Pan African University Institute for Governance, Humanities and Social Sciences

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 7, 11, and 12 are all aimed at advancing green energy consumption in the fight against the three planetary crises facing the world today: climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Besides, Africa has an abundance of natural resources, yet, the continent continues to witness slow growth and development compared to its counterparts. Therefore, this study, the first of its kind, simultaneously assesses the impact of green energy consumption and natural resources rents on economic growth by applying the dynamic panel ARDL and the Feasible Generalized Least Square (FGLS) estimators on data from 1990 to 2020 for 24 selected African countries. The results show that green energy consumption has a short-run growth-limiting and a long-run growth-enhancing effect in Africa. Also, CO2 emissions have both short- and long-run significant positive impacts on economic growth, while fossil fuel combustion negatively impacts growth both in the short and long run, albeit the effect is not significant in the long run. Similarly, regarding Africa’s natural resource rents’ impact on growth, the results show that total natural resource rents are growth-enhancing in the short run and growth-limiting in the long run. Additionally, both forest and mineral rents have a significant short-run negative impact on growth in Africa. However, in the long run, only the effect of mineral rent is growth-enhancing although generally not statistically significant. These findings provide relevant implications for policy shifts to enhance environmental sustainability, achieve sustainable economic growth, and ensure proper natural resources management in Africa.

Food security in developing regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa is a top priority in global development discourse, as evidenced in Sustainable Development Goal 2. Yet, high climate vulnerability poses serious challenges to food security in Africa even though the literature is inconclusive. Using data from 40 selected Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from 2000-2021, this paper investigates the extent to which climate variability affects food security in SSA. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is used to construct a food security index derived from its four dimensions (availability, accessibility, utilization, and stability). The proxies for climate variability included precipitation, temperature, and CO2 emissions. The Panel Corrected Standard Error (PCSE) technique, which takes into account the cross-sectional dependency, serial correlation, and heteroscedasticity, was employed. The empirical results show that precipitation and CO2 emissions influence food security positively, while the association between temperature and food security is negative. Indeed, achieving food security in Africa requires robust and feasible policies capable of mitigating climate vulnerability and impacts on the continent.

The Lake Chad region is an intersection of four countries, namely Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, and Niger, and has been a battleground of terrorism in recent years. While much is known about the devastating impact of the activities of Boko Haram, there is a dearth of empirical research on how individuals displaced by terrorism in the Lake Chad region have been integrated into new communities. Thus, the aim of this study was to explore the experiences of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) regarding their integration into new communities in the Lake Chad region. The study adopted a qualitative design, that is, interviews and focus group discussions, to interact with participants from nine communities in Cameroon and Nigeria. Sixty-seven participants consisting of refugees, IDPs, host community leaders, and camp leaders were recruited to share their experiences. The study found similarities in the experiences of refugees and IDPs. Specifically, the study found that common identity (i.e. common culture and languages) enhanced social connection, safety, and integration of the refugees and IDPs into new communities. However, little has been done in terms of job creation, to enable refugees to have a source of livelihood, access to property, and essential services. The study has implications for policy-making in terms of governments in the Lake Chad region capitalizing on common identity and developing employable programs which will revitalize the economy of the region.

The soya bean production opens doors of opportunities for Zambian farmers. Notably, the climate in Zambia is largely favourable for soya production and the arable land is vast enough to accommodate future expansion. Most importantly, soya is a very profitable crop. On the other hand, there are some challenges which affect soya production such as poor soils aggravated by low fertilizer use, poorly developed agricultural advisory services and farmers' inability to access favourable input and outputs markets. Moreover, farmers predominantly find improved soya seeds expensive. It is therefore expedient for policymakers and the government to join hands to strengthen the linkage between small-scale farmers, commercial producers and the market to assist them to commercialize their products in full scale. In order to address these challenges, the authors suggest that the Zambian government should put farming inputs (such as inoculum seeds), post-harvest management lessons and some necessities at the disposal of farmers. Moreover, the government has to be serious about improving country's infrastructure especially rural roads to enhance soya bean trade. Lastly, the policymakers should take the responsibility of orchestrating soya trade to avoid trade distrust which results from rigged scales. If these recommendations are taken seriously soya bean production is likely to speed up economic growth and alleviate poverty in Zambia.

