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Entrepreneurship development in Nigeria requires the adoption and assimilation of enterprise development models from nations with replicable success stories. Technology incubation centre (TIC) is one of the potent mechanisms that launched the “BRIC nations” – Brazil, Russia, India and China – to global prominence as the five biggest emerging economies. This paper attempts to unveil the potentials of TICs as novel tools for entrepreneurship development and actualisation of the Vision 20:2020 in Nigeria.

The authors adopt analytical and discursive approaches using qualitative and quantitative data sourced from Industrial policy documents, Goldman Sachs report, online databases of government agencies, Vision 20:2020 policy document and published articles on the subject matter. The generated data were subjected to content and thematic analyses, on the basis of which relevant conclusions were drawn.

The findings from the research indicate that there are 37 TICs in Nigeria with very weak socio-economic impact on job creation, wealth creation and industrial development in Nigeria. However, for the BRIC nations, adopted as comparative models, TICs have impacted positively on job creation, wealth creation and economic development of the five nations.

The paper is essentially discursive and subjective. Further research on this subject matter should explore empirical analysis for an objective assessment of the situation.

This paper underscores the need for harmonisation of policy objectives with policy implementation. At present, there are gaps between TIC policy objectives and woeful performance of the 37 TICs in Nigeria.

For Nigeria, to enhance job creation, wealth creation and economic development in the society, there is the need for functional TICs at local, institutional, regional, state and national levels.

The paper unveils the gap between economic theory and practical model implementation in developing economy (Nigeria). It is a major contribution to the functionalist and structuralist debates on why policies fail.

This paper systematically reviewed the contributions of the recent Nigerian government agricultural policies and the impacts on the agricultural value chain system in line with the structural transformation of the sector and the Nigeria's vision 20:2020. The study also suggest strategies to upgrading various segments of the agricultural value chain and argue that Nigeria's agricultural sector requires huge investments and innovative ideas to increase production and create value addition across the most profitable areas of the value chain.

The authors systematically present evidences and data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (the apex monetary authority of Nigeria) and Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (oversees and publishes statistics for Nigeria) to estimate the impact of Government agricultural policies on the value chains system.

The study discovers that the various recent government policy interventions to tackle the austere challenges in the agricultural sector are yet to yield much significant solution. Given to the dwindling performance of the sector, the Nigerian agricultural value chain is somewhat affected with systemic and services gaps which underpin the market failures (missing markets and weak markets), although the agricultural value chain has the potential of triggering economic growth in a higher scale with a trickle-down effect to other sectors of the Nigerian economy.

Overall, the findings indicate strategies to upgrading the production and processing segments of the agricultural value chain and argues that Nigeria's agricultural sector requires huge investments and innovative ideas to increase production and create value addition across the most profitable areas of the value chain.

The study proves that enhancing value addition in the agricultural sector is imperative to achieving triple-benefits of increasing productivity by building resilient systems that leverage on finance opportunities, deepening economic inclusive growth and achieving great milestones.

This study is the first attempt to focus on agricultural value chain system in line with the structural transformation and the Nigeria's vision 20:2020.

Discourses on emerging markets have gained momentum in the literature as companies in slow‐growing developed economies are intensifying their entrepreneurship and search for new growth opportunities in emerging economies. Emerging markets are countries that are restructuring their economies along market‐oriented lines and offer a wealth of opportunities in trade, technology transfers and foreign direct investment (FDI). They serve as regional economic powerhouse, reminiscent of transitional societies undertaking political and economic reform, fast growing outward‐oriented economies with efficient production for the domestic and export markets, political economy oriented towards entrepreneurship and free enterprise, market transparency, among others. After decades of economic turmoil, many African countries have started to make steady progress towards creating market‐enabling institution. Based on a synthesis from the literature and using Nigeria as a context, this review paper argues that Nigeria has fallen short of most of the fundamental characteristics necessary to transition to an emerging economy categorization. This means that Nigeria is weakly adapted to the changed view of market‐led development. Although the country is considered a regional economic powerhouse, she is only listed as a “Frontier country” because of weak critical institutional characteristics, more evident in areas such as infrastructural development; privatization of state owned enterprises (SOEs); outward orientation; political and economic reforms and market transparency. The paper concludes, by arguing that for Nigeria to ascend a higher grade in the emerging market taxonomy, some important institutional refinements are necessary. These include: macro‐economic reform and development to drive exports; improved infrastructure, especially power supply; serious political reforms to ensure credible political leadership; and disciplined and ethical revolution to ensure credible corporate governance in both the private and public sectors of the economy.

Nigeria has set up an e‐government initiative termed the “National e‐Government Strategy” (NeGSt) for the purpose of using ICT infrastructure to enhance public services. It was expected that e‐government would enable the Nigerian government at all levels to render efficiencies in the public sector, ensure higher productivity and economic growth, foster national competitiveness and lead to the attainment of the vision 20‐2020. Regrettably, the e‐services envisaged seem not to be impacting much on public service delivery in the country. The aim of this paper is to examine the benefits and the status of e‐government in Nigeria, the barriers to the accomplishment of the goal, and some ways out.

