Inequality, Poverty among Nigeria Women and Youth and the Challenges of Inclusive Growth in Post 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) (Published)
By all standards, economic growth is expected to reduce poverty, rather poverty in Nigeria has remained high as 112m people representing 67 percent of the population are in abject poverty while GDP rates fell to 7.68 per cent in 2011 from 8.60 in 2010. Income inequality was 0.3594(2010) and -25.9 in 2011(BOS,2012). If Millennium Development Goals (MDG) could affect poverty level in India and China, why has Nigeria’s poverty level remained high? The study hence, examined the challenges of inequality and poverty reduction among Nigerian women and youth with focus on inclusive growth in post 2015 MDG. Content analysis of secondary literature was undertaken to address the problem of the study. Findings indicated that poverty in Nigeria is not affected due to misdirection of programmes from rural to urban areas, inadequate funding, lack of control, transparency and accountability and inadequate coverage of the poor. The study suggested that entrepreneurial training programmes and capability creation, combined with an all inclusive effort aimed at providing education and health facility, integrated growth, income distribution, and financing land ownership are highly required. Conclusively, poverty in Nigeria can be substantively reduced if an all inclusive approach is adopted covering entrepreneurial training backed with monitoring and accommodation of large coverage of the poor in the programme in post 2015 MDG plans.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Inclusive Growth, Inequality, Poverty
GROWTH AND INEQUALITY: IS THERE ANY CLEAR-CUT RELATIONSHIP (Published)
Theory predicts complex and multidimensional relationships between inequality and growth. Indeed, previous studies on inequality and growth using various estimation techniques, inequality measures, country samples and time frames have found conflicting results ranging from positive , negative, non-linear to insignificant and inconclusive relationships. In this study, we follow the model of Forbes (2000) to examine whether or not inequality affects growth. With the newly improved inequality data provided by the University of Texas Inequality Project (UTIP, 2013), we used the System-GMM to estimate the relationship in a panel of 65 countries over the period 1965-2005 on 5-year interval. We found a positive but statistically insignificant co-efficient of inequality on growth
Keywords: Growth, Income Distribution, Inequality, System GMM