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Since the beginning of 2014, reports of cult violence have increased sharply in the Nigeria's oil-producing communities. Hence, we set out to examine the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) from multinational oil companies (MOCs) in mitigating the spread of cult group violence in the region. A total of two thousand four hundred respondents were sampled across the nine states of the Niger Delta. Results from the use of estimated logit model reveal that MOCs via Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU) are in good position to deter the aggression and rise of cult violence using interventions for youth as a priority target group mechanism. This calls for pro-youth capacity building programmes, specially designed to equip the clusters with appropriate skills required for peaceful engagement and to complement government efforts in the planning and implementation of the development agenda for their respective communities. In turn, this will contribute towards enhancing a peaceful environment for doing business in the Niger Delta region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generally, the revolutionary idea behind using information and communication technology (ICT) has improved potential productivity in many industries, particularly in Africa. ICT is an essential tool in the oil and gas industry and plays a complementary role in technological dynamics and cross-sectoral productivity. For the educational sector, ICT facilitates research and development as well as in imparting knowledge. ICT remains the password to essential inputs required for any given output in terms of improved productivity and economic development. With regard to employment creation, ICT accounts for more than 50% of employment globally. Despite the significant role of ICT in the economy, evidence shows that more than 90% of carbon emissions have been linked to ICT production, installation, and usage. This study aims to determine whether ICT causes environmental sustainability in Nigeria and South Africa. The methodological contribution of the study lies in combining the STIRPAT framework and time series based on the VAR/VEC Granger causality, enabling the study to uncouple the dynamic interaction among environmental sustainability indicators. The findings show that ICT has contributed to South Africa's environmental sustainability, whereas evidence in Nigeria is relatively mixed. Therefore, the study recommends the urgent need to provide intervention programs tailored toward investing in environmental infrastructure to mitigate the threat of climate change in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether knowledge causes economic growth in Africa's two leading economies, Nigeria and South Africa. Using the Vector Autoregressive and Vector Error Correction approaches, the findings show cointegration among the variables. The speed of convergence of the variables to their long‐term mean values is relatively higher for South Africa than for Nigeria. In the short run, it is observed that knowledge unidirectionally Granger causes growth for Nigeria, whereas bidirectional causality is observed for South Africa. The higher correlation between knowledge and growth in South Africa reflects the success of greater investment in education. Nigeria must increase investment in education and modern infrastructure to converge to South Africa's growth trajectory. Moreover, for Nigeria, (1) knowledge unidirectionally Granger cause growth, (2) evidence of bidirectional causality flow is apparent between trade, the economic incentive, and growth, and (3) health unidirectionally Granger cause knowledge. As for South Africa (1) there is bidirectional causality between knowledge, trade openness, and growth, whereas investment and economic incentive, unidirectionally Granger causes growth, (2) investment, trade openness, and health unidirectionally Granger cause knowledge, and (3) economic incentive unidirectionally Granger cause trade openness. In conclusion, this paper argues that a transformed education system can provide the knowledge base essential for promoting and sustaining economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the impact of multinational oil companies' (MOCs') corporate social responsibility (CSR) on traditional practices recognised as violence against women and girls (VAWG) in Nigeria's oil region. Results from a combined propensity score matching and logit model indicate that MOCs' CSR plays a significant role in empowering women and girls with information and education to protect their human rights. It is implied that CSR offers an opportunity for MOCs to help address the prevalence of child early and forced marriage, female genital mutilation/cutting, sex trafficking, virginity testing, and taboos through a business case for stakeholders' human rights protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food prices in Nigeria have become significantly higher and more volatile since 2012. The purpose of this research was to find out what affects farmers' participation in the growth enhancement support scheme (GESS) in the country. We determined the effect of the GESS on the ease of access to market information and agricultural inputs that influence price volatility at farm gate level. A total of 2100 rural farmers were sampled across Nigeria's six geopolitical zones. Result from the use of recursive bivariate probit model showed that farmers depended on the GESS for the resolution of food price volatility by providing food market information and agricultural inputs that bring down the incidence and amount of anxiety-impelled price rise in Nigeria. The results advocated for the need to improve the GESS in line with the agricultural transformation agenda (ATA) by cutting down the deterrents mostly linked with the use of mobile phones, and the distance of registration and assemblage centres. In extension and contribution, the findings suggest that smallholder farmers can be part of