Economic Development and Mass Poverty in Africa: Assessment of the Nigerian Experience

The forces surrounding the emerging economies of underdeveloped world, especially Africa has practically stifled its economic progress, growth, development and sustainability. This economic condition brings to the fore the massive onslaught of rural/urban poverty which the African continent grapples with since the post-world war II era to date. The economic misfortunes and incidence of mass poverty in Africa, vis-à-vis Nigeria is used as a point of departure in this study. The paper underscores the ideological and philosophical undertone of international capital manifesting in form of colonialism and imperialism as a major character in the historical process of underdevelopment and mass poverty in peripheral states of Africa, Asia and Latin America, respectively. Of particular interest in this study is the activities of domestic bourgeoisie elite class who have vigorously displayed some degree of lack of much needed vision and abject lack of desires to draw up workable plans to redeem the battered image of African/ Nigerian economic misfortunes. This state of affairs has practically engendered economic underdevelopment, misery and disturbing levels of poverty in the nation-state system. The paper concludes with the forward towards realizing the vision 20-20-20 objectives in the 21t century and beyond.

Towards a Better Modelling and Assessment of Construction Risk: Insights from a Literature Review

This paper reviews the literature of construction risk modelling and assessment. It also reviews the real practice of risk assessment. The review resulted in significant results, summarised as follows. There has been a major shift in risk perception from an estimation variance into a project attribute. Although the Probability–Impact risk model is prevailing, substantial efforts are being put to improving it reflecting the increasing complexity of construction projects. The literature lacks a comprehensive assessment approach capable of capturing risk impact on different project objectives. Obtaining a realistic project risk level demands an effective mechanism for aggregating individual risk assessments. The various assessment tools suffer from low take-up; professionals typically rely on their experience. It is concluded that a simple analytical tool that uses risk cost as a common scale and utilises professional experience could be a viable option to facilitate closing the gap between theory and practice of risk assessment.