This article examines the role different aid allocation models play not only for conventional development aid but also for two new financial flows, adaptation and mitigation aid. We first test the three models proposed in the literature – recipient need, recipient merit, and donor interests – using the latest available aid data and compare our results with findings of older studies on Africa, and with studies on aid allocation on a global scale. We find that the recipient merit model in more recent years no longer plays a role for development aid allocation in Africa, in line with findings reported globally. In contrast to such global studies, the logic of the donor interest model does not seem to dominate over the recipient need model in the African context, as both are of equal importance for aid allocation decisions. Finally, additionality seems to play a lesser role in Africa than globally.

The study examines the call for Nigeria becoming one of the twenty most developed economies by the year 2020, as it relates to development planning in Nigeria using the educational system as a unit of analysis. It aims at examining the relevance of this call within the context of existing facilities in the Nigeria educational system both-material and human from the point of view of academic planning. It adopts a historical research methodology of analysis using purely secondary data drawn from statutory documents and other sources. The study observes among other things, a worrisome disposition of the country's educational system in terms of worsening commitments of stakeholders to the maintenance and expansion of existing facilities and poor funding of this sector by the public authorities. This, the study believes has seriously imperil the country's readiness for the Vision 20:2020 as education remains the bedrock of any form of national development. The study therefore suggests, among other planning strategies, an improved funding for education, and a deliberate effort at improving the status, motivation and the overall conditions of service of teachers which it is hoped, will help in reversing this ugly trend in the Nigerian educational system if the vision 20:2020 is ever to be realized.

This paper used the core-periphery concept of underdevelopment as a theoretical framework to analyze the African development crisis and the collapse of African initiatives with the development of the Global thought. The paper observed inter alia, that the force of Globalization in which the policies of the core centers have led to the collapse of local (African state) initiatives in all spectrums of the region's developmental question has not only created more domestic problems of underdevelopment but is also gradually exporting the accompanying pressures in a scale that would ultimately lead to a decay of the core-controlled global system. It recommended among other things, a rethink by the core in its development policies by shifting emphasis (through investments, divestments or aids) towards the periphery in an effort to mitigate the heavily-tilted developmental gap between the north and south.

The study examines the relevance of genuine social data in the verification of social theories under the scientific study of social matter. It is premised in social research methodology drawing instances from varied social science matter as they are presently disposed in Nigeria. It adopts a historical research methodology to carefully analyze the performance of some selected social theories namely: the relative-deprivation, frustration-aggression, religious-fundamentalism and ethnic theories using local experiences and data for evaluating them. The study observes that these theories have performed poorly due to the nature of local social research data applied in verifying them. The study believes that these data have become biased due inter alia to the low level of confidence in their sourcing individuals or institution and the fact that some of these data have been poorly extracted initially. It recommends among other things, a growing of the confidence in the nation's research efforts and institutions and a patronage of local researches through not only provision of funding support for research and scholarship but also in the implementation of existing social research outcomes and recommendations. These the study believes would promote the furtherance and use of more genuine data in social researches in Nigeria.