Governance quality, remittances and their implications for food and nutrition security in Sub-Saharan Africa

• Published in: World development 2020-03, Vol.127, p.104752, Article 104752
• Main Authors: Ogunniyi, Adebayo Isaiah, Mavrotas, George, Olagunju, Kehinde Oluseyi, Fadare, Olusegun, Adedoyin, Rufai
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adequacy; Averages; Control stability; Corruption; Diet; Empirical analysis; Energy; Food; Food and nutrition security; Food production; Food security; Food supply; GMM estimator; Governance; Governance quality; Heterogeneity; Hunger; Insecurity; Malnutrition; Migration; Nutrition; Panel data; Political factors; Politics; Production; Remittances; Rule of law; Security; SSA
• ISSN: 0305-750X; 1873-5991
• DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.104752

•We examine the growth effects of remittances and quality of governance on food and nutrition security using panel data.•Dynamic two-step system GMM approach is employed to account for unobserved heterogeneity and potential endogeneity.•The interaction of remittances and the composite index of governance quality exerts positive effects on food and nutrition security.•The contribution of control over corruption score is relatively the largest as compared to other components of governance.•The findings shed more light on the important impact governance quality and remittances may have on food and nutrition security. Despite impressive progress in the fight against malnutrition and hunger in recent years, food and nutrition insecurity remains a major concern in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries. In this study, we employ a panel data covering 15 SSA countries from 1996 to 2015 to investigate the growth effects of remittances and quality of governance on food and nutrition security, proxied by the average value of food production and the average dietary energy supply adequacy, respectively. We use a dynamic empirical model based on system GMM to control for unobserved heterogeneity and potential endogeneity of the explanatory variables. The empirical results emanating from our analysis show that the interaction of remittances and the composite index of governance quality exerts positive and significant effects on the average value of food production, and also contributes to the improvement of average dietary energy supply adequacy in SSA. In addition, the control of corruption, government effectiveness, political stability and rule of law scores increase both measures of food and nutrition security. Albeit, the contribution of control over corruption score is relatively the largest as compared to other indicators of governance.