Njala University,University of Sierra Leone

Amid growing global concern over climate change, food security has become a central priority for policymakers and researchers, aligning with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 on Climate Action and SDG 2 on Zero Hunger. This research analyzes the effect of green finance, agricultural innovation, ICT, trade openness, and climate change on the multidimensional aspects of food security in 46 Sub-Saharan African countries from 2001 to 2023. Using panel data estimations including fixed effects, Method of Moments Quantile Regression, mediation analysis, Dumitrescu Hurlin causality tests, and system GMM, the study provides evidence on transmission channels. The baseline results indicate that green finance increases food and cereal production, while agricultural innovation emerges as the strongest determinant of agricultural productivity. ICT adoption and trade openness exert positive and significant effects, whereas temperature changes and natural disasters negatively affect food security outcomes. The MMQR results reveal heterogeneous effects, with green finance and innovation generating stronger marginal gains in low production countries. Extending the analysis to food availability, accessibility, utilization, and stability, the findings indicate that green finance improves cereal yield, enhances dietary energy supply adequacy, reduces undernourishment, and strengthens per capita food supply. Mediation analysis confirms that research and development, agricultural credit, farmer education, and foreign direct investment act as key transmission channels, while causality and dynamic results validate the persistence and structural nature of these interconnections. The findings underscore the importance of integrating sustainable finance, technological innovation, digitalization, and climate adaptation to achieve resilient and inclusive food security systems.

Urban agriculture plays a critical role in food provisioning and everyday survival in rapidly urbanising cities of sub-Saharan Africa. Yet the social and ethical conditions under which this food is produced remain insufficiently examined. This study investigates how gendered labour relations, decision-making, and access to resources shape urban vegetable production in post-conflict Freetown, Sierra Leone. Drawing on household surveys and semi-structured interviews with urban farming households, the study examines who performs agricultural labour, who exercises authority over production and income, and how responsibilities and benefits are distributed within households. The findings show that women contribute the majority of labour and time to vegetable production and bear primary responsibility for food preparation and household nutrition. However, this responsibility is not matched by secure access to land, credit, or institutional support. Instead, women’s labour sustains household food security under highly informal and precarious conditions, often involving children’s participation and heightened vulnerability. We argue that urban vegetable farming constitutes a paradoxical site of both survival and inequality. While it provides essential food and income, it simultaneously reproduces a persistent “responsibility–authority gap” in which women shoulder the moral and material burden of food provisioning without commensurate control or recognition. By foregrounding gendered power relations and care labour within urban food systems, this study contributes to debates on food justice, ethics, and the human values embedded in everyday agricultural practices in African cities.

The promotion of sustainable food productivity through innovative technologies remains a central priority in economic development, attracting increasing attention from scholars, policymakers, and industry stakeholders. With the continuing rise in global food demand, resource-efficient solutions are essential to ensuring long-term agricultural growth and stability in food production. This study examines the impact of green finance, agricultural innovation, digital technology, trade openness, and climate change on food production in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using the method of moments quantile regression (MMQR) and the generalised method of moments (GMM), it analyses a balanced panel dataset covering 46 SSA countries from 2001 to 2023. The findings highlight the positive influence of green finance, agricultural innovation, and digital technology in enhancing food production, particularly in lower production sectors, suggesting important bidirectional policy implications. Trade openness is found to promote agricultural growth but exhibits diminishing effects at higher levels of productivity, indicating the relevance of a unidirectional policy focus. In contrast, climate change has a negative effect on food production. The study also identifies key mediation pathways, including green finance stimulating research and development, digital technology improving agricultural credit and farmers' education, and trade openness attracting foreign direct investment. These results emphasise the importance of integrated policy frameworks that combine financial support, technological advancement, and trade openness to promote sustainable agricultural growth and strengthen food security across SSA.

This paper examines how past experience and legacies of epidemics shaped Sierra Leone's response to COVID-19 and how these influences evolved over time. COVID-19 unfolded in the wake of the West African Ebola epidemic (2013-2016), a crisis which was unprecedented in scale. Despite differing markedly in both transmission patterns and clinical outcomes, the Sierra Leonean government repeatedly invoked Ebola when responding to COVID-19, framing the new outbreak through the lens of the old. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with policymakers, response personnel, health workers, and members of the public, the paper analyses how Ebola's imprint surfaced across four domains of the COVID-19 response: public and governmental framings, the design and implementation of key control measures, disputes over incentives and hazard pay, and practices of data and testing. It shows that when confronting a new outbreak, the past manifests in diverse ways. The analysis reveals how these 'epidemic pasts' - contained in lessons, memories, legacies, and assumptions - actively constitute 'epidemic presents'; and should be understood as politically mobilised and socially contested, shaping responses in both enabling and constraining ways. As such, it is suggested that past experience has been under-explored in preparedness and response, and that formal 'lessons learned' exercises offer a limited view of how the past is relevant.

Quantifying e-waste in Sub-Saharan Africa remains constrained by scarce data, weak institutional reporting, and the dominance of informal sector activity. We present the first nationwide assessment of e-waste generation and Random Forest-based national forecasting in Sierra Leone. A mixed-methods survey administered 6000 questionnaires across all 16 districts, targeting households, institutions, enterprises, and informal actors. The study documented devices in use, storage, and disposal across the following six categories: ICT, appliances, lighting, batteries, medical, and other electronics. Population growth and device adoption simulations were combined with lifespan distributions and a Random Forest model trained on survey and simulated historical data to construct e-waste flows and forecast quantities through to 2050, including disposal fate probabilities for repurposing versus discarding. The results showed sharp spatial disparities, with Western Urban (Freetown) averaging about 10 kg per capita compared to 1.8 kg per capita in rural areas. Long-term district patterns were highly concentrated: 50-year annual averages indicated that Western Area Urban contributes 15.3% of national totals, followed by Bo (12.7%) and Western Area Rural (12.1%), with the top five districts contributing 59.1%. By 2050, total national e-waste entering reuse and disposal pathways was projected to reach 23.4 kilo tons per year (kt yr-1) with a 95% uncertainty interval (UI) of 11-42 kt yr-1 (and a 99% interval extending to 50 kt yr-1), corresponding to 0.9-3.4 kg/capita/year. Household appliances dominated total mass, ICT devices exhibited high reuse rates, and batteries showed minimal reuse despite high hazard potential. These findings provide critical evidence for e-waste policy, regulation, and infrastructure planning in data-scarce regions.