A total of ten federal government ministries in Nigeria that have an official website were sampled. The study population was 100 randomly drawn employees in the ministries, and a structured questionnaire and oral interviews were used. Data were analyzed using frequency tables, simple percentages, and bar charts.

The study finds that e‐government would provide faster access to government information, lower administrative costs, increase transparency in government ministries, and reduce bribery and corruption, among others. These opportunities are threatened by low bandwidth and internet penetration, inadequate ICT infrastructure and technicians, incessant power outages, technological obsolescence, and other barriers. The Nigerian government should carry out a SWOT analysis of the e‐government project in the country, strengthen the e‐government infrastructure and ensure steady power supply before embarking on the e‐government project again.

This paper exposes the challenges and strategies for the e‐government initiative in Nigeria. It will help leaders to see areas of weakness and the need to re‐strategize. The paper serves as a beacon for further research and discussion on e‐government and online public services in developing countries.

This paper exposes the challenges and strategies for the e‐government initiative in Nigeria and suggests some measures for e‐government to develop and to improve.

The growing adoption of sustainable finance for inclusive agribusiness requires a cross-country comparison. In this paper, a comparative discourse of sustainable finance (SF) options for agribusiness transformation in Nigeria and Brunei is attempted; as well as examining the implications on entrepreneurship and enterprise development in both countries.

A mixed research method was adopted for this cross-country comparative analysis. To gain deeper insight into agribusiness and SF, the authors sourced the required data from scholarly articles, texts, World Bank data (2000–2016), national policy documents, working papers, national development plan reports, and other online resources on agribusiness and SF. The authors adopted mixed data (non-numeric and numeric data) because they allow for combining content analysis and secondary data in quantitative analysis (Williams and Shepherd, 2017). This mixed method approach follows a three-stage, namely: Data sourcing, Data development and conversion and Data analysis.

This discourse based on the mixed data produced four findings. Firstly, it was found that both countries have different statuses in the agribusiness sector, but Brunei had better growth performance in the crop, food, livestock, cereal production indices compared to Nigeria. Secondly, the challenges facing agribusiness in both countries include inadequate funding, misuse/mismanagement of land resources, deployment of extractive farming practices, application of ozone-depleting chemicals and pesticides among others have harmed the vegetation, the farmland, and the chemistry of the ocean resulting in low productivity. Thirdly, the SF options that are suitable for agribusiness transformation are green loans, green bonds, green credit, green investment funds, green mortgage scheme and other green financial support instruments given mostly as grants, subsidies and tax reliefs. The key guidelines for entrepreneurs seeking SF options for agribusiness are Principles 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10 of the EPs.

The main limitation of the study is that the analysis and interpretation of the findings are based on descriptive statistics. However, future research should consider using rigorous econometric tests such as the Co-Integration Test, Test of Causality and Inferential Statistics that would enhance stronger generalisation and prediction.

The practical implication is that agribusiness transformation through sustainable finance options (SFOs) would bring about a structural change from the current subsistence agricultural practices to large-scale agriculture practices characterised by the deployment of agricultural information systems (AGRIS), precision agriculture and agricultural technologies. Flowing from the first implication, the nexus between agribusiness and SFOs will systematically improve agricultural productivity in the areas of crop production, fishing, livestock and forestry in both countries. Thirdly, an improved agribusiness would boost food production and availability thereby mitigating the rising trends in food insecurity, food inflation, food poverty, and ultimately will help actualize SDG 1(No poverty), SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), and SDG 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing).

The authors contribute to the literature on SF and agribusiness in emerging economies by identifying an inclusive strategy that matters for agribusiness transformation in high-income and low-income economies.

Looking at the present Nigeria’s quest to become one of the top 20 economies of the world by the year 2020, the purpose of this paper is to propose that Nigerian public libraries, as key players in community development, should provide resources and services for the promotion of social welfare sector of the country by introducing relevant key information management and service policies. These strategic policies should include identification of various user groups, deployment of specialized information professionals, provision of adequate financial resources, social welfare information resource development planning, effective information service delivery system, partnership arrangements and adaptation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Essential to this paper is to take into account the importance and relevancy of policies, strategies and procedures of information management and services to Nigerian public libraries.

There is continuous rising concerns about the current situation of the country’s socio-economic problems and challenges. However, despite the problem of poor and inadequate ICT facilities in Nigerian public libraries, the ICT infrastructure including the internet will significantly enhance the social welfare information service process in these libraries, if fully adopted. Also very important here is that, the libraries should support community awareness programs on local radio stations or local television channels to compliment the collection of materials in the library.

Nigerian public libraries should be seen as places for all; and participants in community activities must therefore provide relevant data and information to social welfare workers for effective policy/decision making. It is also important that the libraries should help in the identification of areas of welfare that require urgent attention or thorough investigation, examination and analysis.

