Benefit Incidence Analysis of Government Spending on Education in Anambra State, Nigeria.

Education services have been identified as one of the most important services the poor need to escape from poverty. Governments generally devote significant portion of her budget to provision of education services in developing countries. This study employed the non-behavioural method of benefit incidence analysis to assess how equitably government expenditure in education has been well targeted across households and gender in Anambra state, Nigeria. The study found that primary and secondary education were absolutely progressive across households, absolute progressive for female and just progressive for male primary education spending, while secondary education spending is just progressive across both sexes. Among other policies, strict implementation of the compulsory free basic education as stated in the National Policy on Education was recommended. Keywords: Benefit incidence analysis, progressivity, concentration curve, public expenditure, education

The Distributional Impacts of Forest Income on Household Welfare in Rural Nigeria

The study examines the distributional implications of forest income on poverty and income inequality in rural Nigeria using Gini and poverty decomposable techniques. The study finds that forest income reduces both income inequality and poverty in rural Nigeria. Analysis of the determinants of forest income using Heckman's 2-step sample selection model indicates that the decision to participate in forest extraction increases with more access to community forest areas, larger and poorer households, membership in forest management committees; and decreases with higher educational attainment and higher transfer income earnings. Likewise, forest income was found to be positively and significantly related to male-headed households, poorer heads of household and households that have more access to forest resources outside the community forestry areas. Furthermore, poverty and inequality simulations revealed that household welfare in rural Nigeria could be improved through policies and programs that; can stimulate increase earnings from minor forest resources, assist households to earn income from alternative sources such as agriculture and commerce

Climate Change and Plantation Agriculture: A Ricardian Analysis of Farmlands in Nigeria

This study used the Ricardian approach that captures farmer adaptations to varying environmental factors to analyze the impact of climate change (CC) on plantation agriculture in Nigeria. By collecting data from 280 farm households in seven different agro-ecological zones of Nigeria (Cross River, Abia, Edo, Ondo, Ekiti, Oyo and Ogun States), the quantity of crops produced over time and land value proxied by net revenue per hectares (NR), were regressed on climate, household and soil variables. The results suggest that these variables have a significant impact on the net crop revenue per hectare of farmlands under Nigerian conditions. Specifically, seasonal marginal impact analysis indicates that increasing temperature during summer and winter would significantly reduce crop net revenue per hectare whereas marginally increasing precipitation during spring would significantly increase net crop revenue per hectare. Furthermore, the net crop revenue impact of predicted climate scenarios from three models (CGM2, HaDCM3 and PCM) for the years 2020, 2060 and 2100 suggest drastic decline in future net revenue per hectare for plantation crops in Nigeria. However, these marginal impacts are not uniformly distributed across the different agro-ecological zones in Nigeria

Evaluating the Technical Efficiency of Hospitals in Southeastern Nigeria

Efficient utilization of health resources is a critical requirement for attaining health system goals particularly in low income countries. Inefficiency in health resource utilization may imply death for the next child in the queue in a resource constrained environment. This study analyzes the technical and scale efficiencies in hospitals in low income countries using Nigeria as a case study. The study uses primary data sample of 200 hospitals to estimate technical and scale efficiencies using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The results clearly indicate large variation in the efficiency of hospitals with average efficiency score of about 59% under the constant returns to scale assumption and about 72% under variable returns to scale. This raises some concerns about the level of technical and scale efficiencies in utilization of scarce health resources in the hospital sector particularly in low income countries

Technical efficiency of human resources for health in Africa

There is growing peer and donor pressure on African countries to utilize available resources more efficiently in a bid to support the ongoing efforts to expand coverage of health interventions with a view to achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals. The purpose of this study was to estimate the technical and scale efficiency of national health systems (NHS) in utilizing human resources for health in African continent. The study applied the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to estimate the technical efficiency and scale efficiency among the 53 countries of the African Continent. Out of the 38 low-income African countries, 12 countries national health systems manifested a constant returns to scale technical efficiency (CRSTE) score of 100%; 15 countries had a variable returns to scale technical efficiency (VRSTE) score of 100%; and 12 countries had a SE score of one. The average VRSTE score was 95% and the mean scale efficiency (SE) score was 59%; meaning that while on average the degree of inefficiency was only 5% and the magnitude of scale inefficiency was 41%. Of the 15 middle-income countries, 5 countries, 9 countries and 5 countries had CRSTE, VRSTE and SE scores of 100%. Ten countries, six countries and 10 countries had CRSTE, VRSTE and SE scores of less than 100%; and thus, they were deemed inefficient. The average VRSTE (i.e. pure efficiency) score was 97.6%. The average SE score was 49.9%. There is large unmet need for health and health-related services among countries of the African Continent. Thus, it would not be advisable for health policy-makers address NHS inefficiencies through reduction in excess human resources for health. Instead, it would be more prudent for them to leverage health promotion approaches and universal access prepaid (tax-based, insurance-based or mixtures) health financing systems to create demand for underutilized health services/interventions with a view to increasing ultimate health outcomes to efficient target levels