Port Adaptation and Efficiency: An Empirical Study of Ghanaian Ports

The port being an economical leg of countries development and thereby affected by climate change creates a substantial cost to the various stakeholders since is described as a “business” hub. It is, therefore, essential that ports across the globe attribute much importance to climate adaptation and its relation to port efficiency, especially for the coming years. The need to establish the effect these variables have on each other has become paramount. For this study, an empirical analysis of Ghanaian ports is being reviewed for the past and future annual efficiencies and adaptation scores. The annual efficiencies of both ports are calculated using various variables as inputs and outputs with the DEA Frontier software to calculate the DEA-CCR of the study ports. To assess the adaptation scores of each port, questionnaires and interviews were conducted based on four (4) major factors that affect port adaptation. This research also employs the linear mixed model and one-way ANOVA to assess the means of the data groups obtained for 2009-2020 & 2021-2040 respectively. This research aimed to analyse the significant relationship between port adaptation and efficiency for past and future years while highlighting the adaptative strategies of Ghanaian ports. The concluding chapters of this research represent the data analysis, policy recommendation for the stakeholders of Ghanaian ports, and also recommendations that are deemed useful for further research.

Innovation Competencies and Sustainability: A Proposed Model for Project Team Members

Acquiring the right innovation competencies can lead to a successful implementation of sustainability projects. Hence, the purpose of this study is to identify the innovation competencies required by project team members to adopt and implement innovation effectively in sustainability projects. To achieve this target, a comprehensive literature review has been performed to build a model that integrates innovation competencies of project team members with the successful achievement of substantiality projects. In specific, these innovation competencies are leadership, communication, teamwork, creativity, and commitment of project team members. The paper also reveals that a successful implementation of innovation in sustainability projects leads to economic growth, environmental protection, and social equity as main outcomes. Accordingly, this research proposes a model that presents the associations between project team members’ innovation competencies and the implementation of sustainability projects (considering the three pillars of sustainability that are economic growth, environmental protection, and social equity). As a result, the project team members, who acquire the required innovation competencies, have the capability to implement sustainability projects, successfully.

The Regional Uneven Development and the State Intervention to Reshape the Spatial Hierarchy

The central question in this study concerns the way in which the state intervention is strong enough to reverse the tide of regional uneven development that has been intentionally created by the state. To answer the question, we conduct a case study of the Innovation Cities in South Korea. We use the K-means Cluster Analysis and a Two-way Analysis of Variance with well-defined three indices on regional economic competitiveness. The results reveal that the development of Innovation Cities does not have a desirable impact on converging the regional disparity between core and periphery regions. At best, the regional gap has not widened. The outcomes also imply that the trickle-down effects have not been observed during the time-period of study. The findings suggest that policymakers carefully consider diverse full-factors toward periphery regions with consideration of the regional heterogeneity rather than focusing on the homogeneous approach.

Cost-Benefit Implications in the Emerging Electronic Banking Space in Nigerian Financial Sector

The paper evaluated the cost-benefit implications in the emerging electronic banking space in Nigerian financial sector. Data were collected from CBN statistical bulletin and NDIC annual report. Twenty one (21) banks operating in Nigeria constitutes the population of the study and sample size of twelve (14) years was selected through purposive sample method. Auto-Regressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) was used to analyze the data after stationarizing it through Augumented Dicky Fuller (ADF) unit root test. The findings show that ATM, POS and MB have no significant effect while WIT has negative significant on banks’ profit. The findings further reveal that the combination of these variables has positive and significant effect on banks’ profit. We therefore recommend that banks should fully utilize the benefits provided through electronic banking by ensuring that more ATM terminals are provided in order to reduce crowd. Professionals that can constantly put the machine in order should be emlpoyed and there should be constant money in the machine to enable the banks make more profits and serve the people better at all times. POS should be made available to the users and at a reduced cost without hidden charges to enable people of different categories have access to them. This will help to generate revenue to the banks and reduce their cost of transaction etc.

Housing Affordability: Factors Influencing Housing in the Tamale Metropolis of Ghana

Housing is considered a basic human need. Yet deficit housing supply plagues Ghana. Studies on housing concentrate mainly on offering accommodation that neglects the problem of its affordability. As a result, this study examines factors influencing housing affordability using the Tamale Metropolis as a case study. Using stratified random sampling methodology, 271 renters and homeowners was chosen. Data analysis utilized descriptive statistics. The study showed inflation, rapid urbanization, and building material costs were the dominant factors that influence housing affordability. Rent was also found to be relatively affordable for all categories of housing units. Furthermore, it emerged that the efforts of homeowners, the private sector developers, and the state in the provision of housing were insufficient in providing affordable housing. Consequently, tenants are forced to invest over longer years for constructing or buying a home. The private sector should use less-cost building materials in its projects to provide housing for rent and/or sale, and still present minimum quality standards. It will mean that construction costs will not be too high to justify a high rent once the building is completed. Rent will be on the low side when this happens so tenants can afford to. Equally, it is precarious that the government joins forces with the private estate developers to put up flats at reasonable prices using cheap local building materials.

