Strengthening the Quest for Sustainable Development Through Persuasive Climate Argumentation (Published)
This study explored the nexus between framing, persuasion and the quest for sustainable development in a competitive policy debate setting using content analysis approach. Evidence from the analysis reveals several insights about the underlying mechanism that governs persuasive climate argumentation which shapes sustainable development trajectory. First, the study showed that arguers construct arguments that appeals to logos as a major persuasion strategy. Second, it demonstrated how persuasion strategy entrench a culture of persuasion in climate debates. Third, it found a discordant relationship between fallacies and persuasion strategy in climate argumentation, which jeopardises arguments’ persuasive power. Finally, the study evaluated how tensions in the mainstream socio-economic and environmental ecosystem creeps into climate arguments and limit persuasive power of climate arguments. These are regarded as reflective pattern of climate argumentation that are capable of stimulating behavioural change and communication strategies for sustainable development.
Keywords: Sustainable Development, persuasive climate argumentation, sustainable development trajectory
The Autonomous Port of San Pedro, Toward Sustainable Management of Its Activities: An Exploratory Study (Published)
More and more, ports are moving towards environmental protection as economic performance is no longer the only criterion for competitiveness. Although contributing to global economic development, port activities can have negative impacts on coastal areas and marine biodiversity. This article presents the actions taken by the Port of San Pedro in the context of sustainable development. A qualitative methodology was used to study the port’s sustainable practices, with the environmental manager being interviewed. The results show that the port, as a state authority, implements sustainable practices such as tree planting, environmental impact assessments, and the valorization of port waste into clean energy. In addition, several actions taken have resulted in the port obtaining various ISO certifications. Furthermore, the Port Autonomous de San Pedro is contributing to the momentum for environmental protection.
Keywords: Cote d’Ivoire, Environmental Protection, Ports, San Pedro, Sustainable Development
Debt Burden and Sustainable Development: An Evaluation of the Nigeria Railway Modernization Project (Published)
Citation: Deebii Nwiado & Silva Opuala-Charles (2022) Debt Burden and Sustainable Development: An Evaluation of the Nigeria Railway Modernization Project, International Journal of Development and Economic Sustainability, Vol.10, No.2, pp.1-26
Abstract: This work investigated the sustainability or otherwise of the Nigeria public debt as it relates to the Nigeria railway modernization project. We set up two hypotheses: Ho1: That the current investment effort by the Nigeria government in the Nigeria railway modernization project has led Nigeria into huge external unsustainable public debt. Ho2: That Nigeria public debt stock is unsustainable. Two measures as found in the literature: debt servicing-to-export ratio and debt servicing to-GDP ratio were tested against data obtained from the CBN Statistical Bulletin to validate or invalidate our hypothesis. The analysis give an inconclusive result– Debt servicing-to-export ratio gave an overwhelmingly negative result, while the debt servicing-to-GDP was positive. We are therefore unable to confirm the sustainability or otherwise of Nigeria public debt as it relates to the railway modernization project. However by conjecture, these authors believe that the Nigeria public debt relative to the Nigeria modernization project is not likely to be sustainable. We recommend that government at all levels increase surveillance over borrowed fund for infrastructural development from being diverted to private use.
Keywords: Public Debt, Sustainable Development, debt burden, debt service, railway modernizations project.
Capital Market Predictive Power on the Development of the Nigerian Economy: An Impulse Response and Variance Decomposition Approach (Published)
The study is an empirical investigation of the contributions of the Nigeria’s capital market to the development of Nigerian economy. Most researchers focused on capital market and growth nexus, where as we deviated by focusing on the role played by capital market in ensuring reduction of unemployment and poverty in Nigeria. Specifically, we investigated the contributions of market capitalization (MCAP), value of share traded (VST) and all share index (ASI) to unemployment rate (UNPR) and poverty (NPI) reductions in Nigeria within the period 1981 to 2017. The data series used were sourced from the annual statistical bulletin of the central bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Nigeria stock exchange (NSE). Preliminary analyses of stationarity and cointegration tests revealed that the series were non stationary at levels; and cointegrated respectively. The result of the impulse response functions (IRF) and variance decompositions from the two models considered revealed that the contributions of the capital market to poverty reduction in Nigeria is highly insignificant, while it contributes fairly to unemployment reductions in Nigeria within the study period. Conclusively, the research reveals that the Nigeria capital market is not contributing optimally to the development of Nigeria’s economy as this is evident on its abysmal contributions to poverty and unemployment reductions. In line with the findings of this work, we recommend that the Nigeria capital market should be repositioned in a way that it can optimally contribute to the reduction of unemployment and poverty in Nigeria.
