Publication:
Resource-Backed Loans in Sub-Saharan Africa

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (8.72 MB)
226 downloads
English Text (140.2 KB)
11 downloads
Date
2021
ISSN
Published
2021
Author(s)
Mihalyi, David
Hwang, Jyhjong
Rivetti, Diego
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper investigates the characteristics of resource-backed lending across sub-Saharan Africa. To shed light on this type of lending, the paper presents new information on thirty resource-backed loans identified through publicly available information between 2004-2018. These loans are concentrated in a few countries, where they represent a sizable fraction of all borrowing, they are typically taken by central governments and state-owned enterprises. While loan terms are mostly opaque, where data is available, we find that such loans are not cheaper than regular loans. The authors highlight opportunities to improve transparency and offer some suggestions for improving the governance of collateralized borrowings across developing countries.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Mihalyi, David; Hwang, Jyhjong; Rivetti, Diego; Cust, James. 2021. Resource-Backed Loans in Sub-Saharan Africa. Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions Notes - Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/40145 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Resource-Backed Loans in Sub-Saharan Africa
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-02) Mihalyi, David; Hwang, Jyhjong; Rivetti, Diego; Cust, James
    This paper investigates the characteristics of resource-backed lending across Sub-Saharan Africa. To shed light on this type of lending, the paper presents new information on 30 resource-backed loans between 2004 and 2018, identified through publicly available information. These loans were concentrated in a few countries, where they represented a sizable fraction of all borrowing and were typically taken by central governments and state-owned enterprises. Although the loan terms are mostly opaque, where data are available, the study finds that such loans are not cheaper than regular loans. The paper highlights opportunities to transparency and offers some suggestions for improving the governance of collateralized borrowings across developing countries.
  • Publication
    Nonperforming Loans in Sub-Saharan Africa : Causal Analysis and Macroeconomic Implications
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-11) Fofack, Hippolyte L.
    This paper investigates the leading causes of nonperforming loans during the economic and banking crises that affected a large number of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s. Empirical analysis shows a dramatic increase in these loans and extremely high credit risk, with significant differences between the CFA and non-CFA countries, and substantially higher financial costs for the latter sub-panel of countries. The results also highlight a strong causality between these loans and economic growth, real exchange rate appreciation, the real interest rate, net interest margins, and interbank loans consistent with the causality and econometric analysis, which reveal the significance of macroeconomic and microeconomic factors. The dramatic increase in these loans is largely driven by macroeconomic volatility and reflects the vulnerability of undiversified African economies, which remain heavily exposed to external shocks. Simulated results show that macroeconomic stability and economic growth are associated with a declining level of nonperforming loans; whereas adverse macroeconomic shocks coupled with higher cost of capital and lower interest margins are associated with a rising scope of nonperforming loans. These results are supported by long-term estimates of nonperforming loans derived from pseudo panel-based prediction models.
  • Publication
    Determinants of a Digital Divide in Sub-Saharan Africa : A Spatial Econometric Analysis of Cell Phone Coverage
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-02) Buys, Piet; Dasgupta, Susmita; Thomas, Tim; Wheeler, David
    Most discussions of the digital divide treat it as a "North-South" issue, but the conventional dichotomy doesn't apply to cell phones in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although almost all Sub-Saharan countries are poor by international standards, they exhibit great disparities in coverage by cell telephone systems. Buys, Dasgupta, Thomas and Wheeler investigate the determinants of these disparities with a spatially-disaggregated model that employs locational information for cell-phone towers across over 990,000 4.6-km grid squares in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using probit techniques, a probability model with adjustments for spatial autocorrelation has been estimated that relates the likelihood of cell-tower location within a grid square to potential market size (proximate population); installation and maintenance cost factors related to accessibility (elevation, slope, distance from a main road, distance from the nearest large city); and national competition policy. Probit estimates indicate strong, significant results for the supply-demand variables, and very strong results for the competition policy index. Simulations based on the econometric results suggest that a generalized improvement in competition policy to a level that currently characterizes the best-performing states in Sub-Saharan Africa could lead to huge improvements in cell-phone area coverage for many states currently with poor policy performance, and an overall coverage increase of nearly 100 percent.
  • Publication
    Road Network Upgrading and Overland Trade Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-12) Buys, Piet; Deichmann, Uwe; Wheeler, David
    Recent research suggests that isolation from regional and international markets has contributed significantly to poverty in many Sub-Saharan African countries. Numerous empirical studies identify poor transport infrastructure and border restrictions as significant deterrents to trade expansion. In response, the African Development Bank has proposed an integrated network of functional roads for the subcontinent. Drawing on new econometric results, the authors quantify the trade-expansion potential and costs of such a network. They use spatial network analysis techniques to identify a network of primary roads connecting all Sub-Saharan capitals and other cities with populations over 500,000. The authors estimate current overland trade flows in the network using econometrically-estimated gravity model parameters, road transport quality indicators, actual road distances, and estimates of economic scale for cities in the network. Then they simulate the effect of feasible continental upgrading by setting network transport quality at a level that is functional, but less highly developed than existing roads in countries like South Africa and Botswana. The authors assess the costs of upgrading with econometric evidence from a large World Bank database of road project costs in Africa. Using a standard approach to forecast error estimation, they derive a range of potential benefits and costs. Their baseline results indicate that continental network upgrading would expand overland trade by about $250 billion over 15 years, with major direct and indirect benefits for the rural poor. Financing the program would require about $20 billion for initial upgrading and $1 billion annually for maintenance. The authors conclude with a discussion of supporting institutional arrangements and the potential cost of implementing them.