Resource Use Efficiency in Maize Production by Small-Scale Farmers in Two Districts of Mwanza Region, Tanzania

This study investigates the resource use efficiency in the production of maize by small-scale farmers in Mwanza region. Specifically, the study seeks to determine what the resources that farmers use in maize production and also seeks to determine the challenges that farmers face in maize production in the study area. This study was conducted in two districts of Mwanza region. In each of the district, the study sampled three wards and randomly selected twelve small-scale farmers from each of the three wards selected. In total 72 small-scale farmers were selected from whom the data was collected. A Cobb-Douglas production function was used to fit and analyse the data for its good fit. The R² was 0.77, indicating that 77 percent of the variation in dependent variable was explained by the independent variables of the model. The use of inputs in the production of maize was noted to be increasing returns to scale. The results indicated that variables land (X1), labour (X2), age (X6), and experience (X8) were all positive and significant at the 1% while soil preparation (X4) variable was negative but significant at the 5%. The major constraints to maize production included lack of fertilizer (manure), finance (capital) and access to land. The study concluded that more exposure of small-scale farmers to frequent extension services is important to assist them to produce efficiently.

Urban Spatial Expansion, Urban Compactness, and Average Travel Demand in the US Urbanized Areas

This paper examines the impact of a wide variety of factors on spatial size, spatial compactness measured by population density, and average travel demand measured by daily vehicle miles traveled per capita. The simultaneous equation regression results indicate real average household income has a positive impact on spatial size and average travel demand while a negative impact on urban spatial compactness. Transportation cost measured by fuel cost per mile has a negative impact on spatial size while a positive impact on urban spatial compactness. Among the land use policy tools, urban growth boundary has a positive impact on urban compactness while minimum lot size has a positive impact on urban spatial size.

Dwindling Academic Performance of Secondary School Students in Enugu State Nigeria: Diagnosing Teacher-Student Relationship for Therapy

One of the purest, deeply and inspirational relationships is that of a devoted teacher and willing students. Almost everyone has a favorite and those we liked less, it totally depends on how the student-teacher relationship were developed, nurtured and given space to evolve. Currently the academic performance of students in secondary schools has dropped inexorably across the Country. Enugu State not excluded. The study therefore examined the effect of teacher-students relationship on the academic performance of senior secondary school students in selected secondary schools of Enugu State. It is a descriptive study. Four research questions were raised to guide the study. The tools used to elicit data from respondents were questionnaire, face to face interview, observation and focus group discussion guide. The data collected were analyzed using mean. The population of the study is 1520 comprising teachers, principals and students in the three selected secondary schools in Aninri Local Government Area. Taro Yamani sample selection formula was used to select a sample size of seven hundred and sixty respondents. The findings revealed that teacher-student relation affects positively or adversely academic performance of students, teacher-student relation is bedeviled by challenges and there are strategies which should be adopted to strengthen teacher-student relation. Based on these findings, appropriate recommendations such as supervision of instruction, workshop and advocacy were among the measures proffered.

Modeling the Cost of Technology Transfer and Economic Growth in Nigeria

This research studies the effects of wireless mobile phone technology on technology transfer and economic growth, and its distributional consequence in Nigeria. After deregulation of telecom industry, wireless technology has become widely available in Nigeria The current study argues that the availability of wireless technology helps to reduce the cost of learning and implementing world technology frontier and thus that it promotes smoother transfer of technology from technologically-advanced countries to Nigeria and brings significant growth in the economy. Using a multi-sector Schumpeterian growth model, thus, it explains the relationship between the cost of technology transfer and economic growth. The model generates two equilibria where the low equilibrium has zero growth. This study shows that a group with low cost of technology transfer is likely to achieve the high growth equilibrium while a group with high cost of technology transfer is likely to achieve the low growth equilibrium. Using the industry-level and the state-level data, the study found that the availability of wireless technology increased transfer of technology measured by the volume of imports and spurred growth in Nigeria. Moreover, the research found that the benefit of the wireless technology is greater for lower income groups and thus the technology helped to reduce distributional inequality of economic benefit.

Anthropogenic Impacts on Land Use and Land Cover Change in Ombeyi wetland, Kisumu County, Kenya

Land use and land cover change as a result of human-induced transitions is a major environmental challenge in Lake Victoria Basin. The study adopted a mixed-method consisting of remote sensing and GIS-based analysis, key informant interviews, and household survey consisting of 384 households to asses Land Use and Land Cover Dynamics and associated human-induced transformations in Ombeyi wetland. The study aimed at generating a characterized area estimate of Ombeyi wetlands land use and land cover change schema for the study period (1990-2017), and examining the spatial and temporal characteristics of anthropogenic impacts and their relationship with land use and land cover change in Ombeyi wetland. The gis-based analysis revealed that built-up area/settlements and agricultural lands extensively increased in area at the expense of wetland vegetation. Key informants attributed the changes to population increase (29.2%) and an associated demand for land and natural resources as the major driving forces for the changes. Analysis of household-survey results validated the observed patterns during the remotely sensed data analysis phase of the research, as 90.1% (n=384) of the respondents reported to own land within the wetland through inheritance. 92.2% of the respondents are farmers practicing farming in the wetland with 72.4% of the same respondents attaining primary level education and below. Poverty and education levels were significant factors in influencing unsustainable land use and land cover changes observed in this study. The present state of land cover and its dynamics have had negative impacts on the riparian rural livelihoods and natural resource management.