Several policies and programmes have been put in place to address the issue of poverty both in developing and developed countries of which Nigeria is not exempted. This study using data from World Development Indicators (WDI) for the period of 1992–2016 examined the key principles influencing poverty rate in Nigeria and their implications for policy interventions. The result of the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model using several equations showed that unemployment increases poverty by approximately 1.4, 1.5 and 3.3 percent in the short run while inflation reduces poverty by approximately 0.08 percent in the short run. This implies that unemployment causes poverty while inflation, public resources devoted to austerity programmes and economic growth reduces poverty in the short run. The study recommends that government should put in place adequate measures and conducive environment to encourage more business operations in the country.

To achieve the United Nations Sustainable Goals (SDGs) by 2030, especially goal 2 (SDG-2) which is to “end hunger, achieve sustainable food security, improved nutrition and promote agriculture” this study examines how innovation and social inclusion affect food security in West Africa. The study applies the system Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) on a panel data of 15 West African countries for the period 2005–2018. The result from system GMM shows that innovation and social inclusion are drivers of food security. The implication of this is that increased level of social inclusion and innovation in West African may increase the level of food security by about 41.5% and 13.6% respectively. Therefore, the study concludes that to feed the growing African population, social inclusion should be improved to mitigate risk, vulnerability and socioeconomic shocks faced by farming households. In addition, innovation in agricultural should be enhanced to drive productivity, thereby leading to a sustainable food security.

In many cities of third world countries, managing waste represents a beehive of activities that involve human scavengers searching for reusable or recyclable items that are either consumed or sold to generate funds for personal and family upkeep, since alternative decent employment are not available for them in the formal employment sector. Many of these waste pickers are young, work without the necessary health and safety apparatus, and expose themselves to injury and various health hazards. Therefore, this study investigated the working conditions and career aspirations of waste pickers in Lagos State, Nigeria. Using the questionnaire approach, structured, semi-structured, and open-ended questions were asked, and the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used to descriptively analyze the data collected and interpreted. The results showed that 87% of waste pickers in Lagos State have safety kits. In addition, the results showed flexibility in working hours and days since most waste pickers get to determine when and how they begin their work, i.e., 89% of the waste pickers spend 5 to 6 days a week in waste picking while 64% of them work between 10 and 14 h daily. Regarding earnings, the results showed that 68.3% of waste pickers earn between ₦2500 ($8.2) to ₦4900 ($16) daily. Finally, the results showed that despite access to safety kits, most waste pickers (54%) had experienced one form or another of hazard which has affected their career aspiration. Therefore, based on the study results we recommend that the Lagos State and the Nigerian federal government should develop a system that ensures strict compliance to established rules or guidelines that ensures the safety and health of waste pickers on the job.

This study adds a new perspective to the finance-tourism relation by examining the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in the dynamics. We interrogate the discourse with data on 44 Asian economies from 2010-2019. The approach entails the use of tourism receipts, domestic credit to the private sector, four ICT indicators (mobile phone subscriptions, fixed telephone subscription, fixed broadband subscription and secured Internet servers). For the most part, the results reveal that (1) finance and ICT independently boost tourism; (2) the interaction effect is negative, (3) negative interaction not sufficient to erase the enhancing-properties of finance on tourism; (4) positive net impact of finance; and (5) results are heterogeneous across the sub-samples. Our findings strengthen the argument for financial technology (FinTech) and calls for stronger integration of the financial system with ICT innovation in order to fully harness the potentials and gains from tourism.

The study examined a gender-based investigation of employment, workforce productivity and economic growth in West African countries. The empirical analysis is centred on panel consisting of 16 West African countries over the period 2007-2019 using Esteve-Volarts model. The method of estimation employed are panel system generalised method of moments. The major findings suggest that there exists a positive and major relationship between male and female wage and salaried workers to economic growth although male wage contribution to growth supersedes female contribution. Also, male and female labour force participation rate are directly linked to economic growth. Likewise, female workforce productivity contributed significantly to economic growth of the selected countries. This study recommends that programmes should be put in place to facilitate more female participation in well paid jobs which will help enhance productivity as well as increase the growth in the countries. These recommendations will help to narrow the inequality of gender inequality in employment and productivity of workforce amongst West African countries.

Beyond the usual macroeconomic stability, which is a necessity for economic growth, more focus should be placed on the effects that environmental quality has on infant mortality in sub‑Saharan Africa. Africa has always had the highest rate of infant mortality and the poorest environmental quality in the world. High infant mortality shows that there are unmet human needs and unenforced policies to protect the environment. Therefore, this research examines the impact of environmental quality on infant mortality and how environmental quality and infant mortality also affect economic growth using 15 selected sub‑Saharan African countries for a period of 10 years (2010–2019). The study employed fixed and random effects methods of estimation. The results showed that environmental quality has a significant negative (51.53%) impact on infant mortality and that economic growth also has a negative (45.58%) impact on infant mortality. The study recommends that governments should increase expenditure on health, with more focus on financing infant healthcare, because it also affects economic growth.