In this episode, RISE research fellow Julius Atuhurra speaks to CSEA's Director of Research, Dr. Adedeji Adeniran, about CSEA’s education research journey that has evolved from an initial focus on education financing to studying more nuanced topics, including: education system diagnosis, data quality, community engagement, policy analysis tools, and curriculum effectiveness. He highlights the need to fully grasp what transpires inside the classroom and how that is influenced by interactions happening outside the classroom. He also explains RISE Nigeria’s primary focus on demand-side actors and discusses findings from their recent study on primary-level curriculum effectiveness in Nigeria.

https://riseprogramme.org/podcast/adedeji-adeniran

In the maiden edition of 'The CSEA Podcast', Dr Adedeji Adeniran, Director of Research at CSEA, speaks on the impact of the Fuel Subsidy Removal on the Nigerian Economy.

While the Government’s response had proved effective at containing the Ebola virus just a handful of years earlier, Dr. Adeniran describes how it soon became clear that this new shock brought new challenges – as well as aggravating emerging ones.

2019 saw some of the fastest growth to the Nigerian economy since the recession of 2014/15, with growth consistently at an annualised 2% every quarter that year, sparking a sense that the country was on a path to recovery.

This optimism proved short-lived, however, when the pandemic and resulting global recession struck, exposing Nigeria’s already highly constrained fiscal space and a lack of response possibilities.

In this illuminating episode, Dr. Adeniran, describes how the limited options left to the government have acted to emphasise a trend that was already emerging within the country: the rise of a ‘new urban poor’.

Despite the promising economic growth witnessed just before the pandemic, government finances weren’t keeping up and, with a growing population, GDP per capita continued to fall, with those in the informal urban sector hit the hardest. Covid simply acted to build on this, tipping those not already classed as poor into poverty.

In this episode we find out what this all means for Nigeria’s recovery prospects, and how this is likely to play out against the backdrop of another global crisis: the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

In a country where oil still contributes more than 50% of revenue, despite accounting for less than 10% to GDP, how will the conflict’s effect on fuel prices affect the Nigerian economy? Is there scope for the Government to harness rising international demand to help redress fiscal imbalances and set the country on course for Covid recovery?

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The conversation around Data Governance continues. Dr Adedeji Adeniran, Director of Research at CSEA, shares his thoughts on maximising the potentials and limiting the risks of data governance.

In this interview, Dr Chukwuka talks about the policy space in Nigeria and the context in which think tanks operate, how the Covid-19 crisis has impacted the demand for research and knowledge, and how think tanks in the future will have to adapt to be a part of the spaces where policy conversations are happening.