In many countries, myriad policy efforts and initiatives have been launched toward achieving the goal of Education for All. These include: grass-roots lobbying for the importance of schooling, political declarations for universal access to education, introduction of school fees abolition initiatives, and/or pro-poor education financing frameworks, among others (UNICEF, 2018, p.2). Despite these efforts, too many children are still excluded from schooling. One of the most recent statistics on out-of-school children and youth (OOSCY) shows that globally, 258  million children and youth are excluded from education, 59.1 million of which are of primary school age, 61.5 million of lower secondary school age, and 137.8  million of upper secondary age (UIS, 2019). Half of the world’s OOSCY population are concentrated in fourteen countries alone, nine of which are in sub-Saharan Africa and of which five are from West Africa including: Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire (Milan & Nicholas, 2015). Nigeria ranks highest among these five in terms of its number of out-of-school children, currently reaching up to 10.5 million.

There is an increasing level of attention and growing conversations at the national, regional and global levels, around the imperative for a more effective set of rules and regulations to guide the use and sharing of online data and digital footprints of individuals, firms and governments. The rationale is that a framework of policies and strategies is essential to address the inherent risks emerging from the recent data revolution. Emerging threats range from abuse and misuse of technologies and new communication media, lack of accountability from digital platform firms at the core of the data ecosystem, national security concerns, cyber crime, and user privacy issues. Such policies are intended to make digital platform firms accountable for how data is collected and used to generate insights, stored, shared and protected in order to engender trust in the data ecosystem.
In recognizing the importance of data governance, a grave challenge lies in determining the most appropriate approach to adopt, bearing in mind that the goal is not to “over regulate” which could stifle innovation, nor abuse governmental powers on these issues. Several approaches and frameworks for data governance are emerging in this respect on the African continent.

Agriculture has been an integral part of the human society, the most persisting productive human engagement across times and space. Globally, about 5 billion hectares are classified as agricultural land (comprising native as well as cultivated pasture). Of this figure, 25 percent is accounted for by the industrialized countries, an amount that at the global scale, has only little scope for expansion. Conversely, South, East and Southeast Asia account for only about 20 percent of the global agricultural land, while Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for about 18 percent. Global agricultural population is also reported to stand at around 2.6 billion people. In Africa, particularly, no less than half of the continent’s labour force is employed under agriculture, all pointing to the significance of agriculture as a sector in the human productive business and general development. Sadly, despite its contribution to the continent's development, agriculture in Africa suffers from a severe funding deficiency.

The Covid-19 pandemic occurred at a time when sovereign debt had already increased substantially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Between 2010-2017, government debt as a share of GDP averaged 34.5% in SSA but increased significantly to 51.5% in 2019 (IMF 2021a, p. 25). Similarly, in SSA, official external debt as a share of GDP averaged about 15% between 2010-2017 but rose substantially to 23.6% in 2019 (IMF 2021a, p. 27). One main reason behind these accumulated debt levels was a shift in the debt structure from concessional towards more non-concessional financing with relatively higher interest rates. Increased debt ser-vice payments diminished fiscal space in most SSA countries. Moreover, non-concessional financing includes private credit, such as Eurobond issuance. Another reason is the growing momentum to close the continent’s infrastructure deficit, which the African Development Bank (AfDB) has estimated will cost about US$130 to US$170 billion annually (AfDB 2019).

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The COVID-19 pandemic has had severe impacts on the macroeconomy and the livelihoods of households globally. The restrictions to movement alongside the associated uncertainty stimulated a sudden decline in the demand for commodities and disrupted production, leading to the underutilisation of capital and labour. More specifically, as governments sought to curb the spread of the virus by implementing workplace and school closures, and encouraging social-distancing practices, these policies led to a significant impact on all economies. A recent study on the impact of COVID-19 on gross domestic product (GDP) and trade finds that the pandemic caused a 2% decline in global GDP, a 2.5% decline in the GDP for developing countries, and a 1.8% for industrialised countries.

For Nigeria, which saw its first case in February 2020, the economic contraction was severe and sustained leading to a recession in the third quarter of 2020. The economic contraction is the result of the adoption of lockdown measures – which had an impact on nearly all sectors of the economy – along with the pandemic’s impact on partner economies engaged in international trade and those providing foreign investment. Meanwhile, the income of the majority of citizens has been affected, because a large share of informal workers has no recourse to unemployment insurance or paid leave of absence.

This article was first published on SAIIA