Strategic Approaches to Eliminate Electoral and Political Violence in Nigeria

Electoral and political violence represents one of the greatest challenges of many democratic societies. Electoral violence has become a feature of Nigeria’s political landscape. The foundation of electoral violence in Nigeria has been attributed to social and political marginalization, poverty, unemployment and under-employment and other unbearable human problems which are built on intervening processes that connect to electoral violence which has direct relationship with arms proliferation. While some scholars argue that small arms are one direct cause of insecurity, others maintain that small arms are mere triggers or precipitating factors. There is a wide range of provisions of the criminal and civil law which could check electoral violence. This paper posits that the anomalies emanating from electoral violence can be check-mated if such punishments enumerated are dutifully applied to offenders irrespective of their class or creed.  These will go a long way in restoring democratic fascination, free, fair and credible elections in our nations’ polity. Furthermore the causes of electoral violence are traceable to political exclusion and economic deprivation.  There is an urgent need for an intervention into the underlying causes of electoral and political violence in Nigerian politics in other for democracy to prevail

Family Welfare: Implications for Child Development in Nigeria

Most industrialized nations of the world have identified child abuse and neglect broadly as a social problem warranting state intervention. Although parents bear primary responsibility for raising children and ensuring that their needs are met, the state may intervene in family life when harm occurs or risks are present. Yet, despite the best efforts of all involved, service provision has been open to criticism for either failing to protect children adequately or, alternatively, intruding too much into the private realm of the family. Moreover, even though child abuse is a recognized social problem, the best efforts of child welfare systems have not stopped children from being abused (physically, sexually), neglected, or placed in vulnerable and risk-filled circumstances. The study examines the provision of Family Welfare Institutional services and its implications for child development in Nigeria. The provision of institutional childcare services as a component of child welfare services for children without parental or kinship care is fundamental for every community service and development. Child protection is one of the key elements of social work practice which covers both family-based and institutional care. The study reveals the many challenges that Family welfare institution face when handling child protection services. They include: poor staff capacity, inadequate professional social workers to promote counseling as an integral intervention measure to child abuse victims; and weak collaborative relationship with the Police and the court to process offenders, and matters of child right violations. The study recommends that manpower resources and capacity of family welfare institutions should be enhanced through regular recruitment of professional social workers to help the advocacy of protecting vulnerable children in Nigeria

TOWARD A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO YOUTH EMPOWERMENT FOR CLIMATE ACTION

This brief focuses on empowering the youth to act on climate change and environmental protection by strengthening formal and informal environmental and sustainability education. Environmental education is the foundation for problem recognition and solving. The G20 is in a powerful position to exercise environmental and climate leadership by mandating sustainability and environmental education domestically, regularly tracking environmental and climate literacy internationally, investing in infrastructure and educator training for environmental education, promoting games drawing on real-world problems, developing partnerships for environmental education in local communities, and organizing an annual Youth Summit for Climate, Environment, and Sustainable Development Solutions

Reviewing the scope and thematic focus of 100,000 publications on energy consumption, services and social aspects of climate change: a big data approach to demand-side mitigation

As current action remains insufficient to meet the goals of the Paris agreement let alone to stabilize the climate, there is increasing hope that solutions related to demand, services and social aspects of climate change mitigation can close the gap. However, given these topics are not investigated by a single epistemic community, the literature base underpinning the associated research continues to be undefined. Here, we aim to delineate a plausible body of literature capturing a comprehensive spectrum of demand, services and social aspects of climate change mitigation. As method we use a novel double-stacked expert—machine learning research architecture and expert evaluation to develop a typology and map key messages relevant for climate change mitigation within this body of literature. First, relying on the official key words provided to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by governments (across 17 queries), and on specific investigations of domain experts (27 queries), we identify 121 165 non-unique and 99 065 unique academic publications covering issues relevant for demand-side mitigation. Second, we identify a literature typology with four key clusters: policy, housing, mobility, and food/consumption. Third, we systematically extract key content-based insights finding that the housing literature emphasizes social and collective action, whereas the food/consumption literatures highlight behavioral change, but insights also demonstrate the dynamic relationship between behavioral change and social norms. All clusters point to the possibility of improved public health as a result of demand-side solutions. The centrality of the policy cluster suggests that political actions are what bring the different specific approaches together. Fourth, by mapping the underlying epistemic communities we find that researchers are already highly interconnected, glued together by common interests in sustainability and energy demand. We conclude by outlining avenues for interdisciplinary collaboration, synthetic analysis, community building, and by suggesting next steps for evaluating this body of literature

Reviewing the scope and thematic focus of 100 000 publications on energy consumption, services and social aspects of climate change: a big data approach to demand-side mitigation * *Intended as contribution to the focus issue on ‘Demand-Side Solutions for Transitioning to Low-Carbon Societies’ in Environmental Research Letters.

As current action remains insufficient to meet the goals of the Paris agreement let alone to stabilize the climate, there is increasing hope that solutions related to demand, services and social aspects of climate change mitigation can close the gap. However, given these topics are not investigated by a single epistemic community, the literature base underpinning the associated research continues to be undefined. Here, we aim to delineate a plausible body of literature capturing a comprehensive spectrum of demand, services and social aspects of climate change mitigation. As method we use a novel double-stacked expert—machine learning research architecture and expert evaluation to develop a typology and map key messages relevant for climate change mitigation within this body of literature. First, relying on the official key words provided to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by governments (across 17 queries), and on specific investigations of domain experts (27 queries), we identify 121 165 non-unique and 99 065 unique academic publications covering issues relevant for demand-side mitigation. Second, we identify a literature typology with four key clusters: policy, housing, mobility, and food/consumption. Third, we systematically extract key content-based insights finding that the housing literature emphasizes social and collective action, whereas the food/consumption literatures highlight behavioral change, but insights also demonstrate the dynamic relationship between behavioral change and social norms. All clusters point to the possibility of improved public health as a result of demand-side solutions. The centrality of the policy cluster suggests that political actions are what bring the different specific approaches together. Fourth, by mapping the underlying epistemic communities we find that researchers are already highly interconnected, glued together by common interests in sustainability and energy demand. We conclude by outlining avenues for interdisciplinary collaboration, synthetic analysis, community building, and by suggesting next steps for evaluating this body of literature