Socioeconomic shocks, social protection and household food security amidst COVID-19 pandemic in Africa's largest economy.

Africa has been known to experience series of problems among which are poverty, food insecurity, lack of access to energy, lack of infrastructure among others. These problems were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a severe impact on the socioeconomic status of households in Africa. This paper examines the relationship between socioeconomic shocks, social protection, and household food security during the pandemic in Nigeria, the Africa's largest economy. Using the World Bank's COVID-19 national longitudinal baseline phone survey (2020) for the analysis and applied the multinomial logit regression, the study finds that socioeconomic shocks resulting from the pandemic have led to an increased level of food insecurity. Social protection programmes have played a crucial role in mitigating the impact of these shocks on households. However, the study also highlights the need for more targeted and effective social protection policies to ensure that vulnerable households are adequately protected from the adverse effects of the pandemic. The findings of this study have important implications for policymakers and stakeholders in Africa's largest economy, as they seek to address the challenges posed by the pandemic and promote household food security for the actualisation the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of food and nutrition security (SDG2). The study, therefore, recommends that efforts be made to preserve food supply chains by mitigating the pandemic's effect on food systems, increasing food production, and looking forward beyond the pandemic by building resilient food systems with the use of social protection interventions.

Women engagement in agriculture and human capital development in developing countries: An African sub-regional analysis.

Considering the relevant role played by women in agriculture in Africa, this study sets out to examine how women's engagement in agriculture contributes to human capital development in selected African countries. The study engagedpanel data of selected 33 African countries spanning the period of 2000 to 2019. The study applied the Pooled Ordinary Least Squares (POLS) and the fixed effects based on the Hausman specification. Findings show that engagement of women in agriculture, though significant, but negatively related to human capital development in Africa. The implication of this is that an increase in women's engagement in agriculture without the required level of education and training and access to agricultural resources may have a negative impact on human capital development. Therefore, the study recommended that it is necessary to train women in terms of agricultural skills needed to improve human capital development in Africa.