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This study aims to examine the effects of policy incentives and cost on the choice and use of renewable energy in North-Central Nigeria.

The data for this study are collected from a sample of 290 respondents drawn from across 6 states in North-Central Nigeria, including the Federal Capital Territory. This study uses descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regression to analyze the data.

The findings reveal that there is a huge potential demand for renewable energy sources (particularly solar photovoltaic) in the rural communities in Nigeria. It also indicates a positive and highly significant relationship between the level of awareness, availability and income and the use (consumption) of renewable energy sources among the rural communities. Furthermore, the cost of installation and maintenance of renewable energy, its reliability and availability are significant determinants of renewable energy choices among rural inhabitants in Nigeria.

The authors submit that inefficient policy strategies, high cost of installation and lack of awareness remain the major hindrances to the use of more efficient renewable energy sources. From a policy point of view, a viable strategy for effective use of renewable energy sources is the involvement of government, development partners and agencies for the funding of renewable energy technology in the rural sector of the country. The usage of modern renewable energy would increase if policy incentives are aimed at covering parts of the maintenance and installation cost of renewable energy users. The authors recommend that apart from creating awareness on the benefits of renewable energy, policymakers should provide a desirable policy environment for private energy firms to supply renewable energy at an affordable cost to the rural communities in Nigeria.

A majority of the rural households in Nigeria, as shown in this article, are poor and therefore use firewood as their main source of cooking energy because of the cost of renewable energy.

Despite the abundance of renewable energy sources and government effort at improving renewable energy use, more than 15 million people live without access to electricity and 54 million are without modern energy services for cooking and lightening in Nigeria. A total of 61% of these people live in rural areas. Therefore, this study is novel in providing energy policy insights for rural communities in North-Central Nigeria.

The primacy of institutions for economic progress has been established in the literature. Yet, less research attention is paid to the existence and persistence of weak economic institutions in Africa. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to empirically explore the determinants of the quality of economic institutions in Africa.

Hausman–Taylor instrumental variable estimator of panel regression was employed for a sample of 43 Sub-Sahara African countries over the period 1995–2017.

The study finds that the existence and persistence of weak economic institutions in Africa is more of design than destiny. That is, weak economic institutions are created and sustained more by bad political institutions rather than cultural diversity and geographical factors. Therefore, strong political institutions need to be entrenched to reverse the equilibrium of weak economic institutions and dismal economic performance in the continent.

The study provides deep understanding of the determinants of economic institutions. This is imperative for policy makers, development agencies and stakeholders in designing viable economic policies and programs for the continent.

The novelty of the study is rooted in the examination of the factors responsible for the development and persistence of weak economic institutions in Africa. The idea is original because previous studies focus on political institutions and neglected economic institutions.

Construction organisations cannot underestimate the improvement in public–private partnership (PPP) projects’ implementation. At the same time, construction organisations cannot overlook the risk arising from engaging in PPP construction projects. Hence, this study aims to establish the influence of risk resource management (RRM) in managing PPP risk in the construction industry in Ghana.

The researchers adopted qualitative and quantitative research methods to achieve the aim of the study, in which Delphi questions and a close-ended questionnaire were developed. A total of 650 construction specialists, including procurement officers, consultants, project managers, quantity surveyors, site engineers and planning officers were chosen using random and purposive sampling techniques. Recovered data were analysed using descriptive statistics and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The CFA maximum likelihood estimation extractor compresses 19 variables into 3 pattern matrices.

The results of the study revealed three factors that measure RRM in Ghana’s PPP construction industry, including financial resource management which was influenced by communicating the budget to project team members and project partners understanding the budget, and material resource management which was influenced by the provision of materials transportation and provision of delivery programs and labour resource management which was impacted by a commitment to pay social security and taxes and provision of good salaries, to address RRM in PPP construction organisations.

To incessantly improve the PPP risk management (RM) in construction through RRM, there should be a strong liaison between the universities, government agencies and the construction industry, and such collaboration will assist the industry to obtain first-hand information regarding the study findings and how they can be implemented to help the development of RM in the construction industry. This study is limited to Ghana and CFA and further study should explore structural equation model to determine the structure and measurement model of the risk resource variables.

The study may be valuable to industry stakeholders looking for new approaches to improve RM in their construction activities, particularly in PPP projects. Also, to assist reduce PPP risk, construction companies should use RRM in their organisations.

Electronic government (e-government) initiatives are critical in bringing about transparency, accessibility and efficiency in public service delivery. Drawing upon e-government literature and the political system theory, this paper aims into the challenges faced by businesses in using e-government applications and how the implementation of e-government can be improved.

Using a qualitative research method, data was gathered through in-depth interviews with top executives of businesses in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data.

This study reveals that uneven access to digital technology, security concerns and resistance to change are the main challenges hampering the use of e-government applications by the business sector. Furthermore, this study identifies opportunities for facilitating the implementation of e-government including seeking for feedback from the business community, benchmarking and monitoring and collaboration among government agencies.

This study highlights the challenge of digital divide, which hinders the full realization of the benefits of e-government services for the business sector. Policymakers need to prioritize e-government programs that bridge the gap by way of improving internet connectivity, digital literacy and access to technology. Policymakers should embark on targeted infrastructure development, information, communication and technology training and programs to advance adoption of the e-government among underserved business communities.

Government agencies must conduct training programs on digital skills and cyber-security for businesses. In addition, businesses should introduce change management initiatives that promote culture of ingenuity and flexibility.

This study contributes to the filling the dearth of knowledge on the discourse on e-government adoption in developing economies, particularly in the context of business to government e-government model.

This paper analyses the COVID-19 situation in Nigeria, its effect on the economy and the structural causes that worsened the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.

This paper uses simple descriptive analysis to examine the COVID-19 situation in Nigeria.

The findings reveal that the economic downturn in Nigeria was triggered by a combination of declining oil price and spillovers from the COVID-19 outbreak, which not only led to a fall in the demand for oil products but also stopped economic activities from taking place when social distancing policies were enforced. The government responded to the crisis by providing financial assistance to businesses and a small number of households that were affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. The monetary authority adopted accommodative monetary policies and offered a targeted 3.5 trillion loan support to some sectors. These efforts should have prevented the economic crisis from occurring but it did not. Economic agents could not freely engage in economic activities for fear of contracting the COVID-19 disease that was spreading very fast at the time.

The implication of the study is that policymakers should pay attention to three areas of the economy for economic and structural reform. One, policymakers should introduce economic reforms to diversify the economy and reduce Nigeria's dependence on revenue from crude oil export. Two, policymakers in Nigeria should invest in healthcare infrastructure to improve the ability of the national health system to withstand the outbreak of contagious diseases. Three, there is also a need to build appropriate digital infrastructure to facilitate the transition from “face-to-face” business activities to a “digital or online” business activities, which can help to grow the digital economy. Also, policymakers should use legislation to create a robust social welfare safety net for all citizens particularly for unemployed citizens and poor households.

This is the first paper that looks at the economic implication of COVID-19 in a West African country.