This study was conducted in Rwanda with the main purpose of examining the contributions of Rwanda’s gender equality policies to women’s empowerment. This research solely employed secondary data to analyse the effects of gender equality policies on the empowerment of women in Rwanda. To gather information, many books, journals, newspapers, and other research publications on gender and women’s empowerment were examined. This study discovered a significant link between gender equality and women’s empowerment in the study area. Gender equality policies, for example, increased the number of women who went to school, increased labour force participation, reduced maternal health risks, raised the national GDP, and promoted human rights. Furthermore, to attain gender equality and increase women’s empowerment, the government has adopted numerous policies that have played a significant role in achieving gender equality. Among these initiatives are the formation of the Gender Monitoring Office, the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, the National Women’s Council, and a council for women who are in parliament. Furthermore, the government has implemented various legal instruments to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. They are associated with inheritance, employment, human resources development, human rights, and other spheres of society. Yet, the women in Rwanda have some encounters for full participation in development as well as achieving gender equality, like society norms about gender equality and family violence. For those challenges, the authors would like to recommend that the government increase the mobilisation of citizens about the contribution of women’s empowerment and gender equality to sustainable growth, increase the budget for girls’ education, and enact new laws for gender-based violence and women’s empowerment promotion.

This study demonstrates how the social media can be used for political mobilization, using the obidient movement as a case study. The emergence of the Obidient Movement in Nigeria has been intimately associated with the way in which the development of social media platforms has revolutionised political communication. This article looks at how social media affects political mobilisation in Nigeria, with a particular emphasis on the remarkable role that technology-driven communication played in the Obidient Movement’s success. The conventional boundaries of political campaigning have been rewritten with the rise of social media, giving non-traditional influencers, grassroots activism, and digital activism a greater chance to shape political discourse and election outcomes. The study employed the Uses and Gratification theory, to deduce how citizens were mobilized via social media to join the obidient movement. To achieve this, the study relied on qualitative research method that examines and synthesizes extant literature on political mobilization and the particular relevant literature on social media and political mobilization. The outcome of the study shows that despite the proliferation of fake news and misinformation on social media, it served as a tool for political mobilization for the obidient movement, as obidients used social media to form alliances, crowdfund, mobilse political support and interact with a wider audience. By exploring the pivotal role of social media in the recent Nigerian election, this article illuminates the transformative potential of these platforms in reshaping political mobilization and generating support for previously underrepresented political forces in the nation.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP), the projected increase in the human population stands at 2 billion people by 2050. At the same time, world food production is witnessing a declining trend over recent years, and 690 million (8.9%) of the world's population are already in severe starvation. Climate variability and climate change impacts on food security are very eminent today. For this reason, this study explored the real effects of climate variability and change on food security in Africa by applying the system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) and the Panel Corrected Standard Errors (PCSEs) estimators on data from 2001–2018 for 38 selected African countries. The findings reveal that higher amounts of precipitation positively influence food security along two dimensions (food availability and utilization). Hotter temperatures negatively impact food availability and utilization. However, it aids food accessibility in Africa. Similarly, carbon dioxide emissions improve food availability and are harmful to food accessibility and food utilization in Africa. Consequently, the effects of climate variability and change on food security in Africa are undesirable, thereby putting the continent at risk of food insecurity over the long run. Given these findings, the study made appropriate recommendations for policy change to address the negative effects of climate variability and change on food security in Africa.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP), the projected increase in the human population stood at 2 billion people by 2050. At the same time, world food production is witnessing a declining trend over recent years, and 690 million (8.9%) of the world's population are already in severe hunger. Climate variability and change impacts on food security are very eminent today. For this reason, this study explored the real effects of climate variability and change on food security in Africa by applying the system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), and the Panel Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE) estimators on data from 2001-2018 for 38 selected African countries. The findings reveal that a higher amount of precipitation positively influences food security along two dimensions (food availability and utilization). Hotter temperatures negatively impact food availability and utilization. However, it aids food accessibility in Africa. Similarly, carbon dioxide emissions improve food availability and are harmful to food accessibility and food utilization in Africa. Consequently, the effects of climate variability and change on food security in Africa are undesirable, putting the continent at risk of food insecurity over the long run. Given these findings, the study made appropriate recommendations for policy directions.

