Trade is an essential driver for sustained economic growth, and growth is necessary for poverty reduction. In Sub-Saharan Africa, where three-fourths of the poor live in rural areas, spurring growth and generating income and employment opportunities is critical for poverty reduction strategies. Seventy percent of the population lives in rural areas, where livelihoods are largely dependent on the production and export of raw agricultural commodities such as coffee, cocoa, and cotton, whose prices in real terms have been steadily declining over the past decades. The deterioration in the terms of trade resulted for Africa in a steady contraction of its share in global trade over the past 50 years. Diversification of agriculture into higher-value, non-traditional exports is seen today as a priority for most of these countries. Some African countries-in particular, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, CÔte d'Ivoire, Senegal, and Zimbabwe-have managed to diversify their agricultural sector into non-traditional, high-value-added products such as cut flowers and plants, fresh and processed fruits and vegetables. To learn from these experiences and better assist other African countries in designing and implementing effective agricultural growth and diversification strategies, the World Bank has launched a comprehensive set of studies under the broad theme of "Agricultural Trade Facilitation and Non-Traditional Agricultural Export Development in Sub-Saharan Africa." This study provides an in-depth analysis of the current structure and dynamics of the European import market for flowers and fresh horticulture products. It aims to help client countries, industry stakeholders, and development partners to get a better understanding of these markets, and to assess the prospects and opportunities they offer for Sub-Saharan African exporters.

This paper establishes how accountability quality might mediate the effect of tax revenue on sustainable development in 41 sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1990-2019. The empirical evidence is based on three empirical strategies: generalized method of moments, instrumental variable Tobit, and quantile regressions. The following findings are revealed. First, accountability dynamics influence tax revenue in ways that have favourable net effects on sustainable development. Second, the conditional impacts between accountability dynamics and tax revenues are constantly negative, even though the demonstrated net effects are compatible with the paper's theoretical predictions. Third, the net consequences are decomposed to establish thresholds for further policy. Thresholds are points where there are no net effects and where further intensifying accountability dynamics would produce adverse net impacts. At the stated thresholds, further policy actions must be complemented with accountability dynamics in order to modulate tax revenues for strong sustainability. We conclude that policy makers in sub-Saharan African nations should coordinate measures that improve accountability in view of other complementary policies, because accountability serves as a 'force multiplier' enhancing the absorptive capacity of tax mobilization, which in turn promotes strong sustainability.

An analysis of data for 39 sub-Saharan African countries during 1985–96 indicates that the variations in tax revenue-GDP ratios within this group are influenced by economic policies and the level of corruption. Namely, these ratios rise with declining inflation, implementation of structural reforms, rising human capital (a proxy for the provision of public services by the government), and declining corruption. The paper confirms that the tax revenue ratio rises with income, and that elements of a country’s tax base (such as the share of agriculture in GDP and the degree of openness) influence tax revenue.

Many sub-Saharan African countries face difficulty in raising tax revenue for public purposes. This study uses panel data on 43 sub-Saharan African countries during 1990-95 to measure the determinants of the tax share in GDP and to construct a measure of tax effort. The analysis suggests that the countries with a relatively high tax share tend to have a relatively high index of tax effort, although these results are not uniform across the countries. The results can be used to provide guidance on to the proper mix of fiscal policy in the event of budgetary imbalance.

There is a glaring concern of income inequality in the light of the post-2015 global development agenda of sustainable development goals (SDGs), especially for countries that are in the south of the Sahara. There are also concerns over the present and future consequences of environmental degradation on development outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This study provides carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions thresholds that should be avoided in the nexus between financial development and income inequality in a panel of 39 countries in SSA over the period 2004-2014. Quantile regressions are used as an empirical strategy. The following findings are established. Financial development unconditionally decreases income inequality with an increasing negative magnitude while the interactions between financial development and CO2 emissions have the opposite effect with an increasing positive magnitude. The underlying nexuses are significant exclusively in the median and top quantiles of the income inequality distribution. CO2 emission thresholds that should not be exceeded in order for financial development to continuously reduce income inequality are 0.222, 0.200 and 0.166 metric tons per capita for the median, 75th quantile and 90th quantile of the income inequality distribution, respectively. Policy implications are discussed with particular relevance to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

African countries are behind in social and economic development. The citizens of these countries experience high levels of poverty and hunger, unemployment, maternal and infant mortality, lack of access to quality education, gender inequality and other social, economic and environmental ills. To fix these development challenges, African countries have been encouraged to improve on domestic resource mobilization. This is regarded as a more viable and sustainable way of actualizing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) against reliance on aids and grants. Also, emphasis is placed on taxation as the primary source of revenue for funding development because it ensures ownership of development projects by African countries. This thesis shows how the tax treaties signed by African countries (using three African countries as case studies - Nigeria, Tanzania, and Botswana, herein referred to as the comparator countries) can be reformed to improve domestic resource mobilization in those countries for financing socio-economic development. The main objective of this thesis is to uncover provisions in the tax treaties signed by the comparator countries that limit tax revenue from economic activities carried out by non-resident companies in those countries. The analysis covers tax treaty provisions dealing with taxation of business profits, investment income, aircraft and shipping operations, technical services, digital services, capital gains, independent personal services, and other income not dealt with by the allocation rules in the treaties. The thesis identifies important findings for consideration by the comparator countries to drive reforms to their tax treaties to improve domestic resource mobilization to help finance socio-economic development. Using the ideas of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) and the principle of "Common but Differentiated Responsibilities" (CbDR) to frame and explain my arguments for change, this thesis establishes the responsibility of developed countries to recraft the prescriptive rules of the international tax regime under which the bilateral tax treaties signed by African countries operate. It also argues for the individual African countries studied, and also for Africa as a regional bloc, to implement measures geared to foster increased tax revenue generation by reforming or cancelling their tax treaties with source-restrictive provisions.