the volatility solution when they are provided with rural roads and transportation to get their product to the market, and technology to receive and share the latest market information on prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The activities and violence of militants in the Niger Delta which saw the capacity for production of oil in Nigeria fall to an all‐time low resulted in federal government of Nigeria announcing the Presidential Amnesty Programme in return for peace in the region. We examine how the multinational oil companies corporate social responsibility impact on entrepreneurship development and job creations to absorb the youths. A total of 1,200 youths were sampled across the nine states of Niger Delta. Results from the use of estimated logit model reveal that general memorandum of understanding interventions are prevalent with communities with greater ownership creating room for better projects, sustainability and improved trust; yet the interventions failed to make significant impact on entrepreneurship development and job creations. Clearly, facilitating how youths get involved in skill acquisition and empowerment programmes would help them become entrepreneurs, improving their self‐assurance that they can prosper outside militancy activities and violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the multinational oil companies (MOCs) corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in Nigeria. Its special focus is to investigate the impact of the global memorandum of understanding (GMoU) on development of rural women's traditional enterprises in the Niger Delta region. A total of 2,400 women were sampled across the region. Results from the use of a combined propensity score matching and logit model indicate that the GMoU model of the CSR has recorded significant success in supporting farming and fishing transformation generally, but has also undermined those initiatives that focused on empowering rural women in traditional enterprises, due to the cultural and traditional context in the region. This causes both direct harm to women and their children, and wider costs to African economies. It implies that if the GMoU interventions are not targeted to raise women's economic status and to deter aggression, invariably they may contribute towards reducing the participation of women in economic, political and social development and, by extension, dampen efforts in deterring poverty and achieving the sustainable development goals in sub‐Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The study aims to analyse the role of finance in the agro-industrialisation nexus in Nigeria using annual data on manufacturing value added, agricultural value added and volume of finance availed to the agricultural sector from 1981 to 2015. Design/methodology/approach: To establish the presence of a long-run relationship, the error correction model and bounds cointegration techniques are employed. Likewise, the model is augmented to test whether the associated relationship between industrial output and agricultural output depends on access to finance by farmers with the inclusion of an interaction term. Findings: Some salient contributions to the literature are as follows: agriculture and finance are strong and positive predictors of industrialisation in the long run; in the short run, past realisations of industrial output and finance have significant asymmetric effects on industrial output; the explanatory power of agriculture decreases with the growth of the financial system; and the long-run results validate the role of finance in the agro-industrialisation nexus. Originality/value: Given these findings, achieving growth in the agricultural sector that will induce desired industrialisation should be prioritised by the government through agencies such as the central bank, financial intermediaries and other stakeholders with a view to making agricultural financing a major concern for sustainable domestic consumption and industrial growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent exacerbation of unemployment crisis in Nigeria stands to be a serious threat to both socio‐economic stability and progress of the country just as the report from the Bureau of Statistics shows that at least over 8.5 million people had no gainful employment at all as at the last quarter of the year 2017. It is on the above premise, that the present study explores the link between trade and unemployment for the case of Nigeria with the intention of exploring how the unemployment crisis has been impacted within the dynamics of the country's trade performance. The empirical evidence shows that the nation's terms of trade were insignificant to unemployment rate, while trade openness and domestic investment, on the other hand, have significant opposing impacts on unemployment in Nigeria over the period of the study. Further breakdowns from the empirical analysis also revealed that the Philips curves proposition is valid within the Nigerian economic context, while the evidences for the validity of Okun's law only exist in the short‐run scenario. Based on the empirical results, we recommend that concerted effort should be geared toward stimulating domestic investment by providing adequate financial and infrastructural facilities that will promote ease of doing business while utmost precautions are taken to ensure that unemployment crisis is not exacerbated when combating inflation in the economy in the wake of dynamic trade relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impacts of public expenditures on economic growth have been revisited in this paper with respect to capital expenditure, recurrent expenditure and the government fiscal expansion in line with support for the budgetary allocations to various sectors in the context of the Nigerian economy. Pesaran's ARDL approach has been applied to carry out the impact analysis using annual time-series data from 1981 to 2017. Empirical findings support the existence of a level relationship between public