No abstract

The proportion of the Nigeria's population that is retired is large and growing, and the government face huge fiscal burdens because of promises it has made to provide income security (pension) to this set of people. Improving the adequacy and quality of pension is a priority for Nigerian government, because of the growing disenchantment by retirees over government delays to pay new improved pension schemes. The realization that effective policy and planning must take into account what pensioners want and are prepared to take is the impetus that the government is interested in meaningful life after retirement from public service. The paper aims at enriching our study course on planning for retirement, providing policy makers with reliable basis from the field that are useful for executive decisions, and to enrich would be retirees on what many retirees are experiencing and going through, to plan and save well during work life and to prepare for challenges ahead. Infact, life in retirement is not rosy and cosy for majority as pensioners face difficulties in getting their pays, arrears for months accumulated, government reluctance to implement the 148% increase and several other problems. In protecting the old and promoting economic growth, Nigeria needs to consider comprehensive pension reforms. The research team used direct (contingent valuation) surveys and ML-Censored Normal (Tobit) methods to estimate the number of retirees' willingness to live meaningful life should the government pay them arrears and implement the increase package and other types of improvement. Clearly, the methodology produced some illuminating in sights into how to decide what level of service is appropriate for this segment of the society and how the improved services should be well implemented.

We study the net impacts of international trade on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in African countries at different income groupings and other driving forces of environmental impacts (CO2 emissions) using an augmented STIRPATN model. The continent experienced a large growth in carbon dioxide emissions of about 701.88% between 1960 and 2010, and this provoked our interest in the study. We identify the key driving forces to be net trade, population density, final consumption expenditure (annual growth), manufacturing sector and services sector. We also found that the services sector consistently show lowcarbon emission impacts particularly in low middle income countries in Africa (LIMCA) and upper income countries in Africa (UICA). Indicating that a shift from highly depended manufacturing economies that suggest increasing-carbon economies in both LIMC and UICA to services economies is vital in order to strive for a low-carbon economies in the continent. The coefficient for net trade stands out explicitly significant and positive for all the income groupings. The findings show that the average effect of net trade over CO2, when the net trade changes across time and between countries increases by 1%, CO2 emissions increases by about 1.68%, 2.45% and 1.01% for LICA, LMICA and UICA respectively, when all other predictors are constant.

In March 2019 the Nigeria, Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) funded a proposal I submitted to conduct a research project aimed at determining the quantitative magnitude impact of environmental effects of generator fumes in Kwara State, Nigeria. This paper assesses the impact of this energy use and measure on health hazards, environmental damage and social hazards, using households and business owners as the key units of analyses. Our findings indicate that affected users reacted heterogeneously to the effects of fossil-fuels-electric-generator which releases generator fumes from its exhaust pipe. Specifically, data analyzed were sufficiently adequate to reveal its significance that an increase in neighbors’ exposure to hazards by 1 unit reduces generator fumes by about 6 per cent; whereas an increase in health hazards (impaired visibility, deafness, sleeplessness, choking sensation and dizziness), and noise pollution (environmental hazards),  by 1 unit increases generator fumes by about 9%; and an increase by one unit of parent/s who are usually followed by their wards to start fossil-fuels-electric-generator increases generator fumes by about 5% (0.046), holding all other factors constant. As expected, the impacts of the measure on the use of fossil-fuels-electric-generator has been rather serious in health and environmental concerns.

Food insecurity and dietary diversity of households are important nutrition outcome which have been found reliable in assessing the dietary intake of a population during a determined period and they have been used as indicators of food security among households. A facility based cross-sectional study design was conducted on 374 households that were involved in backyard livestock production in Southwest Nigeria during COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Household dietary diversity (HDD) was measured using 12 different foods from which the HDD score was estimated, which is a continuous score ranged from 0 to 12, and was recoded to a three-level ordered categorical variable. Food insecurity was also assessed using household food insecurity access scale (HFIAS) generated from nine items (questions) specific to an experience of food insecurity occurring within the previous four weeks among the households. A probit regression model was specified to determine the variables responsible for increasing the probability of the households being food insecured during the lockdown. Result showed that more than half of households involved in backyard livestock production was within medium dietary diversity category (71.7%) and moderately had access to food (75.4%). State of residence, household size, income generated by members of households, species of livestock raised and purpose of livestock production were major determinants of food insecurity (access) during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown among the respondents. Thus, there is need to promote sustainable and diversification of livelihood among households through backyard livestock production in a bid to increase and sustain their food security status.     L'insécurité alimentaire et la diversité alimentaire des ménages sont des résultats nutritionnels importants qui se sont avérés fiables pour évaluer l'apport alimentaire d'une population pendant une période déterminée et qui ont été utilisées comme indicateurs de la sécurité alimentaire des ménages. Une conception d'étude transversale basée sur les installations a été menée sur 374 ménages impliqués dans la production de bétail de basse- cour dans le sud-ouest du Nigéria pendant le confinement de la pandémie COVID-19. La diversité alimentaire des ménages (HDD) a été mesurée à l'aide de 12 aliments différents à partir desquels le score HDD a été estimé, qui est un score continu allant de 0 à 12, et a été recodé en une variable catégorielle ordonnée à trois niveaux. L'insécurité alimentaire a également été évaluée à l'aide de l'échelle d'accès à l'insécurité alimentaire des ménages (HFIAS) générée à partir de neuf éléments (questions) spécifiques à une expérience d'insécurité alimentaire survenue au cours des quatre semaines précédentes parmi les ménages. Un modèle de régression probit a été spécifié pour déterminer les variables responsables de l'augmentation de la probabilité que les ménages soient en situation d'insécurité alimentaire pendant le confinement. Les résultats ont montré que plus de la moitié des ménages impliqués dans la production de bétail de basse-cour appartenaient à la catégorie de diversité alimentaire moyenne (71.7%) et avaient modérément accès à la nourriture (75.4%). L'état de résidence, la taille du ménage, les revenus générés par les membres des ménages, les espèces de bétail élevées et le but de la production animale étaient les principaux déterminants de l'insécurité alimentaire (accès) pendant le confinement de la pandémie COVID-19 parmi les répondants. Ainsi, il est nécessaire de promouvoir la durabilité et la diversification des moyens de subsistance parmi les ménages grâce à la production de bétail de basse-cour dans le but d'augmenter et de maintenir leur niveau de sécurité alimentaire.