Household ICT Utilization and Food Security Nexus in Nigeria.

The study examines the nexus between household ICT utilization and food security in Nigeria, which supports goal 2 of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that aims to "end hunger, achieve food security, improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture." The study employs the logit regression to wave 4 of Living Standard Measurement Integrated Survey on Agriculture (LSMS) data for the empirical analysis. Based on the analysis, the study finds that for male household, ICT utilization has a statistically significant and positive nexus with food security. In contrast, for the female households, an insignificant and, however, negative nexus is observed with food security in Nigeria. Furthermore, the findings show that for male household users, a 1 percent increase in male household ICT utilization spurs about 0.68 percent increase in food security in Nigeria. The findings imply that among the male and female household ICT users, the male household ICT utilization is significantly contributes to food security in Nigeria. The study recommends that relevant stakeholders take strategic measures to ensure that the potentials of household ICTs be fully maximized to contribute to food security in the nearest future as confirmed by studies in other regions.

Trade openness and economic growth in Africa's regional economic communities: empirical evidence from ECOWAS and SADC.

In light of increasing globalisation, countries do not just open their economies to trade; some factors have to be influenced. This study analyses the relationship among trade openness and macroeconomic outlook of Africa's regional economic communities (RECs), focusing on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Southern African Development Community (SADC). The study applies the Pooled OLS, Fixed and Random Effects techniques of estimation and the Durbin-Wu Hausman test for endogeneity to categorised secondary data from the World Bank's World Development Indicators (WDI) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) databases. The datasets are classified into three segments for comparative analysis, comprising the total, ECOWAS, and SADC datasets. The results show a positive but insignificant nexus between economic growth rate and trade openness in both the combined simulated ECOWAS and SADC and the individual REC. The results emphasise that the government and other relevant stakeholders should ensure policies are enacted and enforced to transmit the experienced economic growth into substantial trade gains and further trade openness in ECOWAS and SADC.