Dr Olav Lundstøl is a special envoy on climate and forest in the Congo Basin countries, at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Kinshasa, DRC. He coordinates Norwegian development aid support through different partner organizations and instruments across Central Africa, with the aim to reduce deforestation and degradation of natural resources. Olav graduated with a PhD in Tax Policy from the African Tax Institute in 2021.

In his thesis, Essays on the economics of mining revenue in Tanzania and Zambia, Dr Lundstøl investigated mining revenue sharing between the state and mining companies in Tanzania and Zambia between 2000 and 2013. Following a mixed-method approach consisting of qualitative and quantitative methods, the study examined what constituted the key elements of effective mining fiscal and tax systems, how effective mining revenue sharing between the state and companies can be measured, and the extent to which Tanzania and Zambia achieved an effective government cut in mining. The research confirmed that in both countries there were weaknesses in the design and enforcement of the mining tax regimes that lowered the government’s cut. It was estimated that from 2008 to 2013 both countries could have doubled their average annual mineral revenues to the state while securing competitive effective tax rates and rates of return for the mining companies. The thesis identified policy and administrative lessons for resource-rich countries.

Dr Sansia Blackmore submitted her PhD thesis in March 2020 with Prof Sally Wallace (Extraordinary Professor) as supervisor and Prof Reneé van Eyden and Prof Riël Franzsen as co-supervisor. She was a SARChI student and graduated in September 2021.

In her study titled Reversing Poverty: The Role of Institutions, State Capacity and Human Empowerment, she explores the fundamental causes of poverty persistence, which remains a central challenge of the modern world. In theory, rising political participation operationalises checks on state predation and cultivates development-enabling state capacity. This did not materialise in post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa. The theoretical foundation of this premise is further brought into question by the development achievements of strong, capable non-democracies. The study uses a dynamic, panel-data model to explore a probabilistic development hypothesis that fuses institutionalism with modernisation and human empowerment. The model relies on regime-independent state capacity to trigger the transformational impetus of rising existential security, autonomy and individual agency. Ensuing shifts in societal value orientations towards emancipative mindsets then drive the progression towards prosperity. The results show that the poor-country deficit in human empowerment, represented by mind-broadening education and emancipative values, dwarfs the shortfalls in all other drivers of prosperity, including exports and investment.

Dr Felix Oppong submitted his PhD thesis in February 2020 with Prof Augustin Fosu (Extraordinary Professor) as supervisor and Prof Riël Franzsen as co-supervisor. He graduated in September 2020.

Dr Abdallah Ali-Nakyea submitted his PhD thesis in September 2019 with Prof Riël Franzsen as supervisor and Prof Augustin Fosu (Extraordinary Professor) as co-supervisor. He graduated in April 2020.

Dr Misaveni Ngobeni submitted his PhD thesis in October 2019 with Prof Martin Breitenbach as supervisor and Dr Goodness Aye and Prof Riël Franzsen as co-supervisors. He graduated in April 2020 as the sixth SARChI Chair doctoral student.

In his thesis, Assessing technical efficiency of provincial health and education sectors in South Africa, Dr Ngobeni used 12 Data Envelopment Analysis models with six variables to investigate the technical efficiency of health and education sectors in 2017/18. The average technical efficiency scores respectively ranged from 35.7 to 87.2 and 45.9 to 97.9 per cent between the health and education models. The Gauteng province was technically efficient in six healthcare models and three provinces were purely technically inefficient. They had to reduce 6 940 non-core health workers and spend R61 million less on healthcare while investing in core health infrastructure and personnel. KwaZulu-Natal was technically efficient in five of the six education models and six provinces were inefficient. They had to reduce education expenditure inefficiency by R24.7 billion and use potential savings to train existing and appoint additional 9 684 teachers.

Dr Roshelle Ramfol submitted her PhD thesis in April 2019 with Prof Riël Franzsen as supervisor and graduated in April 2020. She was the fifth SARChI Chair doctoral student to graduate.