The concept of green energy is now at the forefront of development discourse, with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 7, 11, and 12 all aimed at promoting green energy consumption to combat the three planetary crises: climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Similarly, issues regarding Africa’s natural resource curse have caused a stir in the growth and development literature for some time now and there is no sign that it will die out. This study, the first of its kind, simultaneously assesses the impact of green energy consumption and Africa’s natural resources rents on economic growth by applying the Feasible Generalized Least Square (FGLS) estimator and the dynamic panel models of the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) and Mean Group (MG) estimators on data from 1990 to 2020 for 24 selected African countries. The results show that green energy consumption has a short-run growth-limiting effect and a long-run growth-enhancing effect in Africa. The study also found evidence of the natural resource curse phenomenon in Africa. The study, therefore, calls for the advancement and usage of green energy for both domestic and industrial production in Africa. The study further calls for a revamp in the global tax policy to curb illicit financial activities and strengthening institutional quality for transparency and accountability in the entire value chain of natural resource management in Africa.

This study provides an insightful overview of community-participatory governance and conflict management as instruments for utilizing resources for development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). SSA is a region rich in natural resources but prone to conflict. The study is conceptual and critically engages the application of community governance and conflict management strategies that SSA countries need to adopt. The study praises the notion that community governance is characterized by recognizing and accepting intercultural diversity and creating a democratic institution for promoting good governance and conflict management in SSA. The study recommends that good community governance is required to drive local communities' development, growth, and transformation into a sturdy, innovative, and productive society capitalizing on opportunities. The study voice for the amalgamation of appropriate models and theories of governance cogently in the context of SSA due to the heterogeneity of communities. Therefore, to resolve conflict, conflict management, resolution, and transformation strategies are necessarily needed to accomplish a viable peace to maintain and sustain development.

The article expatiates on the social contract to clarify the circumstances leading to despotism, authoritarianism, violation of civil liberties and misery in Africa. It describes the ways in which African leaders violate individual freedoms despite the presence of local laws and international conventions. The article explains the process that led to the misfortune of Africans based on case studies informed by primary and secondary data. It contends that the repercussions of the social contract were underrated due to the dearth of choices. Thus, governments abuse their powers and crush every agent that attempts to provide checks and balances. However, the verdicts of certain local courts and the International Criminal Court demonstrate that strengthening the judicial system can transform the status quo.

Over recent years, the Ghanaian economy has struggled to find its feet on the ground despite rising public debt and unending inflows of foreign aid. Against this backdrop, this study employs the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) estimation technique on data from 1970 to 2020 to test the usefulness of the debt overhang hypothesis and the dependency theory in the special case of Ghana. The results confirm evidence of the debt overhang hypothesis and the center-periphery wisdom of the dependency theory in Ghana. The findings depict that an increase in external debt stock and total debt service on external debt have both short and long-run growth-limiting effects on the Ghanaian economy. Similarly, foreign aid catalyzes growth only in the short run and later suppresses rather than stimulates economic growth in Ghana over the long run. The study recommends that harnessing domestic resources, maintaining fiscal discipline by cutting down unproductive expenditures, enhancing an effective tax system, and promoting institutional capabilities to counteract corruption and openness to trade are better ways to fast-track growth development in Ghana.

