Household attitudes to solid waste management in developing country cities : a case study of Lagos, Nigeria

Imperial Users onl

Building Agricultural Resilience through Insurance in Nigeria

Nigeria can build a robust resilience framework to ensure that its agricultural sector is able to cope with the shocks and stresses of climate change through weather insurance. While there is already demand for index insurance, bundling insurance with production inputs and finance can make insurance more attractive to farmers, creating a mechanism for expanding insurance products and services that are more inclusive of smallholder farmers

A roadmap for evidence-based insurance development for Nigeria’s farmers

In 2014, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) proposed a major expansion of agricultural insurance in the context of other reforms to the agricultural sector, and as part of the implementation of its National Agricultural Resilience Framework (NARF). This report is designed to inform development of inclusive insurance for Nigeria’s agriculture sector, and is offered as a contribution to the NARF. It is an outcome of a consultative process that began in September 2014 between FMARD and the CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). By overcoming the problems of moral hazard, adverse selection, and resulting high transaction costs and processing delays that have plagued indemnity-based agricultural insurance, index-based insurance makes it feasible to insure millions of smallholder farmers. Well-designed index insurance can achieve specific risk objectives such as protecting farmers’ livelihoods in the face of major climate shocks, and promoting farmers’ livelihoods by overcoming barriers to adoption of improved agricultural technologies and practices, and access to market opportunities. Reviews of index-based agricultural insurance initiatives have identified several success factors that are relevant to the situation in Nigeria. First, successful initiatives have been designed to unlock particular opportunities for farmers that were previously constrained by particular risks. Second, initiatives are most successful when they are driven by demand and responsive to farmer input. Third, successful initiatives have invested in the capacity of a range of local stakeholders. Fourth, investments in data systems, and in science-based index development, have helped address the challenges of data poverty and basis risk. Fifth, successful index insurance requires an enabling regulatory environment. Finally, successful initiatives involve multi-stakeholder partnerships, and often public-private partnerships. A strategy for expanding insurance for Nigeria’s smallholder farmers must address challenges that include: limited and asymmetric information; crowding out by post-disaster relief efforts; limited access to reinsurance markets; lack of insurance culture; and inadequate regulatory environments. The development of effective market-based agricultural insurance, requires government support in five key areas: data systems; awareness and capacity building; facilitating international risk pooling; “smart” subsidies; and an enabling policy environment. Three immediate priorities are identified: (a) creating a regulatory environment that makes it attractive for insurance companies to enter the market; (b) developing a public-private partnership that incentivizes and supports companies to develop innovative products and services for the agriculture sector; and (c) progressively expand implementation through well-designed pilots, evaluation and learning processes. The organizations that have been involved or consulted in the process leading to this report offer relevant expertise

Literature review of how Telecentres operate and have an impact on eInclusion. Exploratory study on explanations and theories of how Telecentres and other community-based e-Inclusion actors operate and have an impact on digital and social inclusion policy goals

This report includes the results of the research project ‘Exploratory study on explanations and theories of how Telecentres and other community-based e-Inclusion actors operate and have an impact on digital and social inclusion policy goals’. This study was commissioned by IPTS to feed into a forthcoming 2-year research project: Measuring the impact of eInclusion actors on Digital Literacy, Skills and Inclusion goals (MIREIA). The literature review presented in this report was designed to capture the theories and explanations represented in the existing body of research in order to: provide a comprehensive and multidisciplinary landscape on theories and analytical frameworks; analyze the value of these theories and analytical frameworks based on predefined criteria and; Develop recommendations on the most promising theoretical pillars that could inform the future research mentioned above. A two-phase research approach was designed: 1) An extended mapping of the literature from the last ten years in which over 100 articles, reports and books were reviewed, coded and identified the most dominant and/or common explanations in relation to the work of e-Inclusion actors; and 2) a selection, categorization, and in-depth coding of these explanations vis-à-vis different impact areas, as well as in relation to institutional capacity. As a conclusion it has been noted that although a lot of the research on eInclusion is set out to measure impacts, in reality studies often end up with some measures of usage and analysis of why expected impacts were not achieved. In addition, there is a large proportion of available literature on telecenters and other such eInclusion actors which is based more on perceived potential than on demonstrated fact and highly contextualized studies, making it difficult to identify valid or reliable trends. These findings will be taken into account in the development of the different tasks of the MIREIA project.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

Evidence-Based Insurance Development for Nigeria’s Farmers: Briefing paper for Nigerian Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD)-CCAFS Knowledge-Sharing Workshop, London, 27-28 January 2015

Agricultural insurance has been a feature in Nigeria for over two decades. The Federal Government has plans to expand agricultural insurance in the Country as part of several initiatives under the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA). The Government wishes to extend crop insurance to those farmers benefiting from fertilizer subsidies under the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GES). The Government also wishes to implement weather index insurance (parametric insurance) in selected parts of the country susceptible droughts and floods. Experiences from index insurance initiatives worldwide provide important lessons for the development of crop index insurance in Nigeria. Experiences from India, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Senegal suggest that there is demand for index insurance; that the bundling of insurance with key farm inputs e.g. improved seed and fertilizer, makes the insurance package more attractive to farmers; but that several challenges still to overcome, including data management, basis risk, logistical and client communication. CCAFS could play a role in working with the Federal Government to overcome some of these challenges

