The Dynamics of a Racialized,Gendered, Ethnicized,and Economically Stratified Society: Understanding the Socio-Economic Status of Women in Zimbabwe

Feminist literature attempting to understand the status of women in Zimbabwe has seldom considered patterns of social exclusion and the dynamics of a racialized society that institutionalized racial supremacy as an ideology for organizing social life. Even now, too often we believe, feminist theorists analyze the status of women with the assumption that patriarchy is the single source of the oppression of women. Using the notion of a racialized society we account for the workings of gender oppression within the historical context of Zimbabwe. We show how in a racialized society, gender, race, ethnicity, and class operate intricately together to relegate African women to the lowest socio-economic status. Even with policies to redress earlier imbalances, women endure all forms of injustices. We focus on the informal sector as illustrative of one sector where these injustices continue.     

Impact of employment protection legislation on employment and exporting in select African countries

Labour market flexibility is an important issue in both development and labour economics. More flexibility in the labour market is believed to facilitate job creation, but also makes it easy for employers to terminate employment contracts and may be in conflict with the notion of decent jobs as promoted by the International Labour Organization and workers' unions. It is therefore not surprising that labour market flexibility or inflexibility has received a lot of attention in the extant literature. Using a sample of about 4700 firms from six African countries, we investigate the impact of restrictive labour regulation on a number of economic outcomes and find that more restrictive labour market regulations are detrimental to export propensity, export intensity, investment and employment. Policy-makers must be cautious, however, when implementing employment regulations as too flexible regulations may benefit employers at the expense of employees.     

Population policy: do we need it? Prospects and problems

A 1983 report by the Whitsun Foundation called upon the Government of Zimbabwe to recognize the urgent nature of that country's population problem and to devise and implement a comprehensive population policy aimed at reducing morbidity and mortality among women and children, reducing the population growth rate, and reducing the fertility level. This article challenges the Whitsun Foundation's view that population pressure is the primary cause of poverty in Zimbabwe and that family planning is a feasible remedy. It is argued instead that poverty in Zimbabwe can be traced to capitalist development policies that have removed from rural people the means to produce their own subsistence. More important that large-scale birth control programs are radical structural and institutional changes aimed at achieving social and economic progress and directly attacking poverty, unemployment, and inequality. Those countries where marked declines in birth rates have been achieved have usually been those that spread the benefits of development throughout their populations. Moreover, the Whitsun report implies that there is no family planning program in Zimbabwe. In fact, in 1982, an estimated 200,000 people received contraception through the Child Spacing and Fertility Association of Zimbabwe's program. It is unlikely that an expanded birth control program and educational campaign to persuade the rural and urban poor to practice family planning will be effective. Policy makers will have to address the cynicism brought about by the colonial regimes' genocidal efforts in the 1960s and 1970s to introduce birth control measures.     

Optimal Hedging Under Price,Quantity and Exchange Rate Uncertainty

Abstract: This paper derives an optimal hedging strategy for a primary producer under price, quantity and exchange rate uncertainty. In this model, it is assumed that the producer is a mean-variance maximizer with an exponential utility function. The derived optimal hedge ratio for the commodity is proportional to the coefficient of the commodity futures prices bias in a linear regression where revenue uncertainty is the dependent variable. This ratio differs from the result that would have been obtained under price-quantity uncertainty when revenues are significantly correlated with the exchange rate variability, thereby suggesting that the foreign exchange risk is relevant only when the commodity exposure is unhedged. The model is empirically tested using Côte-d'Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria as cocoa producers and the US Dollar and the French Franc as currencies of numeraire to hedge UK Pound revenues. The resulting cocoa hedge ratios range from 78 to 57 percent. For Ghana and the Côte-d'Ivoire, there is little correlation between revenue and exchange rate variability. Therefore, the cocoa ratio is not significantly affected by the introduction of this additional source of uncertainty and the currency ratio in the joint hedge is trivial for both the dollar and the franc. Nigeria's revenues are correlated to the dollar and the cocoa ratio is de facto lowered by the currency effect in a joint cocoa-dollar hedge. Résumé: Cet article presente un modele de couverture optimale a terme contre les risques conjoints de prix, de quantite et de change pour un producteur de matieres premieres dont l'objectif est de maximiser ses revenus. Le taux de couverture optimal est proportionnel au coeficent obtenu dans une regression simple des revenus ou le biais des prix a terme est la variable independente. Ce taux ne direre de celui obtenu dans un modele d'incertitude prix-quantite que lorsque l'incertitude de quantite est correlee a celle de change. Ceci suggere a contrario qu'une couverture optimale du risque des prix de matieres premieres permet en meme temps de parer au risque de change.     

Are Cash Budgets a Cure for Excess Fiscal Deficits (and at What Cost)?

This paper investigates the effect of recent reforms of budgetary institutions in Uganda and Zambia. We argue that cash budgeting has brought clear benefits in terms of improved expenditure control with regard to line ministries. Contrary to what is often suggested, however, adoption of a cash budget has not provided a means for top politicians in either country to “tie their hands” with respect to intervention in fiscal policy decisions. In Uganda improved fiscal policy outcomes have, in fact, been achieved as a result of (and not in spite of) discretionary interventions by top politicians. In Zambia, a strict rule imposing a balanced budget on a monthly basis has proven partially effective, due in no small part to International Monetary Fund (IMF) enforcement, but costly in terms of increased volatility of expenditures.     

Peanut Research and Poverty Reduction: Impacts of Variety Improvement to Control Peanut Viruses in Uganda

A procedure is developed and applied for predicting ex ante impacts of agricultural research on aggregate poverty, using as an example the poverty-reducing impact of peanut research in Uganda. Market-level information on economic surplus changes is combined with a procedure for allocating income changes to individual households. Characteristics of farmers that affect their likelihood of technology adoption are used to create a technology adoption profile. Associated changes in poverty resulting from adoption are computed using poverty indices. Predicted income changes at the household level are aggregated to the market level and reconciled with calculations of economic surplus changes.     

Coping with climate change in Africa: an analysis of local interpretations in Eastern Cape,SA

The emissions of greenhouse gases together with other anthropogenic activities has caused a change in global climatic conditions with corresponding negative effects on agricultural productivity, biodiversity and other socio-economic indices. Studies reveal that the impacts of climate change are felt most severely by the vulnerable, who have fewer adaptive capacities. In Africa, for example, little is known about local narratives on the ‘causes’ of climate change, and how such narratives influence climate change coping and adaptation strategies in specific local settings. Where do the ‘local’ and the ‘global’ intersect in the search for effective coping measures – and do they? Using a qualitative approach, this paper reveals how local conceptions of climate change appear to be rooted in ‘politics’ and spiritual forces. The paper highlights not only the major points of divergence between local interpretations and ‘Western’ conceptions about climate change, but also important areas of convergence between the two ideational domains.