For centuries and emboldened by colonial treaties, Egypt has enjoyed overwhelming hydro-hegemony in the (NBR) Nile Basin River region. However, Egyptian dominance over the NBR has been challenged by Ethiopia following her unilateral construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Using A qualitative, deductive approach based on multiple sources of evidence, this paper analyses the historical imbalance in the Nile colonial treaties that gave Egypt monopoly over the waters of the NBR. The article also describes various human security threats in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, where the dam project is located and the geopolitical implications of this development against the backdrop of climate change and the coming of new actors and donors such as China, including the leasing of land to corporations and countries such as India, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. We recommend collaborative and holistic management instead of the dominant state-centric water development approach in this international waterway. The development of sustainable cooperation over this shared waterway will help meet climate change challenges and mitigate the contemporary conflict between Ethiopia and Egypt, including other countries within the region.

The role played by youth in agriculture cannot be overemphasized, while agribusinesses are important generators of employment and income worldwide. Improving the sustainability of food value chains can benefit millions of rural poor people living in developing countries, especially young women. Despite policies and programs aimed at encouraging agricultural entrepreneurs, they are still facing challenges such as high-cost agrochemicals, limited access to credit, price volatility, etc. which seriously affect their capacity to remain in the sector. This study was undertaken to assess the performance and participation of young male and female entrepreneurs. This study made use of cross-section data from a survey conducted on 1019 young agricultural entrepreneurs in Cameroon. The data were analyzed using gross margin, student t-test, and logistic regression. Our study contributes to the literature by showing that young women agribusiness entrepreneurs are as competitive as their male counterparts and that the opportunities for young women in agriculture are good. Incentives such as single-digit interest rates and no collateral security should be directed to young women to receive more credit for purchasing agrochemicals and improved varieties of seed. Furthermore, a price control policy should be set up throughout the year to enable young women earn as their young men counterparts to enable them remain in production and marketing activities.

System of Rice Intensification (SRI) practices are expected to be used in location-specific ways and thus will vary somewhat across countries and regions. This study undertook to identify a ‘best-bet’ version of SRI for conditions in northwestern Nigeria, considering what is feasible for farmer use. Two years of experimental data from 260 farmer-managed rice plots evaluating four of the SRI practices in Zamfara State were analyzed. The variables evaluated were seedling age at transplanting, plant density, irrigation schedule, and fertilizer application. Farm budget analysis showed that the best-bet SRI practices most productive given the natural environment and farming system were transplanting 11-day-old seedlings at 25 cm × 25 cm spacing, with alternate wetting-and-drying of fields, as well as providing full compost plus some inorganic fertilization. Net economic returns were found to be highest with best-bet SRI practices and ranged from USD 1450–2120 ha⁻¹. While rice production was profitable under both SRI and more conventional management, the return on investment was at least 40% higher with SRI practices than with the other practices evaluated. Based on our data and analysis, we recommend that the Nigerian government and its development partners prioritize and expand the testing and promotion of SRI in the northwest and other regions of the country. This initiative can significantly enhance farmers’ incomes and, ultimately, bolster food security.

The study analysed the response of agricultural growth to foreign direct investment and public agricultural spending from 1980 to 2018. Data were collected from secondary sources and analysed using Johansen Co integration, Vector Error correction model and Monte Carlo Simulation. The result showed that foreign direct investment and public agricultural spending increased agricultural production in the long but decreased it in the short run. The study concluded that an increase in foreign direct investment and an increase in public agricultural spending (scenario 3) provided the best alternative for the sustainability of agricultural growth in Nigeria. It was recommended friendly business policies should be made to attract more foreign direct investment into the country and the issues of insecurity and infrastructures should be handled for meaningful and sustainable FDI to be attracted into Nigeria.Copyright© 2021 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the license CC-BY 4.0., which permits any further distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.