A surge of secessionism is threatening contemporary Nigeria's survival, while unrepentant terrorists and bandits represent a major threat to the country's political stability. Unfortunately, the public outside the northern region of Nigeria has shown scepticism about the government's response to terrorism, banditry, and secessionism. They remain convinced that the government handles bandits and terrorists leniently while prosecuting secessionists harshly. In contrast to those who are sceptical about the government's approach to bandits and terrorists, the findings of this study showed that the government's reaction to terrorists and bandits is neither soft nor lenient but seems to be so owing to the sect's strategic mode of operation. Furthermore, the study found that secessionists are an easy target because they are vulnerable, known, and traceable. The study went on to identify the three concepts and determine the groups' major aims, and conspicuously highlighted the group threatening the existence of Nigeria and the ones threatening the existence of Nigerians in Nigeria. Data was chiefly garnered from secondary sources such as online news, textbooks, reports, and reputable journal articles relevant to the study. Descriptive and analytical approaches were adopted in the dissection of the data. The study concluded that the persistence of political horizontal inequality at the federal government level and the reluctance of the government to clamp down on Fulani herdsmen bandits wreaking havoc on host communities are potential drivers of secessionism.

Sudan has long been plagued by recurring conflicts rooted in ethnic, political, and economic grievances. Traditional top-down peace processes, led by national and international actors, have often failed to deliver sustainable peace. The Data Collection Primary data is collected through semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, including local community leaders, grassroots activists, women’s groups, and youth organizations involved in peacebuilding, exploring grassroots approaches to peacebuilding in Sudan and focusing on local communities as drivers of sustainable conflict resolution. Examining the role of grassroots initiatives in promoting peace also highlights how localized efforts can address the root causes of conflict and foster social cohesion. Through case studies from diverse regions within Sudan, the study analyses the effectiveness of community-led interventions such as dialogue sessions, youth and women’s participation, and cultural practices in resolving conflicts. The findings underscore the importance of empowering local actors and integrating their knowledge and strategies into national peace efforts. The study contributes to the growing discourse on localized peacebuilding, offering insights that can inform policies to create lasting peace in Sudan and other conflict-affected regions.

This paper examines the impact of trade integration on poverty reduction in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). To investigate the impact of trade integration on poverty reduction, data for all fifteen member countries of ECOWAS on the number of poor people, bilateral trade, trade openness, exchange rate, foreign direct investment, interest rate, inflation rate, and import tariff were collected from the World Bank, WTO, IMF and WDIs from 2010 to 2019. After various tests, heteroscedasticity was found to be present. Therefore, to address this problem, the Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS) method was used to examine the aforementioned impacts. The results showed that trade openness, bilateral trade, exchange rate, and import duties significantly impact poverty. The results indicated that trade integration is significant in reducing poverty within ECOWAS. The study recommends measures to enhance the effectiveness of trade integration as it has an important impact on reducing poverty in the region. First, ECOWAS should implement policies to support smaller countries in improving their productive capacities to compete effectively within the region. Secondly, harmonization of exchange rates by creating a common currency would facilitate smoother trade flows and contribute to poverty reduction. Member countries should prioritize trade with other ECOWAS nations, implement policies to ensure that foreign investments benefit the local economies, and focus on exporting finished goods rather than raw materials to create employment opportunities and support poverty reduction efforts.

Inquiry into regional integration has recently created the attention particularly of social scientists and policy makers into this new field of knowledge with emphasis on European integration as the best existing model of integration. This has consequently led to the development of theories and concepts that explain the philosophical ideologies of regional integration from the perspectives of European integration. While these theories have been borrowed heavily to explain integration across the globe, there are certain specific Africans theories that best explains African integration since independence to date. This paper hopes at using these African perspectives to explain African integration. The inspiration from this paper is to help understand what regional integration in Africa is and what fundamental ideologies explain regional integration in Africa. It must be emphasized that this paper seeks to analyze two important African ideologies (Pan Africanism and African Renaissance) that promote and explain regional integration in Africa. While Pan Africanism sought to promote African unity through political liberation of African states from colonialism and slave trade, African Renaissance goes beyond political liberation to chart the path of Africa’s economic, sociocultural and political development advanced by globalization and technology for Africa unity.

