Recent achievements of robust economic growth accompanied by increasing rates of unemployment present an uncharted paradigm in the history of the Nigerian economy. Despite economic growth averaging 7 percent during 2004-2012, unemployment rose from 13.4 percent to 27.4 percent. In particular, youth unemployment rose from 29 percent to over 40 percent.

The experience becomes more paradoxical when the drivers of recent growth are brought under consideration. Over the period, non-oil sectors that are considered natural job creators – agriculture, commerce and distribution, and communications sectors – account for more than 80 percent of economic growth. While the increasing unemployment rate is in part due to expansion of the labor force due to influx of new entrants, it is more significantly a result of failure of economic growth to create substantial employment. At other times, especially during the financial crisis, economic growth was accompanied by net job destruction.

This paradox puts a dent to credibility of the “growth will create labour demand” hypothesis that has been the key doctrine of the Bretton Woods institution for decades, and has led to suggestions for rethinking labor market strategies. Realization of the need for growth to create employment and reduce poverty had given birth to the increasingly popular qualification of economic growth in terms of “inclusiveness” and “pro-poorness” in development circles. Indeed, there is a renewed emphasis on promoting growth in sectors with high rates of labor absorption, with the idea that expansion of those sectors will result in increased demand for labour, and as a consequence, increased employment rates.

The link between poverty reduction and growth has for some time been the focus of numerous empirical studies on growth. Recent studies show that the responsiveness of poverty to economic growth varies significantly both within and between countries and that growth alone is not sufficient for poverty reduction. For example, Klasen and Misselhorn (2008) found that a one-percent increase in economic growth will cause headcount poverty to reduce by 16.7 percent in Slovakia, 6.5 percent in Latvia, 2.1 percent in Brazil, 0.54 percent in Zambia and in China, 2.8 percent in the urban sector and 1.44 percent in the rural sector.  There is a renewed effort to understand the intervening factors between poverty and growth given the recent strong growth witnessed in several countries. This effort is particularly more pronounced in sub-Saharan Africa where growth and poverty have almost kept pace with each other.

This paper examines the bilateral trade relationship between Nigeria andPoland for the period 1995 to 2012. It uses the Decision Support Model (DSM)and the Growth Identification and Facilitation Framework (GIFF) to identifymarket for Nigerian exports in Poland.

The green economy agenda promoted as part of the Rio+20 policy framework is indeed important to Africa for many reasons. With favorable national policies and institutions in place, the opportunities offered by a global green economy can enhance economic growth and contribute significantly to national environmental and development objectives. In fact, green economy may be a panacea to the major development challenges presently facing the continent in areas of climate change and poverty as there is a consensus that climate change represents the greatest threat to national and international efforts towards poverty reduction in Africa. Further benefits of green economy includes; provision of pathway to sustainable economic growth and employment creation, expansion of volume and value of exports from agriculture sector, and diversification of the African economies away from natural resources, among others. However, the extent to which African countries can successful transit to a green economy will depend on their level of human and capital investment, access to technologies, and institutional capacities.

The transition to a green economy is not hitch-free as it involves certain risks and costs that always accompany such paradigm shift. For instance, green economy will require outright changes in the production processes in developing economies away from the use of non-renewable and environmentally unfriendly resources to more sustainable ones, say replacing fossil fuel with renewable energy in power generation. Unfortunately, these economies have comparative disadvantages in terms of technical and human capital in the sectors that promote sustainable development. There are also other concerns on the likely tradeoff between national development plan and industrialization programs and the tenets of green economy, the effects on the tense North-South trade and the policies, global inequality and several other issues.