An enabling environment for the social and solidarity economy (SSE) largely depends on policy co-construction with stakeholders, and their commitment to implement policy across all levels of government, especially at the local level. The city of Durban is emerging as an exemplar for creating an...

Countries' economic complexity, and the associated diversification and sophistication of their exports, is a key determinant of economic growth. Understanding how South African firms learn to export more sophisticated products is, therefore, an important policy issue. Using administrative data...

This paper uses detailed firm transaction data on manufactured exports to analyse the dilution of the real exchange rate-export relationship in South Africa over the period 2010 to 2014. Our empirical results show that firms that are larger, have higher export shares in destination markets, and...

Limited access to finance is one of the major barriers for women entrepreneurs in Africa. This paper presents a model of start-ups in which firms' sales and profits depend on their productivity and access to credit. However, due to the lack of collateral assets such as land, female entrepreneurs...

This study examines the relationship between foreign direct investment inflows and economic growth by incorporating the role of urbanization, coal consumption and CO2 emissions as additional variables to avoid omitted variable bias. The different order of integration from the unit root test...

Limited access to finance is one of the major barriers for women entrepreneurs in Africa. This paper presents a model of start-ups in which firms’ sales and profits depend on their productivity and access to credit. However, due to the lack of collateral assets such as land, female...

This report highlights the opportunities and challenges facing UK firms when investing or conducting business in Africa, with a particular emphasis on the non-extractive sector. It highlights the mutual benefits for Africa, in terms of economic transformation and growth, and for the UK, in...