Analyse D’impact des Effets de Crise Economique et des Politiques de Réponse sur les Enfants en Afrique de l’Ouest et du Centre: Cas du Burkina Faso

Type Journal Article
Title Analyse D’impact des Effets de Crise Economique et des Politiques de Réponse sur les Enfants en Afrique de l’Ouest et du Centre: Cas du Burkina Faso
Author(s)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2009
URL https://www.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/burkinafasocrisisimpactonchildren.pdf
Abstract
Concern is to track the impacts of the 2008/09 global financial and economic crisis on children in Burkina Faso by combining two types of analysis: one at the macro level and the other at the micro level, and assessing the potential effects of consecutive policy responses. Four channels through which the global economic crisis may have some significant implications for the Burkina Faso economy are identified: trade (fall in the international demand and/or price of cotton, modern manufactured goods and transport services), foreign direct investment, remittances and foreign aid. The methodological approach used is a top-down/bottom-up framework, which encompasses a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model on the one hand, and a microsimulation module on the other hand. The CGE model is used to simulate the various scenarios of external shocks or policy responses, considering the production sectors and agents interacting within the economy, as well as the labor market structure. Simulation results generated by the CGE model (mainly the changes in prices, consumptions and incomes) are then used within the microsimulation module in order to assess the poverty impacts of scenarios on households and children. Monetary poverty and caloric poverty impacts on children are measured using a Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System, while impacts on school participation of children, child labor, and on children access to health care are appraised through bivariate Probit econometric regression within the same microsimulation module. Child-sensitive policy responses explored include, inter alia, subsidizing the sales prices of food products, paying cash transfers to poor families; government budget being balanced through an increase of foreign grants in both cases. Findings show that, as regarding the monetary poverty criterion, the crisis engenders 1.7 percent increase in child poverty in 2009, 2.6 percent increase in 2010 and 1.7 percent increase in 2011, compared to the Business as Usual (BaU) scenario. Considering the calorific poverty, the number of poor children is expected to increase by 1.1 percent in 2009, 1 percent in 2010 and 0.8 percent in 2011. Foreign aid transferred in cash to poor families is revealed to be the most efficient of the child-sensitive policy response if it is not shared with the other members of the family.

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