Umehruo, Honour Chinyere and Covenant University, Theses (2021) ASSESSING THE CONTRIBUTION OF AGRICULTURE EMPLOYMENT TO SUSTAINABLE SOCIO-ECONOMIC WELFARE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ECOWAS AND SADC. Masters thesis, Covenant University Ota..
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Abstract
Sub-Saharan Africa faces the challenge of low welfare regardless of the definition of welfare used, but it is the low level of sustainable socio-economic welfare that threatens sustainable development of Sub-Saharan Africa countries. Most of Africa’s population reside in west and southern Africa and are residents of either Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) or Southern African Development Community (SADC) member countries. However, both ECOWAS and SADC reflect regional economic communities that are heterogeneous in terms of environmental, social and economic welfare indicators, The two regional economic communities are heterogeneous in terms of agriculture resources which as highlighted by literature provides the source of employment for the bulk of population in both regional economic communities as well as in Sub-Saharan Africa in general. Hence it is unclear the extent to which agriculture employment may promote sustainable socio-economic welfare, thus this study focuses on assessing the contribution of agricultural employment on sustainable socio-economic welfare: a comparative study between ECOWAS and SADC. The study employs fixed effect panel data regression, using country level data on ECOWAS and SADC sourced from the World Bank; World Development Indicators with a time span of 2010 to 2019. Sustainable Socio-economic welfare was measured in this study using a computed Human Sustainable Development Index (Index) derived from the UNDP computation of the Human Development Index. The findings of this study revealed that agriculture employment adversely and significantly affects sustainable socio-economic welfare in ECOWAS and SADC. In addition, the study found that, agriculture employment affects adversely alternative measures of welfare in both ECOWAS and SADC. Thus, having compared ECOWAS and SADC as concerns agriculture employment and sustainable socio-economic welfare, the study recommends amongst other recommendations, that attempts at promoting improved welfare in ECOWAS and SADC countries should necessarily focus on sustainable socioeconomic welfare as measured by HSDI rather than the narrower definitions of welfare as HDI or GDP per capita. Also, governments of ECOWAS and SADC member countries should put in place policies that will make agriculture employment both attractive as an employment and boost its productivity such as putting in place minimum standards for agriculture employers to engage employees so that agriculture employees are not exploited, and standards of crop outputs to be produced by farmers in order that agriculture employment translates to improved sustainable socio-economic welfare.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Agriculture employment, Sustainable Socio-economic welfare, ECOWAS, SADC, Sub-Saharan Africa, Panel data fixed effects estimation |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory |
| Divisions: | Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences |
| Depositing User: | Mrs Patricia Nwokealisi |
| Date Deposited: | 04 Nov 2021 08:51 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Nov 2021 08:51 |
| URI: | http://eprints.covenantuniversity.edu.ng/id/eprint/15438 |
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