Eulogies as AIAE trains Journalists in Research Reporting

Friday April 30, 2010- African Institute for Applied Economics (AIAE) has been commended for organising capacity building for journalists covering commerce and industry sector of the economy.

 The Seminar held at Lagos Airport Hotel was attended by 35 journalists from both print and electronics and 10 dignitaries including members of the Organised Private Sector (OPS). Giving the commendation, the Director General of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Mr. Lawrence Adekunle described the initiative as a welcome development, saying it is a step in the right direction in the country’s quest towards achieving sustainable economic growth.

Represented by the Deputy Director General, Mr Mike Ojo, NACCIMA DG noted that the theme of the seminar, “The Role of Media in Fostering Utilization of Research in Public Policy” is “apt and appropriate given the frequent outcry from stakeholders to government for the provision of enabling environment and adequate attention to the real sector of the economy”. He pointed out that the literature had revealed the importance of carrying out evidence based research on real sector development, without which, no nation could sustain economic growth and development.

On his part, the Director General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Mr. Muda Yusuf , who was a resource person at the seminar gave the Institute a pat on the back, calling on other Institutes in the country to emulate the good gestures to the men of pen profession. The LCCI DG stressed that the Institute should be commended for generating research papers on various aspects of the Nigerian economy, saying AIAE is a great resource for the improvement of the policy process in the Nigerian economy. Mr. Yusuf advised resource Institutes to always distil resource output embedded with what he called heavy dose of mathematics and econometrics, so that it could easily be understood by stakeholders.

Earlier, the Executive Director of AIAE, Professor Eric Eboh at the Seminar, presented research output of informal sector in Nigeria, where he revealed that the study adopted both macro-economic and micro-economic analyses. Macroeconomic modelling using the multiple-indicator multiple-cause (MIMIC) model was applied to estimate the determinants and size of the informal sector in relation to the Gross Domestic Product.  He further noted that survey methodology designed to obtain data on enterprise-level characteristics, production patterns, investment practices and business conditions was applied to collect data from four thousand, four hundred and fifty five (4,455) informal sector enterprises in eleven (11) states in the South-South and South-East zones of the country.

He added that had one of the major policy recommendations of the study was that the huge size of the informal sector relative to the whole economy reduces the relevance and effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policies, due to little or no capture by formal institutions. According to him, the research recommends that, “Nigeria country should implement institutional and policy reforms aimed at encouraging formalisation of enterprises which entails removing the obstacles to formalisation and other unwholesome regulatory practices”.

The AIAE ED also disclosed that the Institute, for nearly ten years has been involved in researches that have impacted on the government policies, noting “and you know the Business Environment Across States (BECANS 1) reports launched two years ago went to places, very soon the second version of the report would be ready for launch and would be made available to the critical stakeholders of which the media is major”.   Prof Eboh urged government to put in place measures towards promoting linkages between formal and informal sectors, and   policies and legislations such as the newly enacted Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act 2010, which according to him, will “promote subcontracting and networking arrangements”