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Purpose -The general objective of this study is to investigate the impact of governance indices (especially control of corruption) on economic growth in some selected Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries for the period 2002 to 2009. Specifically, the study attempts to assess whether governance reforms (especially those relating to control of corruption) have any impact on the economic growth in SSA countries. It also examines whether simultaneous policy reforms have any impact on economic growth in the region.Design/Methodology/Approach -The governance indices used in this study were drawn from the PRS Group and the World Governance Indicators for the period of 2002 to 2009 while the real GDP per capita growth data were obtained from the World Bank Database. The study covered forty-seven Sub-Saharan African countries and it adopted the panel data framework, the fixed effect, the random effect and the maximum likelihood estimation techniques for the analyses.Findings -The study found that political stability and regulatory quality indices have growth enhancing features, as they impact on economic growth in the region significantly, while government effectiveness impacts negatively on the economic growth in the region. Despite several anti-corruption policies in the region, the impact of corruption control on economic growth is not very obvious. The study also found that simultaneous implementation of accountability and rule of law indicators has more positive impact on economic growth in the region. Both policies are complementary, and hence can be pursued simultaneously.Research Implications -The results suggest that reform efforts that aim at enhancing accountability, regulatory quality, political stability and the rule of law have more growth enhancing features and thus should be given more priority, than reform efforts that singly address the issue of control of corruption, since corruption in the region tends to be endemic, systemic and ubiquitous.Originality/Value -Many previous studies attempt to see the impact of corruption on economies, but this paper tries to assess the reform efforts, governance indices as they impact on economic growth in the most vulnerable region of the world, the Sub-Saharan Africa. Besides, the study adopts the panel data framework which makes it possible to allow for differences in the form of unobservable individual country effects. The use of this unique framework is uncommon in the current corruption-governance-growth literature.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the appropriateness of faith‐based model (FBM) as a veritable policy response to the issue of poverty alleviation and actualisation of the millennium development goals (MDGs) in Nigeria.Design/methodology/approachThe paper combined qualitative and quantitative date to validate the appropriateness of FBM, to tackling poverty issues in Nigeria. The first section presents a brief introduction on poverty issue in Nigeria. The second section outlines the theoretical and methological approaches adopted in the paper. The third section casts a cursory look at the conceptualisation of poverty in the literature. The fourth section explores poverty‐eradication efforts in Nigeria. The fifth section highlights the failure of previous poverty reduction strategies (PRS) in Nigeria. The sixth section presents a background to MDGs. The seventh section show‐cases application of Islamic economics models (faith‐based model and business system model (BSM)) to MDGs. The eighth section is devoted to data projections, analysis and interpretation. The final section concludes with policy prescriptions.FindingsOn the basis of projection which is hinged on Shari'ah assumptions (minimum zakatable wealth and 2.5 per cent Zakat rate), the paper shows that Zakat and Sadaqat collections from year 2009 to 2015 would amount to N357,038 billions and N31 billion, respectively. These funds would go a long way in helping to alleviate poverty and actualisation of MDGs in Nigeria.Practical implicationsThe faith‐based poverty reduction strategy enriched by BSM as conceptualised in this study can be used to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (MDG 1), achieve universal primary education (MDG 2), promote gender equality and empower women (MDG 3), reduce child mortality (MDG 4), improve maternal health (MDG 5), combat, HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases (MDGs 6), ensure environmental sustainability (MDG 7) and develop a global partnership for development (MDG 8).Originality/valueThe results of this paper support the Islamic economics view that Zakat and Sadaqat are viable fiscal mechanisms for poverty alleviation where adopted. The FBM as conceptualised in this paper would therefore complement and pose a positive challenge to contemporary PRS in use in many poverty‐ridden nations where economic indicators have justified prevalence of poverty, despite the various PRS put in place by policy makers.

There is growing emphasis on the role of institutions and governance on explaining Africa's economic growth. However, it is not clear which of the institutions matter most. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to answer two separate questions: (i) Do institutions really matter in Sub-Saharan Africa?, (ii) If institutions matter, which of them matters most? Arellano and Bond first difference and Blundell-Bond System Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) estimators were used to estimate the specified models. Our results show that, institutions really matter for Sub-Saharan Africa's economic performance, among which regulatory quality appeared to be the most important. Thus the economic performance of the region could be enhanced by improving regulatory quality.