Understanding Social Entrepreneurship in the African Context: An Exploratory Review of Evidence From Nigeria

Social enterprises are organizations created with the aim of applying entrepreneurial skills and innovations to solving social problems. They are managed by individuals who combine pragmatic and result-oriented methods of a business entrepreneur with the goals of a social reformer. Such enterprises combine resources in innovative ways to create social value in and for the society. However, social enterprises may face challenges that impact their ability to accomplish social goals. For instance, when confronted with the harsh realities of economic recession, teaming poor population, and the need to profit for social intervention, social enterprises existing in hostile economic environment in developing countries may face possibilities of shutdown. This chapter examines the concept of social entrepreneurship in a subsisting economy in Africa. Specifically, it draws from relevant primary and secondary data to explore the nature of social entrepreneurship in the Nigeria context and the potential role that social entrepreneurship can play in addressing social problems

Exploring the Interaction of Trade Openness, Income Inequality, and Poverty in Nigeria

The literature on the nexus between trade openness, income inequality and poverty appears conspicuously and of diverse outcomes. Perhaps, the mixed findings may be attributed to the methodology and economic structure of the country in view. The current study examines the trade openness on income inequality and poverty in Nigeria between 1981 and 2019 using Autoregressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) methodology. Our findings show that trade openness had different effects on inequality and poverty in Nigeria in the short and long run. While its relationship with inequality is a short-run phenomenon, it had a long-run relationship with poverty. Overall, trade openness had a declining effect on inequality and poverty. In the former, its impact was not statistically significant. However, the gains of trade openness on inequality and poverty were reversed when inequality influenced trade openness. In essence, with the influence of inequality, trade openness had an increasing effect on poverty. As a result, this study makes several recommendations to policymakers. To begin, a policy framework must be established to ensure that Nigerian trade is integrated with the rest of the world. Evidence from this study has suggested that policies such as restricting trade through border closures must not feature as a policy option as long as one of the goals of the economy is poverty reduction and reduction in inequality

Pension reform in Nigeria : how not to `learn from others'

While the Chilean pension reform has received considerable attention, its emulation in Nigeria has not. This article is the first in-depth analysis of the Nigerian reform. It suggests that the Nigerian authorities failed to learn the lessons of Chile. They transposed a system that both failed to serve the country from which it was copied and that is inappropriate to the country to which it was copied. For countries such as Nigeria, alternative forms of provision for old age are needed. A social pension might be considered