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This paper examines how one group of frontline health workers (nurses) amid coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic perceive the Government of Ghana (GOG)'s decision to ease the lockdown restrictions when cases were increasing. This paper contributes to the literature on Igor Grossman's concept of wise reasoning and its applicability to COVID-19 management decision-making by political leaders.

The paper employed an exploratory qualitative design. The decision to adopt qualitative method is linked to the paucity of research on wise reasoning, political leadership and COVID-19. The paper draws on qualitative online survey with 42 nurses located in Accra Metropolis, Ghana.

The paper demonstrates that a confluence of research participants perceived the government's act of easing the lockdown restrictions to be in bad faith on account of (1) nonrecognition of different perspectives and viewpoints from stakeholders and interest groups; (2) rising number of cases which naturally make the decision to lift the restriction unwise; (3) concerns about the prioritization of peripheral issues over citizens' health and (4) concerns about limited and robust health facilities and their implications.

The key claims must be assessed against the limitations of the study. First, the study is an exploratory study and, therefore, not intended for a generalization purpose. Second, the research participants are highly educated, and the responses in this study are skewed toward them.

The paper is novel in seeking to explore wise reasoning and political leadership during a global pandemic such as COVID-19. This exploratory study demonstrates that COVID-19, though devastating and causing havoc, presents an opportunity to test Igor Grossmann's wise reasoning framework about decision-making by political leaders. This extends the literature on wise reasoning beyond the discipline of psychology (the fact that all the authors are geographers) and Global North to Global South since the data for this study are gathered in Ghana.

The purpose of this paper is to examine empirical studies on public-private partnerships (PPPs) and solid waste management (SWM) in Ghana and India to synthesize the “crucial lessons” for urban managers and policy makers in developing countries.

A systematic review of empirical studies was carried out, the search process comprised four categories of keywords combined differently across three main search engines in order to obtain a pool of more relevant literature on the study. Sorting for relevance was done at various levels; retrospective content analysis of relevant empirical studies on PPP and SWM in Ghana and India was subsequently carried out to draw lessons and policy suggestions.

PPPs have mainly been impressive in coverage of waste collection in the Ghanaian context, whilst in India, emphasis has been on injection of technology and effectiveness into SWM. It is also observed that in both cases the PPP processes have lacked adequate openness, transparency and sufficient stakeholder engagement. In the Ghana cases, mostly, urban authorities hardly pay attention to details in the partnership deed and also ignore monitoring of private partners. Poorly performed PPPs do occur when one of the partners relent on his role which could have a cascading effect on other actors.

Whilst PPP is a strong candidate to address the SWM challenges of urban centers in developing countries, this does not necessarily come about by joining the bandwagon. Merely entering into a partnership deed with private waste management companies without paying due attention to details of the contract will usher urban managers into a state of schizophrenia. The paper presents five key lessons to inform policy and practice.

The paper draws lessons from multiple cases of PPPs in Ghana and India by synchronizing lessons adaptable to city authorities and policy makers in developing countries.

The significant impact of innovation in stimulating economic growth cannot be overemphasized, more importantly from policy perspective. For this reason, the relationship between innovation and economic growth in developing economies such as the ones in Africa has remained topical. Yet, innovation as a concept is multi-dimensional and cannot be measured by just one single variable. With hindsight of the traditional measures of innovation in literature, we augment it with the number of scientific journals published in the region to enrich this discourse.

We focus on an approach that explores innovation policy qualitatively from various policy documents of selected countries in the region from three policy perspectives (i.e. institutional framework, financing and diffusion and interaction). We further investigate whether innovation as perceived differently is important for economic growth in 25 economies in sub-Saharan Africa over the period 1990–2016. Instrumental variable estimation of a threshold regression is used to capture the contributions of innovation as a multi-dimensional concept on economic growth, while dealing with endogeneity between the regressors and error term.

The results from both traditional panel regressions and IV panel threshold regressions show a positive relationship between innovation and economic growth, although the impact seems negligible. Institutional quality dampens innovation among low-regime economies, and the relation is persistent regardless of when the focus is on aggregate or decomposed institutional factors. The impact of innovation on economic growth in most regressions is robust to different dimensions of innovation. Yet, the coefficients of the innovation variables in the two regimes are quite dissimilar. While most countries in the region have offered financial support in the form of budgetary allocations to strengthen institutions, barriers to the design and implementation of innovation policies may be responsible for the sluggish contribution of innovation to the growth pattern of the region.

Segregating economies of Africa into two distinct regimes based on a threshold of investment in education as a share of GDP in order to understand the relationship between innovation and economic growth is quite novel. This lends credence to the fact that innovation as a multifaceted concept does not take place by chance – it is carefully planned. We have enriched the discourse of innovation and thus helped in deepening understanding on this contentious subject.

Aquaculture insurance has the potential of redressing climate-change because it serves as an alternative source of finance in the event of unforeseen circumstances. To this end, the authors examine the prospects, determinants and profitability of aquaculture insurance among fish farmers in the Eastern region of Ghana.

A total of 140 fish farmers were sampled for the study. Thematic analysis was used to determine perceived aquaculture insurance prospects. The Heckman's two-stage model, profitability index (PI) and return on investment (ROI) was employed to respectively determine the factors influencing aquaculture insurance participation and amount intensity and the profitability of aquaculture.