spending indicators and economic growth in Nigeria. Incisively, recurrent expenditures of government were found to be significantly impacting on economic growth in a negative way while the positive impacts of public capital expenditures were not significant to economic growth over the period of the study. Further results from the Granger Causality Test reveal that fiscal expansion of the government that is hinged on debt financing is strongly granger causing public expenditures and domestic investment with the latter also Granger causing real growth in the economy. We, therefore, provide some important policy recommendations following the results of the empirical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this investigation was to assess the impact of multinational oil companies' (MOCs) corporate social responsibility (CSR) interventions in female education programmes in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. A total of 800 rural women were sampled across the region. The results from the logit model showed that rural women depended on CSR interventions of MOCs to address some of the logistical and cultural challenges associated with women's access to post-secondary education in local communities. However, despite the significant success in supporting education initiatives generally, none of the scholarships target females specifically, and compared to men, the low level of human capital in rural women has persisted. This implies that, if CSR interventions are not tailored to enhance gender diversity and promote economic opportunities for women alongside education, they may perpetuate the obstruction of women's participation in economic, political and social development. By extension, this could delay the reduction of poverty and attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Niger Delta region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Nigeria, human trafficking is a hidden crime, driven by the current economic situation of the country. The Nigerian government has demonstrated significant efforts to combating human trafficking in the country by creating the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP). The incidents of human trafficking in the Nigeria's oil-producing communities have remained among the highest in the country and higher than the national average. The objective of this investigation was to determine the impact of a new corporate social responsibility (CSR) model of multinational oil companies (MOCs) on the fight against human trafficking in the host communities. A total of one thousand, two hundred households were sampled across the rural communities of Niger Delta. Results from the use of a combined propensity score matching and logit model indicated that MOCs hold the key to combating human trafficking by fostering effective partnership across different sectors, if the highest CSR priority is assigned to reducing incidents of human trafficking in the oil-producing communities. Embracing the fight against human trafficking should form the foundation of General Memorandum of Understanding (GMoUs) practice, which in turn will provide the enabling environment for more widespread responsible business. As most of the human trafficking in the Niger Delta is exploited by relatives or friends; MOCs should involve traditional and religious leaders in the fight and set up GMoU clusters interventions specifically for anti-trafficking agencies including NAPTIP, the police and immigration to support their actions and improve efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A stable money demand function is essential when using monetary aggregate as a monetary policy. Thus, there is need to examine the stability of the money demand function in Nigeria after the deregulation of the financial sector. To achieve this, the study employed CUSUM (cumulative sum) and CUSUMSQ (CUSUM of square) tests after using autoregressive distributive lag bounds test to determine the existence of a long run relationship between monetary aggregates and their determinants. Results of the study show that a long-run relationship holds and that the demand for money is stable in Nigeria. In addition, the inflation rate is found to be a better proxy for an opportunity variable when compared to interest rate. The main implication of the study is that interest rate is ineffective as a monetary policy instrument in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fertilizer use in Nigeria is estimated at 13 kg/ha, which is far below the 200 kg/ha recommended by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). The objective of this investigation was to identify the determinant factors of farmers' participation in Nigeria's Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GESS). In addition, we determined the impact of the GESS on fertilizer use in rural areas. A total of 1,200 rural farmers were sampled across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. Results from the use of a recursive bivariate probit model indicated that GESS significantly impacted on the access and usage of fertilizer among the rural farmers; and that contact with extension agents, ownership of mobile phones, power for charging phone batteries, value output, mobile network coverage, ability to read and write were positive determinants of rural farmers' participation in the GESS; whereas increased distance to registration and collection centers, and cultural constraints to married women reduced farmers' tendency to participate in the GESS. The findings suggest that farmers' participation in the GESS is a critical factor for raising fertilizer use in Nigeria. This implies that food security in sub‐Saharan Africa can be achieved by increasing the participation of rural farmers in the GESS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low productivity among female farmers when compared with their male counterparts is considered an outcome of limited access to agricultural land and inputs. The objective of this investigation was to assess the