Keywords: Capital market, Sustainable Development, Variance Decomposition, impulse response function
Towards Better Performance in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals in Nigeria (Published)
There are many challenges affecting how we can better achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Since the factors that affected our poor performance during the MDGs which include unmanageable population, pervasive poverty, ignorance and superstition, religious dogmatism, corruption and economic mismanagement, lack of political will, authenticity of collected data are still largely with us in Nigeria. Apart from those issues pertaining to Nigeria, we need to be able to manage some existing global threats to sustainable development. These threats include the continuous advancement towards finding or making more potent biological, chemical, nuclear, cyber and other weapons of mass destruction. United Nations need to improve on legislation to prevent these proliferations and also improve on how to coordinate scientific efforts towards better achievement of the Sustainable Development goals. Finally the importance of education in its entire ramification was identified as key to achieving the SD goals better.
Keywords: Education, Millennium Development Goals (MDGS), Sustainable Development, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Weapons of mass destruction
Sustainability Filters and Enhancers towards Improving Intervention Functionality and Sustainable Advancement as a More Holistic Concept (Published)
In a continuously increasing population situation in the world, non-renewable resources cannot be used sustainably forever, no matter how much frugality is applied since the resources involved are finite and would be exhausted one day. This article proposed that at the micro level, interventions should be reviewed from two perspectives: conditional requirements, I have called sustainability filters and others that will enhance sustainability and functionality, which I have called sustainability enhancers and these issues be considered before intervention decisions are made. It also explained other interrelated factors to be considered at the macro level. The article tried to bring out the interrelationships between peace, development, violence and pollution and graphically showed that no sustainable development can take place without peace. Finally, the article proposed a shift from the constraining mentality, mainly based on population pressure and frugal utilization of resources/attitudes to greater focus on science and technology towards continual reduction of input requirements to achieving greater outputs and utilizing greener alternatives or renewable resources (sustainable advancement), so that the impending world population crisis can be better managed for posterity.
Keywords: Sustainability Advancement, Sustainability Enhancers, Sustainability Filters, Sustainable Development, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Network Governance, a Response to the Dilemma of Ski-Resort Sustainable Development (Published)
Regulating access to common resources and organizing their exploitation is, usually, the responsibility of local authorities and the object of local governance. However, in ski resorts, participating the private sector in territorial management could have a better impact on resource preservation due to the seasonality of ski dynamism and its impact on network efficacy. This article aims to study the concept of local network governance and to examine its influence on sustainable development. The effectiveness of this governance is illustrated by the case of Mzaar ski-resort in Lebanon.
Keywords: Governance, Network, Ski-Resort, Sustainable Development, Tourism
COMMUNICATION AS CRITICAL FACTOR IN DISASTER MANAGEMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA (Published)
Disasters, whether natural or man-made have engendered widespread unimaginable destructions to lives and properties across the world. Floods, the most frequent and most devastating of all had, between 1971 and 1995 affected more than 1.5 billion people or 100 million annually out of which 318,000 were killed while more than 81 million became homeless. Nigeria which is the focus of this paper has had her fair share of this flood-induced tragedy. In what appears like an annual occurrence, flooding in Nigeria had resulted in the loss of many lives and properties worth billions of Naira perished apart from precipitating extensive social and economic dislocation. It has been acknowledged in the last two decades that, while disasters cannot be prevented, the impacts can be mitigated through effective and collective management systematically planned around timely sharing of disaster warning information among the disaster management teams and the vulnerable population. This is why this paper among others theoretically observed the various communication methods engaged in disaster management; evaluate the interplay of communication with other disaster management tools with the purpose of discovering their mutual roles in the four stages of disaster management. It verified whether these have contributed to sustainable development in Nigeria and lastly, recommended efficient collaborative measures that could minimise the risk areas and the potentially vulnerable communities
Keywords: Disaster Management, Sustainable Development, communication