Comparative Study of 2011 and 2015 Presidential Elections in Nigeria

This paper investigates comparative study of 2011 and 2015 presidential elections in Nigeria with specific focus on the Fourth Republic from the comparative analysis perspectives Thus through the use of comparative theory unfolds the causes responsible for the opposition travail in the 2015 election in Nigeria By the use of the comparative analysis we try to know what is common and find out the causes and consequences for the victory and the losses This research also presents statistical data analysis of the both elections for comparison It was undertaking to ascertain the nature and character of the 2011 and 2015 election This article therefore recommends that in order for the electoral system to be free and fair there is need for government to place priority on education through free and compulsory education Avoid inflammatory rhetoric publicly denounce violence pledge to respect rules in particular the Code of Conduct for Political Parties and pursue grievances through lawful channels it also indicate that the sovereign power belongs to the people The era of political parties taking people for granted is gone Nigerians are very conscious of their rights they know with their votes is they can install or remove government that failed to perfor

A Performance Evaluation and Assessment of Mineral Silicate Coatings for the Restoration of the Exterior Concrete at Jackson Lake Lodge

This thesis focuses on the evaluation of the durability of potassium silicate coating on concrete surfaces, in particular the exterior concrete walls at Jackson Lake Lodge located in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. The main building on the site, the Central Lodge, is a large 61 year old structure that is in need of a new architectural coating to prolong its service. This structure, once dubbed the ugliest building in America, is now cherished and appreciated for its significance in ushering in a new era of Modernist-style buildings constructed within National Parks. Because the pH of the concrete walls has fallen to 7, the original architectural coating—acid stains—is not a viable option to recoat the structure. New coatings must be explored such as mineral silicates. Comprised of a waterglass solution and inorganic pigments, mineral silicate coatings impart a durable colored finish to cementitious and silica-rich substrates. Developed in Europe, mineral silicate paints and stains have been around for over 150 years. Recently this coating system has gained traction in the United States for its durability and performance enhancing properties. This testing program used a variety of analytical methods (such as accelerated weathering, spectrophotometry, water vapor transmission rate tests, water immersion tests, RILEM tube tests, contact angle measurements, and pH readings) to evaluate the color durability, water vapor permeability, and liquid water repellency characteristics of potassium mineral silicate coatings. This evaluation was conducted to determine if potassium silicate coatings can be viable alternative architectural finish to restore the original appearance of the Central Lodge, while improving the performance of the concrete

The Crisis of Unity in the 21st Century: The Unrealized Dream of Pan-Africanism in Cameroon

The following is an analysis of how the sentiments of pan-Africanism, a notion formulated in the early 20th century, have failed to proliferate in Cameroonian society. As a concept based in the social, economic, and political solidarity of the African continent, the pan-African movement has often been a point of reference for intellectuals searching for a solution to the problems Africa currently faces, some of which include lack of political agency and stagnating economic growth. The beliefs promoted by pan-Africanists is that by joining together the collective potentials of all African people, the continent can become a global force, leaving behind its past of enslavement and colonialism. The findings of this study reveal, however that though Cameroonian informants agree with the sentiments advocated by the pan-African movement, aspects of their society have not been conducive to the success of this concept. In looking at the social institutions of Cameroon’s education system, regional differences and political leadership, this study aims to discover why pan-Africanism has failed and what Cameroonians, and Africans in general, can do to weave its teachings back into their society

Bayesian Estimation of Reproduction Numbers from Distributions of Outbreaks Sizes: Branching Process Approach

The Generalized Poisson distribution is useful in modeling epidemiological processes as a branching stochastic processes problem. Our goal is to construct accurate and reliable estimators for the reproduction number (R0) (i.e., the number of secondary infections), particularly in the context of disease outbreaks modeled by a Galton-Watson process. Towards this goal, we construct the classical Bayes estimator, the Maximum Likelihood estimator, and the Empirical Bayes (EB) estimator under the Square Error Loss function in Chapter II. We prove that the Empirical Bayes estimator is asymptotically optimal and estimate the rate of convergence. We then proceed to monotonize the Empirical Bayes estimator in Chapter III using the Van Houwelingen method [22] and the Isotonic Regression method [3], then introduced the concept of the risk and regret risk associated with our estimators. For the numerical study in Chapter IV we assume a Poisson distribution for the reproduction number and that the initial number of infected individuals follows a Poisson distribution. Simulation results indicate that the empirical estimator suffers from jumpiness , hence the need for monotonization. We then compare the regret risks of each of the estimators and find out that the monotonized estimate outperforms the others