Introduction: Caring to Survive

If the liberal subject was a rational, sovereign, self-directed entity who believed in progress and saw freedom and equality as achievable goals, the neoliberal subject is a more fully atomized personage-anti-democratic and anti-statist to a fault, committed to individual rather than social change (see Gibson 39-42). The end point is a reconception of a human being as "human capital," as a living storehouse of knowledge, skills, abilities, and degrees of proficiency, ready to be tapped. Acts of care carry in their wake an ethos that raises vulnerability over mastery, democratic sociality over authoritarian coercion, and what Nancy Fraser calls "affective labor" (99) over more tangible and quantifiable forms of wage labor. Because care (mostly) happens outside the market, it is a relational activity and hence at odds with the would-be autonomous, self-governing "individual";more than this, it abjures the calculative logic of a relation of exchange, where costs, benefits and potential risks are weighed and evaluated. Caring with others is, on the one hand, necessary for any kind of social change;it is also, on the other, bound up with caring about something beyond one's own well-being and, in some instances, caringfor those most affected by intolerable states of affairs.

Proposed resilience strategy for higher education institutions post COVID-19

To quickly cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, universities shifted to complete remote delivery. Remote learning is the area of education that concentrates on technology and methods of teaching aimed at delivering to students who are not physically present on individualised bases. This type of delivery is of advantage, when planned. The technology and capabilities to provide comprehensive remote delivery for some degrees do not exist at present time. This article proposes an outline for the required elements of an effective instructional delivery framework that will enable higher-education institutions to meet standards, maintain pedagogical flexibility and to assure quality of the learning outcome of their remote and blended delivery. The above will take place within an overall conceptual design that is capable of effectively handling the new environmental challenges and therefore, will lead to a quality instructional delivery system that can be used in iterative cycles of faculty use and feedback. © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Politics, power and social differentiation in African agricultural value chains: the effects of COVID-19

Since the structural adjustment policies of the 1980s, policymaking at a national and continental level has increasingly turned to agricultural commercialisation as the foundation for Africa's long-term nutrition and food security. However, socio-economic inequalities, land tenure and food insecurity, as well as livelihood and income precarities remain widespread challenges. The effects of shocks, such as COVID-19, have overlaid emergent and entrenched patterns of social differentiation that shape access to resources, markets, and other opportunities for those involved in commercial agriculture. This paper considered the impacts of COVID-19 on value chains in Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe, to ask: (1) What can political settlements analyses tell us about agricultural value chains and responses to COVID-19 in the countries studied? (2) How are structures and power relations throughout the value chains and actors' responses to COVID-19 related to social differentiation in the context of African agriculture?

Comparing disciplinary engagement in global health research across the social sciences

Objectives What did social science disciplines contribute to the study of global health before the coronavirus pandemic? This article compares the contributions of four major social science disciplines-anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology-to the study of global health. Methods We assessed disciplinary contributions through analysis of Web of Science;disciplinary annual reviews;and each discipline's top two general focus journals, complemented by literature reviews. Results Of the four disciplines, anthropology and economics have contributed relatively more in quantitative terms, although qualitative contributions have been refracted through the larger histories, methods, and theoretical concerns. Although interest in global health research has grown across the disciplines, only in anthropology has it achieved a measure of prominence in top journals. Conclusion Cross-disciplinary comparison draws out how each discipline approaches global health;which topics it studies;and the topic's centrality/marginality within the broader disciplines.

Economic reforms and economic growth in Nigeria: A Chow test approch

The study examined the impact of economic reform programmes on economic growth in Nigeria for the period 1980 – 2016. This period was selected since it covered the period of three main economic reform programme in Nigeria history. The reform programmes during the period were the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) of 1986, The National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) of 2004 and the transformation agenda of 2011. A combination of co-integration and error correction modelling techniques and the chow breakpoint test were employed. In the estimation of the specified model, dummy variables were constructed to capture economic reform programmes. The chow test was adopted to confirm the findings from the error correction representation by checking for structural brakes the growth function. The empirical result shows that economic reforms on the aggregate have positive and statistically significant long run impact on economic growth in Nigeria. However, in the short run the impact was negative. This suggest that economic reform had a J curve effect on economic growth in Nigeria. The J curve effect occur when a policy or programme have adverse effect in period immediately after its implementation. However, the effect reverse in the long run and become positive. For the individual reform programme, the structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) of 1986 didn’t enhance economic growth in Nigeria. It even retarded economic growth with its negative coefficient. The National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) of 2004 and the transformation agenda of 2011 stimulated economic growth in Nigeria. This propelled the Nigeria economy to become the biggest economy in 2013 overtaking South Africa. Generally, the economic growth stimulated by economic reforms did not transform into economic development as the poverty level is still high, unemployment rate and other social indicator have negative trend. This could be as a result of abandonment of economic reforms following changes in political leadership of the country. This study therefore recommend the need to go back to government deliberate home grown economic reform programme to lunch the country back of a steady growth path which with the mind of attacking the poverty problem in Nigeria particularly as we approach the post covid-19 economic policy.

Global Health, Covid-19 and the State in East Africa *

What have been the implications of COVID-19 for states in Africa? Has the pandemic accelerated the shift from US-led health governance in a unipolar world to one where the rise of China is increasing the scope for action of global south states? Has it added to the influence of multilateral institutions, most notably the WHO and the African Union? Internally, have states capitalised on COVID-19 to undermine the constitutional orders put in place with the 'refoundation' of many African states in the period since the end of the Cold War? Can we draw larger conclusions regarding the capacity and effectiveness of African states internally and externally? These questions are addressed in the present article, focusing on developments in three East African countries: Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Pathology of the Economic and Political Architecture in Cameroon.

This article examines the factors restricting an effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Cameroon. It argues that structural adjustment policies in the 1980s and 1990s as well as corruption and limited investment in recent times have severely weakened the country's health system. This article also emphasises the interconnection between poverty, slums, and COVID-19. This interconnection brings to the fore inequality in Cameroon. Arguably, this inequality could facilitate the spread of COVID-19 in the country. This article draws attention to the political forces shaping the response to the pandemic and contends that in some regions in the country, the lack of an effective response to the pandemic may not necessarily be due to a lack of resources. In so doing, it critiques the COVID-19 orthodoxy that focuses exclusively on the pathology of the disease and advocates "technical" solutions to the pandemic, while ignoring the political and socio-economic forces that shape the fight against the pandemic. At times, medical supplies and other forms of assistance may be available, but structural violence impairs access to these resources. Politics must be brought into the COVID-19 discourse, as it shapes the response to the pandemic.