  • Publication
    Bank Privatization in Sub-Saharan Africa : The Case of Uganda Commercial Bank
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-11) Clarke, George R.G.; Cull, Robert; Fuchs, Michael
    Previous empirical analyses have found that bank privatizations are more successful when the government fully relinquishes control, when the bank is privatized to a strategic investor, and when foreign-owned banks are allowed to participate in the bidding. The privatization of Uganda Commercial Bank (UCB) to the South African bank Stanbic met all these criteria, suggesting that it is a likely candidate for success. But other features suggest reasons for caution: UCB dominated the Ugandan banking sector prior to privatization and the institutional environment in Uganda was less favorable than in many of the middle-income countries looked at in earlier empirical studies. Despite these concerns, the privatization appears to have been relatively successful. The portfolio of the privatized bank, which was cleaned prior to sale, remains relatively strong and profitability and credit growth are now on par with other Ugandan banks. Though market segmentation remains a concern since Stanbic faces little or no direct competition in many remote areas, some early results suggest that access to credit has improved for some hard-to-serve groups.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Land Tenure and Gender : Approaches and Challenges for Strengthening Rural Women's Land Rights
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014) Namubiru-Mwaura, Evelyn
    Land tenure security is crucial for women's empowerment and a prerequisite for building secure and resilient communities. Tenure is affected by many and often contradictory sets of rules, laws, customs, traditions, and perceptions. For most rural women, land tenure is complicated, with access and ownership often layered with barriers present in their daily realities: discriminatory social dynamics and strata, unresponsive legal systems, lack of economic opportunities, and lack of voice in decision making. Yet most policy reform, land management, and development programs disregard these realities in their interventions, which ultimately increases land tenure insecurity for rural women. This paper seeks to further develop the evidence base for access to and control over land.
  • Publication
    Mobilizing Private Capital for the Sustainable Development Goals
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-07-12) Cull, Robert; Gill, Indermit; Pedraza , Alvaro; Ruiz-Ortega, Claudia; Zeni, Federica
    This paper summarizes evidence on financial instruments and regulatory approaches to spur private investment in pursuit of the 2030 Sustainable Developments Goals. Starting from a theoretical framework demonstrating that raising the marginal product of capital is the key to crowding in private investment, it uses Robert Merton’s functional approach to financial intermediation to assess the track record and prospects for five types of instruments/regulatory approaches: guarantees, public-private partnerships, syndicated loans, sustainable financial contracts, and climate and banking regulations and policies. Despite considerable gains in the amount of private investment mobilized by these vehicles, the volumes still fall short of the trillions of dollars estimated to be necessary to achieve the Sustainable Developments Goals. Efforts to share relevant data, encourage more academic research, and publicize and demonstrate the effectiveness of these approaches, much of which is already being undertaken by the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, could be crucial to scale up private capital mobilization.
  • Publication
    A Roadmap to SupTech Solutions for Low Income (IDA) Countries
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-10-07) World Bank
    The digitalization and development of new financial products accelerated by Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) crisis will transform drastically the financial sector of all countries in the following years. Consequently, this will also lead to the transformation of supervisory processes, which can be greatly benefit from the support of supervisory technology (SupTech) tools. Even though there is a great potential for SupTech tools to support and enhance the supervisory processes, many supervisors are still struggling to find the right balance between functionalities, costs, and implementation approaches of SupTech tools. To support financial sector supervisors, forge their understanding and provide practical information on how to implement SupTech tools, this paper provides a step-by-step guide and use cases. The paper presents the main challenges faced by the supervisory authorities, provides different governance models used globally, and guidelines for the development of the SupTech strategy and its implementation for prudential and anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML and CFT) use cases.
  • Publication
    Commodity Markets Outlook, October 2024
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-29) World Bank
    Commodity prices are expected to decrease by 5 percent in 2025 and 2 percent in 2026. The projected declines are led by oil prices but tempered by price increases for natural gas and a stable outlook for metals and agricultural raw materials. The possibility of escalating conflict in the Middle East represents a substantial near-term upside risk to energy prices, with potential knock-on consequences for other commodities. However, over the forecast horizon, longer-term dynamics—including decelerating global oil demand, diversifying oil production, and ample oil supply capacity—suggest sizable downside risks to oil prices, especially if OPEC+ unwinds its latest production cuts. There are also dual risks to industrial commodity demand stemming from economic activity. On the one hand, concerted stimulus in China and above-trend growth in the United States could push commodity prices higher. On the other, weaker-than-anticipated global industrial activity could dampen them. Following several overlapping global shocks in the early 2020s, which drove parallel swings in commodity prices, commodity markets appear to be departing from a period of tight synchronization. A Special Focus analyzes commodity price synchronization over time and considers the relative importance across commodity cycles of a wide range of demand and supply shocks, including global demand shocks and shocks specific to different commodity markets. It concludes that, while supply shocks were the dominant commodity price driver in the early 2000s and around the global financial crisis, post-pandemic price movements have been more substantially shaped by commodity-specific shocks, such as those related to conflicts.
  • Publication
    FY 2023 Kenya Country Opinion Survey Report
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2024-01-17) World Bank Group
    The Country Opinion Survey in Kenya assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in better understanding how stakeholders in Kenya perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral/bilateral agencies, media, academia, the private sector, and civil society in Kenya on 1) their views regarding the general environment in Kenya; 2) their overall attitudes toward the WBG in Kenya; 3) overall impressions of the WBG’s effectiveness and results, knowledge work and activities, and communication and information sharing in Kenya; and 4) their perceptions of the WBG’s future role in Kenya.