The European Journal of Development Research is a multi-disciplinary journal that seeks to broaden our understanding of the processes that advance or impede human development, whether from a political, economic, sociological or anthropological perspective. It is the official journal of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI).

This paper provides an early evaluation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) against COVID-19. The main areas where AI can contribute to the fight against COVID-19 are discussed. It is concluded that AI has not yet been impactful against COVID-19. Its use is hampered by a lack of data, and by too much data. Overcoming these constraints will require a careful balance between data privacy and public health, and rigorous human-AI interaction. It is unlikely that these will be addressed in time to be of much help during the present pandemic. In the meantime, extensive gathering of diagnostic data on who is infectious will be essential to save lives, train AI, and limit economic damages.

In this paper we use data from a developing country, South Africa, to empirically identify the determinants of start-up rates across different sub-national regions and in particular to investigate the role of access to finance on a regional (sub-national) level on start-ups. We find that the most important determinants of start-up rates across South Africa's magisterial districts are profit rates, educational levels, agglomeration as measured by the economic size of a district, and access to formal bank finance. Profits have by far the strongest effect on start-up rates. This, together with the insignificance of unemployment for start-ups, may imply that start-ups in South Africa are mainly opportunity-driven, as opposed to being necessity driven. It is also found that access to formal bank finance matter for regional start-up rates, which is not typical for a developing country and that market-size (agglomerations) is negatively associated with start-up rates in South Africa–an unexpected finding which may imply the existence of ‘congesting' factors such as increased competition, tougher barriers to entry, monopolistic behaviour, and a greater difficulty to be innovative and novel.

We report on the prevalence and patterns of non-farm enterprises in six sub-Saharan African countries, and study their performance in terms of labor productivity, survival and exit, using the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study - Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA). Rural households operate enterprises due to both push and pull factors and tend to do so predominantly in easy-to-enter activities, such as sales and trade, rather than in activities that require higher starting costs, such as transport services, or educational investment, such as professional services. Labor productivity differs widely: rural and female-headed enterprises, those located further away from population centers, and businesses that operate intermittently have lower levels of labor productivity compared to urban and male-owned enterprises, or enterprises that operate throughout the year. Finally, rural enterprises exit the market primarily due to a lack of profitability or finance, and due to idiosyncratic shocks.