The thematic analysis revealed three themes on the perception of aquaculture insurance prospects: loss recovery, farm renovation and promotes agriculture. Different sets of demographic and institutional factors have varying influences on aquaculture insurance participation and amount intensity. Profitability index (PI) and return on investment (ROI) were respectively 2.07 and 3.2%.

The research provides relevant information on perceived aquaculture insurance prospects, aquaculture insurance participation, and amount intensity and profitability of aquaculture which can contribute to enhancing aquaculture insurance and the aquaculture industry in Ghana.

Diploma Engineers (DE) mainly receive practical and skills-oriented education and training in the area of technical and vocational subjects from the polytechnic system. Globally, universities have limited DEs access to Higher Education (HE). Over the course of time, many countries have changed this situation, putting into place a decent qualification and policy framework that ensures higher education for deserving candidates. Lately, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) received special priority in developing countries, and Bangladesh is no exception to it, resulting in a massive growth of DE. This study, the first of its kind, examines the impact of this growth with a key focus on the inclusion of diploma engineers into higher education.

Given the differentiated nature of research questions, multiple techniques are used to collect the data. However, this research uses the qualitative method. Both secondary and primary data are used. While secondary data are collected by the Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (BANBEIS), primary data are collected through interviews. With standard sets of admission questions, tests are conducted with two groups of students to draw a comparison.

The number of students studying at polytechnic institutes is increasing dramatically. The growth of public polytechnic institutes remains steady. Public counterparts respond to the demand by operating both day and night shifts. Many private polytechnics are also established. The size and infrastructure of private Polytechnics are relatively insignificant. However, the mushrooming private sector covers the increased demand. The curve of DE has been increased radically with a questionable competency by the contribution of both public and private polytechnics. Only one public university provides higher education to these DE.

A few reports have been published in the area of TVET by the development partners and the Government of Bangladesh. Only one journal article is published exploring the role of TVET on national development in Bangladesh. However, none cover the issue of access to university education for DE graduates.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of school attendance on learning and child labour in Ghana.

The paper uses a nationally representative sample of household and individual data in 2005/06 and 2011/12 for the analysis. Regression discontinuity, the capitation grant in 2005 as exogenous, is used to estimate the impact of school attendance on child labour and learning outcomes.

The study found that children who were exposed to the capitation grant spent more hours in school and were more likely to enrol in primary school. School attendance was found to increase the likelihood to read and write a standardised test in English. Also, the improvement in children’s school attendance was found to enhance the likelihood of performing a written calculation. The authors could not find any evidence that school attendance affected child labour.

This research is the first causality analysis in sub-Saharan Africa that uses a nationally representative dataset to study the impact of school attendance on child labour and learning outcomes using a regression discontinuity estimator to deal with endogeneity issues.

This paper seeks to examine the prospects and constraints of implementing food banking in the in Kumasi Metropolis in Ghana.

Multistage sampling technique was used to select 385 respondents for the study. Descriptive statistics were used to present prospects of food banking. The probit regression model was used to analyse factors influencing food banking implementation whereas Kendall's coefficient of concordance was used to analyse constraints in implementing food banking.

Addressing food poverty, helping to provide food aid to respondents in times of pandemics (such as Covid 19) and also helping in reducing food wastage were the most notable prospects of food banking. Age, household size, food bank awareness and food poverty had a significant positive influence on food banking implementation, whereas residential status and employment status had a significant negative influence on food banking implementation. The most pressing constraint in implementing food banking is funding and support with the mean rank of 3.03 whiles the least pressing constraint is improper documentation of potential beneficiaries with the mean rank of 6.72.

This study provides empirical contributions and practical implications for implementing food banks in Ghana. Thus, the government of Ghana through the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) can enact policies that can help prevent food losses and wastage. In this vain, food which could have been wasted would be redirected to food banks. This can serve as a tool for social intervention, poverty alleviation and prevention of hunger among the vulnerable in Ghana.

Despite several studies on food banking in affluent countries, food banking research in developing countries such as Ghana remains scanty. Thus, this paper makes significant contributions to the literature on prospects and constraints in implementing food banking and the factors influencing food banking implementation.

Extreme weather events are on the rise around the globe. Nevertheless, it is unclear how these extreme weather events have impacted the supply chain sustainability (SCS) framework. To this end, this paper aims to identify and analyze the aspects and criteria to enable manufacturing firms to navigate shifts toward SCS under extreme weather events.

The Best-Worst Method is deployed and extended with the entropy concept to obtain the degree of significance of the identified framework of aspects and criteria for SCS in the context of extreme weather events through the lens of managers in the manufacturing firms of a developing country-Nigeria.

The results show that extreme weather preparedness and economic aspects take center stage and are most critical for overcoming the risk of unsustainable patterns within manufacturing supply chains under extreme weather events in developing country.

This study advances the body of knowledge by identifying how extreme weather events have become a significant moderator of the SCS framework in manufacturing firms. This research will assist decision-makers in the manufacturing sector to position viable niche regimes to achieve SCS in the context of extreme weather events for expected performance gains.