data from approximately one-fifth of all primary care practices in England. Program referral led to significant improvements in patients' HbA1c and body mass index. This analysis provides causal, rather than associational, evidence that lifestyle advice and counseling implemented in a national health system can achieve important health improvements.

The Malabo Declaration on accelerated agricultural growth and transformation for shared prosperity and improved livelihoods is a set of goals that were adopted by Heads of State and Government of the African Union in 2014 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea (AUC 2014). To translate the seven Malabo commitments into results, a call for action was made by the Heads of State and Governments, by calling upon the AU Commission and the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency, in collaboration with partners, to initiate a review process to be conducted on a biennial basis starting 2017, with an objective of tracking, measuring, and reporting progress towards achieving the Malabo Declaration commitments by 2025.
\n Three Biennial Reviews (BR) have been conducted—the inaugural BR in 2017, the second BR in 2019, and the third and most recent BR in 2021. This brief draws on the third BR report to summarize the performance of Angola toward meeting the Malabo Declaration commitments across the three BR cycles, highlights challenges and lessons from the third BR, and outlines policy and programmatic measures required for Angola to meet the Malabo Declaration commitment targets by 2025.
\n The third BR indicates that Angola is not on track to achieve any of the Malabo Declaration commitments by 2025. Despite the improvements in performance between the first and second BRs, the overall scores for Angola for all three BR rounds were below the benchmark scores.
\n A key recommendation from the analysis is for Angola to enhance public financial management to improve the quality of public agricultural expenditure and to promote planning of public investments in the agricultural sector, including donor-funded projects. This should be done in close partnership with key stakeholders in the agricultural sector, resulting in an increased allocation of public resources to the sector.

South Africa joined the global world in building inclusive housing, known as Mixed Income Housing (MIH) as a way to integrate and transform residential markets previously distorted by the discriminatory apartheid regime. However, despite the benefits of MIHs in deconcentrating poverty while boosting housing supply, these inclusive neighbourhoods often experience amplified cases of ‘Not in My Back Yard’ (NIMBY) for various reasons. Thus, approval processes of these inclusive housing developments get to be highly contested in courts, which causes huge delays in their completion. The paper aims to investigate the effect of NIMBY on the price of houses in a mixed-income neighbourhood. The paper used a cross sectional hedonic model on houses sold in the neighbourhood of Cosmo City MIH. The limitation is that a typical and purposely selected Cosmo city case study may not be generalizable to South Africa at large. Results show that Cosmo City had negligible effects on neighbourhood house prices. This is rather surprising given the unfavourable perception encountered during its development. The practical implication is that improving infrastructure such as roads to reduce traffic congestion, building new schools, new hospitals, security services, and new shopping centers reduce pressure on available services and amenities making inclusive housing acceptable in its neighbourhood. The social implication is that inclusive housing developments default into supplying the much-needed social housing in South Africa. Scientifically measuring perception on accepting MIH development projects in well-established neighbourhoods does contribute to understanding the plight of housing shortage by the public in ways that accepts inclusivity from an investment point of view.