Financial development has been considered to play a vital role in promoting rapid growth and development of the developing economies. This paper examined the drivers of financial development in West African Countries. Benin Republic, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo over the period of 2000 to 2015, with the proper utilization of panel data estimation technique on the annual country data obtained from World Development Indicators (WDI) 2016 and Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) 2016. The results reveals that some important variables such as coefficient of rule of law, political stability, foreign direct investment, government expenditure, inflation and savings positively determined financial development. While, credit to private sector, GDP, interest rate, trade openness, and capital formation were found to negative impact on financial development. The study then recommends amongst others formulation and implementation of fiscal and monetary policies that foster financial development.

The debate on the role of Foreign Direct Investment in promoting rapid growth and development of the developing economies remain inconclusive. This paper examined whether FDI still matters in African Countries over the period of 1990 to 2017, with the proper utilization of panel data estimation technique on the annual country data that were sourced from world Governance and Development Indicators. Using random and fixed effect model, the results reveal that some important variables such as coefficient of trade openness, rule of law, political stability, capital formation and population positively determined economic growth in Africa countries, account for about 2, 1, 65, 170, and 396.7 percent increase in economic growth. While, FDI and inflation were found to have negative impact on economic growth accounting for 21.4 and 2 percent fall in economic growth over the study period. The study then recommends amongst others formulation and implementation of policies that encourage domestic investment in the continents.