Bank Privatization in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Uganda Commercial Bank

Because large state-owned banks are often the only financial service providers in remote areas of low-income countries, policymakers worry that even if privatization improves performance, it might reduce access. We study this issue through a case study: the privatization of Uganda Commercial Bank (UCB) to the South African bank Stanbic. Though market segmentation remains a concern since Stanbic faces little or no direct competition in many remote areas, some innovative aspects of the sales agreement have enabled the bank to improve its profitability while maintaining, or even improving, access to financial services for some hard-to-serve groups.     

Land Transport for Export: The Effects of Cost, Time, and Uncertainty in Sub-Saharan Africa

In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), inland export transport costs and time delays are much higher for landlocked countries, vary substantially between different geographic corridors, and exhibit substantial uncertainty. Unit costs and costs of time for land transport of exports are high for many agricultural products relative to metals and other high-value products. We illustrate systemic uncertainty in land and maritime transport for exporting by use of simulation. Relationships among uncertainty, infrastructure quality, and other features of logistics systems are highly non-linear, and can be potentially used to identify priorities for trade facilitation.     

Determinants of a Digital Divide in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Spatial Econometric Analysis of Cell Phone Coverage

This paper investigates the determinants of disparities in coverage by cell telephone systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. It uses a spatially disaggregated probit for over 990,000 grid cells with adjustments for spatial autocorrelation. Determinants include potential market size (population); cost factors related to accessibility (elevation, slope, distance from a main road, and distance from the nearest large city); and competition policy. Estimates indicate significant results for the supply–demand variables, and very strong results for the competition policy index.Simulations suggest that a generalized improvement in competition policy could lead to huge improvements in cell phone area coverage, and to an overall coverage increase of nearly 100%.