The study explores Educational Challenges Affecting Girls’ Academic Achievement in Public Secondary Schools in Burao, Somaliland. It utilizes both quantitative and qualitative research methods to gain a comprehensive understanding of the obstacles faced by girls in their educational pursuits. The study reveals that socioeconomic factors, cultural traditions, and insufficient school infrastructure significantly hinder girls’ education, with financial constraints, early marriage, and gender-biased cultural practices identified as significant barriers. The recommendations of this study, if effectively implemented, have the potential to bring about substantial positive change. These recommendations include the implementation of financial support programs, raising community awareness, improving school infrastructure, and providing career guidance and skills training.

The article is aimed to scrutinize security crisis in Western part of Oromia, within the broader context of unearthed securization of politics in Ethiopia. The post-2018 political situation in Ethiopia is characterized by severe security crises in almost all parts of the country, and these security crises have regional and international dimensions. Politicians build security sectors to secure their political life when the normative political process has stalled. There are also ongoing security crises in the western part of Oromia Regional State, ranging from the displacement of Oromo from Benishangul Gumuz Regional State and border areas in Oromia to the ongoing massive massacres of Oromo in East and Horro Guduruu Wallagga by mercenaries from Amhara Regional State, to ongoing human rights violations such as arrests, extrajudicial killings, etc. Accordingly, this article intended to discuss the imperatives of securitized political issues in perpetuated security crisis in Western Oromia since 2018. The research was approached as qualitative research with a case study design to exhaustively discuss the security crisis in West Oromia as a particular case. Both primary and secondary data were used. Primary data was collected through interviews, personal observations, and semi-structured conversations with peers, while secondary data was obtained through a content analysis of the literature. The research found that the failure of the 2018 political transition perpetuated a security crisis across the country. Western Oromia is marked as a sensitive political ecology, and political issues are highly securitized. Geographically speaking, West Oromia is viewed as an outlying area, yet it holds a central position within the national political landscape. Hence, within the examined region, political inquiries are approached through security measures, resulting in a complex security crisis with severe consequences for the local population. Therefore, desecuritizing the political agenda and giving a chance to normative politics or finding a “political solution to the political problem” is recommended as the only way forward in the country.

Africa is expected to have a lion’s Share in the world’s population growth by 2050. At the same time, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that roughly 3.4 percent (1/25) of African adults live with HIV making the contient the most severely affected by the HIV pandemic. Consequently, this study, the first of its kind, investigates the impact of population growth and HIV incidence on economic growth and economic development in Africa by utilizing the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimator on data from 1990 to 2020 across 29 countries. The results show that population growth has a postive long run impact on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) but has a negative long run impact on per capita GDP, albeit the effects are insignificant in the short run. The incidence of HIV has a negative long run impact on both GDP and per capita GDP although its effect is not significant in the short run. The study, therefore, calls for the advancement of family planning practices and the usage of contraceptives to simultaneously control population growth and curb the spread of HIV incidence. The study futher calls for African governments to increase budgetary allocations to the health and education sectors, as these policy perspectives have the potential of increasing the human capital stock and at the same time enhancing the health status of the work force for sustained growth and development.

For several decades, Sudan has been plagued by persistent human rights violations, which have caught the attention of the international community, including organizations such as Amnesty International, the African Union, and the United Nations. This paper explores the role of good governance in promoting human rights in Sudan, utilising a qualitative research methodology and collecting secondary data from online sources such as Amnesty International, Sudan Human Rights Report, Human Rights Watch, and Reuters to examine human rights abuses in Sudan from 2010 to 2023, alongside academic journals. A case study approach is used to deeply explore cases of human rights violations in Sudan using secondary data. Findings show that human rights violations persist in Sudan due to ongoing war and state security involvement in violation acts. The research is grounded in John Locke’s social contract theory. The study sheds light on various human rights violations that are prevalent in Sudan, such as arbitrary detention, torture, suppression of freedom of expression, and discrimination, and the consequences of these violations. The article concludes that good governance is essential for protecting and promoting human rights in Sudan and recommends that efforts be made to strengthen governance and foster an environment where human rights are respected and upheld.