Purpose: The main objective of this article is to analyze the role of governance quality in influencing the economic growth of 22 selected Sub-Saharan African Countries.Design/methodology/approach: The study applied the panel dynamic Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to analyze the data obtained from the World Bank database over the period from 2002 to 2020.Findings: The overall finding indicated that the composite governance index has a positive significant effect on the economic growth of the countries; where a unit improvement in the aggregate governance index leads to a 3.05% increase in GDP. The disaggregated result has shown that corruption control and government effectiveness have a negative significant effect on growth performance, whereas, the rule of law and regulatory quality showed a positive significant effect. Political stability and voice and accountability have an insignificant effect on economic growth.Research limitations/implications: Due to data limitations, this study could not address the whole members of Sub Sahara African Countries and could not see the causal relationship.Practical implications: The study suggested a strong commitment to the implementation of policy and reform measures on all governance factors. This may add to the need to devise participatory corruption control mechanisms; to closely look at the proper implementation of policies and reforms that constitute the government effectiveness factors, and properly implement the rule of law at all levels of the government with a strong commitment to realizing it so that citizens at all levels can have full confidence in and abide by the rules of society.Originality/value: Even though there are some studies conducted using conventional methods of panel data analysis such as random effect or fixed effects, this empirical study used more advanced panel dynamic generalized moment of methods to examine the role of improvement in governance quality on economic growth.

Climate change adversely affected agricultural productivity in developing countries. This study aimed to explore the effects of this climate change, particularly on cereal crops production in Ethiopia. The study employed Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model approach to the co-integration with an error correction term. ARDL technique was selected due to its stationarity assumption and unbiased estimates of its long-run coefficients. The estimated model justifies the existence of a long-run relationship between cereal crops production, climate change variables (temperature and precipitation), and other explanatory variables. Precipitation has a positive and significant effect on cereal crops production both in the long and short runs, while temperature change has a significant negative effect. In the long run, cereal crops production was positively and significantly affected by arable land, fertilizer consumption, and carbon dioxide emissions, while in the short run, labor force participation has a positive and significant effect on cereal crops production. The study results confirmed that there is a long-run relationship between cereal crops production and climate change variables. In agriculture, research and development should focus on varieties of cereal crops that can tolerate high temperatures. Climate Resilient Green Economy should have to strengthen in the country. All countries should have to work hand-in-hand to mitigate the effect of climate change.

This study investigates the effect of institutional quality on agricultural value added in East Africa. It uses a panel dataset spanning from 2000 to 2020, taken from seven East African countries. The data obtained from the World Bank, Mo Ibrahim Foundation, and FAO databases were analyzed using the bias-corrected LSDV model. The results show that voice and accountability has a negative significant effect on regional agricultural value-added, while government effectiveness has a positive significant effect on regional agricultural value-added. Besides, higher per capita gross domestic product, a lower proportion of rural population, and a higher proportion of education expenditure appeared to have significant incremental effects on agricultural value-added. The results imply that institutional quality has a vital role in dictating the growth of agricultural value-added in East Africa. In this region, effective institutions increase agricultural value-added. Governments and other development practitioners should thus work to enhance the effectiveness of the related institutions in the region. Strengthening and improving the performance of such institutions is essential for a sustained increase in agricultural value-added. This would be more operational if combined with increased expenditure in education and the low size of the rural population.

Agriculture is a risky business that is subject to endogenous risks. Endogenous risks caused by input utilization, input affordability and input availability may prove detrimental to the production potential of farmers. The study was aimed at examining the risk perception, risk aversion and risk management strategies of maize producers in Awi zone, which is found in the northwest part of Ethiopia. The study involved 343 respondents who produced maize under risk. Descriptive statistics, a seven-point Likert scale, the observed economic behaviour method, factor analysis and a seemingly unrelated regression model were used to process the data. The results showed that farmers have different perceptions of the endogenous risk associated with input availability and input affordability which has a different probability of occurrence and severity of damage. The observed economic behaviour method showed that farmers in the area also have different risk aversion behaviours: about 7.29% of the respondents in the study area have high risk aversion attitudes, while about 30.61% have medium risk aversion attitudes and 62.10% of them have low risk aversion attitudes. The seemingly unrelated regression model output showed that farmers’ economic, social, demographic and institutional factors, as well as their risk behaviour, determine the risk management strategies that they employ. Maize farmers in the area applied human risk management strategies, production risk management strategies, diversification, financial risk management strategies and marketing risk management strategies to tackle the endogenous risks in the area. It was deduced that maize farmers have a risk averse behaviour even if their risk aversion levels differ based on the scope of the management strategies that they employ to combat risk. Following the finding of the study, a holistic approach to risk management that encompasses all actors, such as farmers, researchers, extension services and financial institutions should be involved to make the appropriate interventions.