This study investigates the effects of trade and trade facilitation on economic growth in Africa. To do so, we measure trade facilitation by means of three indicators, namely trade, export and import related costs, constructed by using principal component analysis. These indicators, in addition to several policy‐relevant variables, are used as exogenous variables to estimate an augmented growth model which, with the aid of a dynamic system GMM estimation technique, properly addresses potential endogeneity concerns. The findings suggest that trade facilitation serves as an important channel through which trade affects economic growth.

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Women and children suffer worse health outcomes during armed conflicts. For more than a decade, Northern Nigeria has been facing one of the most violent armed conflicts in sub‐Saharan Africa. Studies on the conflict's impact on healthcare utilization in the area are few. The aim of this study is to explore the effect of the protracted armed conflicts on healthcare utilization, measured by maternal care and child immunization, in Northern Nigeria. Data from the Armed Conflict Location and Events Data set are spatially merged to birth records from the Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey. An area is classified to be a conflict cluster if it is within a 5–10 km radius of conflict event(s) with at least one fatality. The difference‐in‐differences method is applied to estimate the effect of the armed conflicts on healthcare utilization in the area. We find that residing within a conflict cluster significantly reduces the probability of utilization of healthcare services. We conclude that robust policies and strategies to mitigate the adverse effects of the armed conflicts on healthcare delivery are necessary for the short run. In the long run, systematic efforts to identify and address the root causes of the conflict with a view to finding a lasting solution are necessary to improve health‐care utilization in conflict‐affected areas.

Widespread food insecurity remains a daunting challenge in Africa, despite significant gains in global efforts to eliminate hunger over the last three decades. This paper examines the effects of easing trade across borders – through reductions in documents, time, and costs to export and import – on food security outcomes in Africa. To control for endogeneity, this paper employs the first-difference instrumental variable estimator based on panel data covering 45 African countries over the period 2006–2015. The results reveal that poor trade facilitation constitutes a significant driver of food insecurity in Africa. In particular, ineffective trade facilitation is associated with significant increments in the prevalence of undernourishment and depth of food deficit, as well as reductions in dietary energy supply adequacy and access to sanitation facilities. The results show that food availability and food access are significantly hampered by higher documentation requirements and lengthier export and import times. The results suggest that reductions in delays from documentary and border compliance promise to be the most effective trade facilitation reforms to enhance food security in Africa.

Seasonal variations in agriculture is a major contributor to undernutrition in many agrarian economies. While recent studies have highlighted the role of markets in improving nutrition, the relative importance of markets in smoothing food consumption across seasons remains largely unexamined. Using data from Sierra Leone, this paper analyses whether access to local food markets mitigates seasonal fluctuations in household dietary diversity and food security. Our results confirm that agricultural seasonality imposes significant fluctuations on household dietary diversity and food security. Households, especially those in rural areas, are found to experience significant deteriorations in dietary diversity and food security during the lean season. Most importantly, the results also show that households with better market access consume more diverse diets and are more food secure in both lean and non-lean seasons than remoter households. An important policy implication of these results is that market-based interventions aimed at strengthening market access through improved market infrastructure and roads can significantly contribute to year-long food consumption smoothing, improved dietary diversity and overall food and nutrition security.