impact of multinational oil companies' (MOCs') corporate social responsibility (CSR) on rural women's access to modern agricultural inputs in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. A total of 700 rural female farmers were sampled across the region. Results from the use of a logit model indicated that CSR recorded significant success in agricultural development generally, but has undermined equality. This implies that if a woman's agricultural productivity is continuously hindered by unequal access to agricultural resources (or opportunities) and widespread inequality will limit poverty reduction efforts in Nigeria. The results also showed that women depended on CSR of MOCs for policy dialogue and advocacy for women's access to agricultural land and inputs. Supporting agricultural initiatives that focus on empowering women would boost food security in sub‐Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the impact of the federal government of Nigeria's growth enhancement support scheme (GESS) on responsible use of crop protection products (CPPs) in rural Nigeria. Results from the logistic regressions show that GESS significantly impact on farmers' access to CPPs but does not significantly impact on farmers' knowledge and skill of CPP application, and that in several cases misuse has led to deterioration of soil fertility. Findings suggests that embracing information on recommended CPPs, dose rates, dilutions, timing, frequency of applications, and precautions should form the foundation of GESS activity on CPPs in sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transforming agriculture from a largely subsistence enterprise to a profitable commercial venture is both a prerequisite and a driving force for accelerated development and sustainable growth in sub‐Saharan Africa. The objective of this investigation is to assess the impact of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) e‐wallet program on informal farm entrepreneurship development in rural Nigeria. Informal sector farmers are those that are not legally registered at the national level although could be connected to a registered association. The research is motivated by the absence of literature focusing on the problem statement or objective of the study. One thousand one hundred and fifty‐two rural farmers were sampled across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. Results from the use of a bivariate probit model indicate that the mobile phone‐based technology via the e‐wallet program is a critical factor that has enhanced farm entrepreneurship in rural Nigeria. However, results also show that the impact of mobile phones (as a channel to accessing and using modern agricultural inputs) is contingent on how mobile networks are able to link farmers who live in rural areas and work mainly in farming. The results suggest that increasing mobile phone services in rural Nigeria enhances farmers' knowledge, information, and adoption of improved farm inputs and by extension, spurs rural informal sector economic activities in sub‐Saharan Africa. Implications for practice, policy, and research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the impact of a growth enhancement support scheme (GESS) on the enabling environment of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. The main aim is to investigate the impact of the GESS on access to rural farm credit and the transport cost of smallholder farmers in the agricultural transformation agenda (ATA) in Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach: This paper adopts a survey research technique, aimed at gathering information from a representative sample of the population, as it is essentially cross-sectional, describing and interpreting the current situation. A total of 1,200 were sampled across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. Findings: The results from the use of a double-hurdle model indicate that the GESS has a significant impact on farmers' access to credit, but does not significantly impact on rural farm transport cost, which subsequently influences the price of food in the country. Practical implications: This implies that if the Federal Government of Nigeria is to work toward an ideal agricultural transformation agenda, transport networks should be closely aligned with the GESS priorities to provide connectivity to rural areas that provide most of the country's agricultural output. Originality/value: This research adds to the literature on the agricultural and rural development debate in developing countries. It concludes that embracing a rural finance and transportation infrastructure should form the foundation of the ATA in Nigeria, which, in turn, would provide a conducive environment for a more widespread rural economy in sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial sector performance is increasingly linked with the transition to renewable energy in the sustainability discourse of developing economies. This paper examines the nexus and implication(s) of financial development on renewable energy consumption in Nigeria (the largest and most populous economy in Africa). Specifically, this study utilized the broad-based financial development index data to effectively address the multidimensional nature of financial development and the portion of renewable energy in total energy consumption as key variables, while other relevant pieces of information (growth rate of per capita GDP, foreign direct investment and consumer price index) were incorporated. The study employed a blend of the ADF test and Zivot-Andrew test to ascertain stationarity properties as well as the likelihood of structural breaks, while the ARDL was utilized to determine the long-run relationship(s) using data from 1981 to 2019. The study estimation finds, among other things, that financial development is critical for renewable energy consumption in Nigeria and recommends policies to promote better outcomes for the financial and energy sectors, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]