edited by Donatella Saccone, University of Turin and OEET
Around one-fourth of emerging economies is located in Africa. Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Ruanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia are indeed among the 38 fastest-growing poor countries in the world (see Emerging Economies 4/2016), while other African economies are sharply recovering by a stagnating past. In this number of Emerging Economies, we want to provide three examples of African specificities in the emergence process, permeated by both lights and shadows.
Francesco Abbate discusses the importance of the tourism sector for the emergence process of many African countries and, drawing on the UNCTAD Report “Tourism for Transformative and Inclusive Growth”, highlights its strengths and weaknesses. In particular, he focalizes on some important suggestions that can help African countries in maximizing the economic benefits of tourism: strengthening intersectoral linkages, enhancing the capacity of tourism to foster more inclusive growth, tapping the potential of intraregional tourism through deepening regional integration, and harnessing peace and stability for tourism.
Giorgio Brosio and Jelle Gerbrandy underline the importance of well-defined property rights on land for a sustainable process of economic development. They then analyze the case of Tanzania that, with a growth rate of 6%-7%, is a fully-fledged emerging economy. The inefficiencies and iniquities in the Tanzanian registration system of titles however represent a dangerous shadow on an economy that is largely based on the primary sector. The authors hence provide a series of valuable recommendations to address these inefficiencies, particularly emphasizing the need for an effective taxation of property as well as for digital technologies for innovating tax administration.
Finally, Gianluca Iazzolino provides evidence on the diffusion of mobile money in African emerging economies and illustrates the many economic advantages it brings. However, it seems that these advantages have been unequally distributed among people and countries. As a consequence, in some countries mobile money have largely spread, while in other countries it have struggled to take off. At the same time, doubts raised on whether digital financial services have promoted social inclusion. The effectiveness and equity of these services depend indeed on the specific context and their implementation should be adjusted to promote social and financial inclusion.
