AbstractThe paper assesses the ex‐post trade effect of sub‐regional trade agreements (RTAs), financial integration and other non‐tariff barriers on intra‐regional trade involving 43 Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) countries. The objective is to find out if RTAs within SSA had increased trade flows to inform current efforts of establishing a successful continental free trade area in SSA.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) aims to create a single liberalised market for goods, services, and capital, with arrangements to ease the movement of persons, deepen integration, and propel economic transformation. Africa's trade and migration are closely related, often having mutually reinforcing effects on each other and a strong implication for development. The AfCFTA is crucial in enhancing the level of intra-Africa trade and can affect the continent's migration patterns.

First and foremost, the study explored why countries in Africa are rich in natural resources yet resort to e-levy legislation for more revenues. In addition, the study investigated dimensions of education needed to facilitate successful mobilization of e-levy revenue in resource -rich yet poor countries in Africa. Qualitative exploratory design, semi-structured interviews, judgmental and snowball sampling techniques were used for the study. Twelve (12) scholars from US (N = 3), Uganda (N = 3) Canada (N = 3), Ghana (N = 3) were interrogated.

Ghana-s current youth unemployment rate is 19.7%, and the country faces a significant youth unemployment problem. While a range of youth-employment programs have been created over the years, no systematic documentation and evaluation of the impacts of these public initiatives has been undertaken. Clarifying which interventions work would guide policy makers in creating strategies and programs to address the youth-employment challenge.

AbstractAdequate flow of appropriate information to farmers is vital for accelerating the uptake of modern agricultural technologies and improving access to markets, all of which are important for the transformation of African economies. Yet there is limited evidence regarding how information should be disseminated to farmers to achieve the needed impact. Should ICT‐based approaches be used together with traditional methods, or should they be used alone?

The promotion of cocoa farm productivity has necessitated the intensification of input use with ensuing loss of natural pollinators. Ghana Cocoa Board’s (COCOBOD) remedy to declining pollinator population is addressed in the rolling out of hand pollination in the 2016/17 crop year. Applying contingent valuation on field data covering 608 farmers in five cocoa growing regions, we estimate the value of pollinator services to the cocoa industry in Ghana and farmers willingness to pay for the service.

Abstract

AbstractRegional trade agreements (RTAs) have experienced significant growth worldwide, leading to an increase in studies assessing their impact on bilateral trade flows. With the availability of disaggregated trade data, numerous studies have examined the influence of these agreements specifically on agri‐food trade. However, the results of these studies exhibit heterogeneity, posing challenges for policymakers seeking to understand the effects of RTAs on agri‐food trade.

Foreign capital inflows are major forms of resource transfer from the developed to the developing countries where they are usually found to be more productive and the result can be positive or negative. Hence, the work set out to empirically investigate the effect of foreign capital inflows and some selected macroeconomic variables on economic growth in Nigeria. The study applied the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model on time series data for the period, 1981-2020.