Robert Ugochukwu Onyeneke

Crop diversification is a climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practice with well-documented yield and agroecological benefits, but rigorous, nationally representative evidence on its welfare impacts in Nigeria remains scarce. This study examined the determinants and welfare effects of crop diversification adoption among 3,229 farm households, using the fourth wave of Nigeria’s Living Standard Measurement Study – Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA). A probit model identified the determinants of adoption, and an endogenous switching regression (ESR) model, which corrects for selection bias arising from observed and unobserved heterogeneity, estimated the causal impact of adoption on household per capita consumption expenditure and dietary diversity. About 1,846 households (57%) adopted crop diversification. Household size, farm size, age of household head, distance to road, fertilizer use, and temperature exposure significantly increased the probability of adoption, while education, distance to market, access to finance, and rainfall shock significantly reduced it. Adoption increased per capita consumption expenditure by an average treatment effect of 0.72 log points and household dietary diversity scores by 2.03 points among adopters, effects that are large relative to national poverty and dietary diversity benchmarks. These results indicate that limited market access, credit products tied to specialized cropping, and climate shocks jointly suppress adoption. Government agricultural and nutrition agencies should jointly fund a targeted program that redesigns credit products to support diversified cropping, pairs rural road investment with market access, and bundles diversification advice with climate information and weather-index insurance in drought-prone areas.

Food insecurity remains a critical and persistent development challenge in Africa, exacerbated by accelerating climate change, recurrent conflicts, and weak institutional capacity. While these factors have been widely studied in isolation, limited empirical evidence exists on their joint and interactive effects on food security (FS) across the continent. This study examines the individual, combined, and moderating roles of climate change, institutional quality (INSQ), and conflict in shaping food security outcomes in 27 African countries over the period 2012–2021. Using panel data from multiple international sources, the study employs fixed effects and system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimators to address unobserved heterogeneity and endogeneity concerns. The results show that rising temperatures and drought significantly undermine food security, while conflict independently reduces food security. Importantly, the interaction between conflict and climate stressors—particularly temperature and drought—amplifies food insecurity outcomes. In contrast, higher institutional quality and increased agricultural investment significantly improve food security and mitigate the adverse effects of both climate change and conflict. These findings underscore the central role of effective governance in building resilient food systems. The study highlights the need for integrated policy approaches that simultaneously strengthen institutional capacity, promote climate-smart agricultural investments, and incorporate conflict-sensitive strategies to achieve sustainable food security in Africa.

The study comprehensively examines the effect of institutional quality, foreign direct investments (FDI) and official development assistance on agricultural development in Africa, which has not been effectively explored in the existing literature, particularly in an analytical framework that accounts for varied sources of capital accumulation and their externalities. Using a panel data set of 44 African countries, covering the 2009–2020 period, we performed fixed and random effects and generalized method of moments regressions to determine the impact of institutional quality, FDI, domestic credit to the private sector, and official development assistance (in agriculture, fishing and forestry value added) on agricultural development while controlling for other variables such as agriculture's share in total employment, gross fixed capital formation (in agriculture, fishing and forestry value added) and arable land per capita. The key results are that official development assistance and agriculture's share in total employment positively influence agricultural value added, while domestic credit to the private sector has a negative effect on agricultural value added. The study concludes by discussing the policy implications of the findings.

Evidence on the use of social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram as learning support to enhance students’ performance is scarce in sub-Saharan Africa, where there is limited application of such platforms for learning. Much rarer are studies analyzing the determinants of using WhatsApp and Telegram as learning support to enhance students’ performance in the region. We used cross-sectional data from 206 students from public universities in Nigeria and applied econometric frameworks (such as Pearson’s correlation and multivariate regression analysis) to analyze the determinants of social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram as learning support among university students in Nigeria. We identified six constructs of using WhatsApp and Telegram as learning support in Nigerian public universities, which include performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, institutional and political influence, guidance and counseling achievements, and facilitating conditions. These constructs were acceptable/accepted by the students. The determinants of the use of WhatsApp and Telegram to enhance learning among students include age, gender, wealth status of parents/guardians, student’s faculty/program, location of school, and level of student in school. The constraints to students’ usage of WhatsApp and Telegram for learning support include high cost of Internet, poor connectivity and epileptic/poor power supply to charge phones, mistrust, lack of structure and coherence, and irresponsible use of social media. The results have significant implications for educational institutions, policymakers, and stakeholders seeking to promote the effective use of mobile learning technologies.

This study evaluated the effects of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) policy on schooling outcomes in Nigeria. We analyzed the effects of the UBE policy of 2004 on school enrollment outcomes for primary and junior secondary school-age children in Nigeria using two waves (2004 and 2015) of the Nigeria Education Data Survey (NEDS). We applied descriptive statistics to estimate the Net Enrollment Rate (NER) and Age-Specific Enrollment Rate (ASER) and ordered logit regression to model the effect of this policy. The findings revealed that the enrollment rates increased generally in primary schools in southern Nigeria and increased in junior secondary schools (JSS) all over the country in the two periods. The change in NER was positive and significant for JSS enrollment, but insignificant in primary school enrollment. The significant increase in the enrollment of children in primary and junior secondary schools shows the contribution of appropriate policies in improving schooling outcomes. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge on the effects of education policies and programs on schooling outcomes. The paper offered policy recommendations to further improve school enrollment and reduce the high rate of out-of-school children in the country.