This paper aims to examine the prospect of utilising corporate social responsibility and entrepreneurship (CSRE) as antidotes for mitigating the incidences of poverty, insecurity and underdevelopment in Nigeria. The paper derives its theoretical foundation from the stakeholder, instrumental and legitimacy theories, which all justify the use of CSRE for actualisation of Triple Bottom Line (i.e. the social, economic and environmental concerns of business organisations).

The study used the quantitative research method relying on the use of secondary data published by institutional bodies. The quantitative method entail a systematic extraction of reliable data on corporate social responsibility (CSR), insecurity, poverty and development from the publications of Office of the Millennium Development Goals in Nigeria, CLEEN Foundation, National Bureau of Statistics and Central Bank of Nigeria, respectively. For missing years, the authors improvised using projections as well as proxies. The extracted data, which spanned a period of 13 years, were subjected to econometric tests using SPSS, on the basis of which informed conclusions were drawn.

The first econometric result indicates a negative relationship between gross domestic product and poverty. The second result indicates that there is a positive significant relationship between gross domestic product and total crime rate. The third result indicates that there exists a positive relationship between gross domestic product and unemployment rate. The fourth result indicates that there is a negative relationship between gross domestic product and industrial growth rate. The last result indicates that there is a significant positive relationship between gross domestic product and CSR.

The results of this research have macro-level application, hence the outcomes cannot be narrowed to any particular sector of the economy. A micro-level analysis across diverse sectors of the economy is recommended in future studies. The implication of this empirical research is that policymakers in the Nigerian private sector need to reinvent their CSR programmes as mechanisms for poverty eradication, entrepreneurship development (CSRE), dousing tension of restive youth, empowerment/support for security agencies for better crime prevention and for impacting on sustainable development.

In the face of dwindling financial resources in the treasury of governments, the reinvention of CSRE by private sector organisations as complementary mechanisms for combating social problems is becoming acceptable in both developed and developing nations. This paper therefore boldly recommends that policymakers reinvent CSRE as development mechanisms through a sound partnership between government, advocacy groups and business corporations in Nigeria.

The paper explicates that CSR can indeed be reinvented by corporations as part of their social concerns to their operating environment instead of leaving all social problems to governments.

The research lends credence to stakeholder, instrumental and legitimacy theories of CSR. It also justifies the plausibility of CSRE, a novel concept being promoted in this research.

Nigeria has one of the highest graduate unemployment rates in Africa, and there is no comprehensive policy framework to address it. Evidence shows that integrating craftsmanship into higher education academic programmes can enhance graduate employability. Therefore, there is a need to integrate it into the built environment programmes at institutions in Nigeria. The built environment craftmanship (BEC) in Nigeria's HEIs may have had some challenges, although studies about these challenges are scarce. In this regard, the study investigated BEC's perceived encumbrances and proffered measures to integrate craftsmanship skills in Nigerian HEIs built environment programmes.

The research adopted a qualitative research design using a virtual interview approach to solicit data from 34 experts across Nigeria. An exploratory approach was used to engage selected HEIs in Nigeria and thematic analysis was adopted to analyse the collected data, and saturation was achieved.

The study findings indicate that integrating BEC in built environment programmes will enhance graduate employment. However, possible encumbrances like institutional frameworks, funding, infrastructural development and pedagogical and social-cultural issues were found to be affecting BEC's integration into built environment programmes at higher education in Nigeria.

Future studies should explore more detailed large-scale investigations about integrating craftsmanship into higher education institution (HEI) programmes.

Given the dearth of pragmatic studies on the built environment graduates' unemployment in Nigeria, this research contributes to the academic community debates on reducing graduates' unemployment via BEC in HEIs.

This study aims to assess the current knowledge and awareness of environmental and sustainable development of Nigerian students by investigating the influence of their sociodemographics.

This study adapts the concept of using an assessment model in a bespoke application of Sulitest® and Assessment of Student Knowledge. A total of 650 undergraduate students (in the environment, engineering and agriculture programs) were administered a paper-based questionnaire from June to July 2019.

This study determined that Nigerian students performed poorly on the sustainability literacy test (SLT). Furthermore, students majoring in agriculture exhibited higher knowledge in the social and overall topics, followed by students majoring in the environmental field. From the study findings, the authors recommend that periodic assessment using SLT measures will help higher education institutions (HEIs) identify targeted sustainability programs for the development of students and educators. Hence, HEIs in Nigeria and elsewhere should use sustainability assessment tools to promote pro-environmental awareness.

The SLT is one of several options to assess sustainability knowledge in HEIs. Several HEIs across the USA and Europe have been known to adopt some SLT assessment techniques to improve environmental literacy among students. However, environmental literacy has global implications; hence, this study contributes to the limited body of literature investigating the level of environmental awareness or literacy among university students from a developing country, focusing on the three main study programs (agriculture, environment and engineering).