Ethiopian indigenous goats offer insights into past and recent demographic dynamics and localadaptation in sub-Saharan African goats

Abstract Knowledge on how adaptive evolution and human socio‐cultural and economic interests shaped livestock genomes particularly in sub‐Saharan Africa remains limited. Ethiopia is in a geographic region that has been critical in the history of African agriculture with ancient and diverse human ethnicity and bio‐climatic conditions. Using 52K genome‐wide data analysed in 646 individuals from 13 Ethiopian indigenous goat populations, we observed high levels of genetic variation. Although runs of homozygosity (ROH) were ubiquitous genome‐wide, there were clear differences in patterns of ROH length and abundance and in effective population sizes illustrating differences in genome homozygosity, evolutionary history, and management. Phylogenetic analysis incorporating patterns of genetic differentiation and gene flow with ancestry modelling highlighted past and recent intermixing and possible two deep ancient genetic ancestries that could have been brought by humans with the first introduction of goats in Africa. We observed four strong selection signatures that were specific to Arsi‐Bale and Nubian goats. These signatures overlapped genomic regions with genes associated with morphological, adaptation, reproduction and production traits due possibly to selection under environmental constraints and/or human preferences. The regions also overlapped uncharacterized genes, calling for a comprehensive annotation of the goat genome. Our results provide insights into mechanisms leading to genome variation and differentiation in sub‐Saharan Africa indigenous goats

Public-Private Partnership Initiative in Nigeria and Its Dispute Resolution Mechanism: An Appraisal

In the African countries, the provision and supply of infrastructural facilities and the procurement of other public utilities were, until recently, absolutely under the sole control of the government. However, due to corruption, leakage and wastage in the public procurement process, coupled with the lackadaisical attitude of the government officials towards the same, and more importantly, with the realisation and acknowledgement of the skills and competencies of the private sector in building infrastructure, the governments all over the world including those in Africa have begun to divest themselves of their monopoly in the field of infrastructural supplies and development. This rising trend has led to a more resourceful, efficient and smart partnership between the public and private sectors in the matter of infrastructural development, and this recent phenomenon or trend is popularly propagated as Public-Private-Partnership (PPP). It has now come to stay and will intensify over time. This article seeks to examine the definition, ambit, as well as the practical operation of PPPs in the economic development of contemporary states. It has a bias towards dispute resolution covering the various ADR mechanisms with a particular preference for arbitration. It postulates that since disputes are inevitable in all business transactions, and since PPP practitioners are usually sponsored by banks and other financial institutions, there is an urgent need to devise a faster and more efficient mechanism of dispute resolution aside from conventional litigation so that shareholders’ funds are not unnecessarily bogged down by prolonged litigation in the courts