Impact of Public Expenditure on Climate Change in Nigeria: Lessons from South Africa

This paper examines the role of public expenditure in enhancing climate change adaptation and mitigation in Nigeria. It examines the trend of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Nigeria alongside those of South Africa and Sub Saharan Africa and investigates the statistical relationship between public expenditure and climate change in Nigeria. The paper hinges on the Climate Public Expenditure and Institutional framework of the Oversee Development Institute (ODI), which argues that climate change, has fiscal implications and can be addressed using national plans and annual budgets. Time series data were then collected for emission, public expenditure, human development index and economic growth from the World Bank and the Central Bank of Nigeria for 1970-2008, while trend analysis and lag regression model were used for data analysis. It was found that public expenditure towards economic services could be used to enhance Nigeria’s climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. Though economic growth and human development index were found to be positively related to emission, results imply that economic growth in Nigeria is not pursued in a sustainable manner that accounts for the future generation. The paper recommends that economic growth that is driven by investment in renewable energy, developing human capacity to adapt to climate change and coordinating public expenditure to economic and community services to develop rural communities and vulnerable sectors like agriculture, would be useful for addressing climate change in Nigeria and ensuring sustainable development. A lesson Nigeria can learn from climate change mitigation and adaptation measures in South Africa is to identify and prioritize short term and medium term adaptation interventions to be addressed in sector plans such as water, agriculture and forestry, health, biodiversity and human settlements

Investing in Nigeria’s youth bulge

The general expectation is that a rising youth population relative to other age groups stimulates economic development. However, this is not automatic. In fact, rather than being a facilitator of economic development, a youth bulge in Nigeria could present major problems if key challenges facing young people are not addresse

Youth bulge and demographic dividend in Nigeria

This paper examines the possibility of the demographic dividend in Nigeria. It investigates the role of youth empowerment in the attainment of the demographic dividend. It identifies the challenges facing a typical Nigerian youth and the various ways of investing in the youth bulge. It finds that the challenges facing the Nigerian youth ranges from the problem of youth unemployment, limited access to educational and lack of economic opportunities, lack of access to basic education, high HIV prevalence rate to high poverty rate. It posits that contrary to expectations, increase in the population of the youth may undermine development if the challenges facing the youths are not addressed. The paper recommends that the government should create employment and economic opportunities, provide educational and health facilities and combat poverty in order to ensure that the bulging youth population translates into economic growth and development

Does seasonality and stochastic cycles affect output growth in Nigeria? Lessons for development planning

This paper examines the seasonality and stochastic cycle associated with GDP growth in Nigeria using two measures of filter. Our findings include, that the Christiano & Fitzgerald (2003) filter removed low-periodicity stochastic cycles associated with output growth in Nigeria compared to the Hodrick Prescott filter. The smoothed GDP trend further revealed that growth in Nigeria was higher but unstable in periods of development planning than in periods without development plans. This suggests that development planning in Nigeria was not accompanied by judicious mix of fiscal and monetary policy in the 1980s/1990s. Likewise, effort to achieve sustainable growth and development, since the return to democracy in 1999, has not been accompanied by effective planning. To achieve inclusive development therefore, there is the need to return to development planning in order to address the destruction meted by insurgents in the North east and the lack of inclusiveness in Nigeria’s growth observed in recent times.IBS

Estimating the effects of financial access on poor farmers in rural northern Nigeria

Abstract By recognizing the gap in the literature in examining the effects of financial resources and development outcomes at the household level, this paper examines whether the poorest income quintile would benefit most from programs aimed at increasing their access to financial services in rural northern Nigeria. Most households from this part of the world consist of farmers and, hence, are exposed to the vagaries of climate change. The data from 320 questionnaires administered in two rural communities (Rijau and Fakai) were analyzed using an ordered logit regression model. The results showed that access to financial services by using formal financial institutions and farmer savings clubs benefits vulnerable farmers (mostly women). The robustness check using the Brant test also confirmed that the parallel regression assumption of the model was not violated. A policy scenario that seeks to increase the delivery of financial services to rural farm households using community savings clubs and microfinance institution reforms for reaching the financially underserved was also found to benefit the poorest income quintile, hence, bringing them out of poverty

Climate change and financing adaptation by farmers in northern Nigeria

Abstract This paper examines farmers’ perceptions of their exposure to climate change in rural northern Nigeria. It also examines whether there is a significant relationship between the exposure of farmers to climate change and their need for financial access as an adaptation strategy. Questionnaires were administered to 320 respondents in rural communities in northern Nigeria. Descriptive analysis shows that rural farmers are affected by climate change through increased temperature, prolonged dry seasons, floods, and drought, which lead to low harvest and, in turn, low income. An estimate from a non-parametric test also shows a significant relationship between farmers’ perceived exposure to climate change and their need for credit. Although the Spearman correlation results show a 63% association between exposure to climate change and the need for finance, 96% of those seeking credit to mitigate these impacts would be unable to do so due to financial exclusiveness. The paper recommends that the Central Bank of Nigeria should ensure that microfinance institutions refocus their products/services to those who need them the most in order to enhance access to financial resources and enable farmers to build resilience that will maximize post-harvest gains. Lastly, considering that climate change is a global phenomenon with local effects, perhaps the international community could support lending to smallholder farmers through central banks by insuring the loans that banks give to farmers towards financing climate change adaptation strategies

Combined use of multiple sampling, SAF-fixative, permanent stain and a concentration technique for improvement of routine diagnosis of intestinal parasites

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Misdiagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis and associated factors in peripheral laboratories: a retrospective study, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract Objective Sputum smear microscopy reading errors are likely to result in failure to detect persons with infectious TB. This study was intended to review misdiagnosis of pulmonary TB and associated factors in peripheral laboratories. Results During the study period 1033 (10.5%) sputum smear positive and 8783 (89.5%) smear negative slides were reported by peripheral laboratories. The slides were re-read by the central referral laboratories (CRLs) as the reference standard reading. Of 1033 positive slides reported by peripheral laboratories, 25 (2.4%) were false positive. Out of 8783 smear negative slides reported by peripheral laboratories, 35 (0.4%) were false negative. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of peripheral laboratories were 96.64, 99.72, 97.58, and 99.61% respectively. The peripheral laboratories and CRLs have an observed agreement (Po) of 0.9939. Of 135 peripheral laboratories, 93 (68.9%) read negative and positive slides correctly, 49 (36.3%) did not have lens cleaning tissue papers, 11 (8.1%) lacked frosted slides, and 14 (10.4%) had shortage of reagents. As conclusions, the peripheral laboratories and CRLs had high agreement for sputum smear microscopy reading. However, a few TB cases were misdiagnosed despite having the disease; these individuals might continue to spread the infection in the community