Public Procurement and Child Labour in Ghana and Nigeria

‘Age is just a number’: Articulating the cultural dimension of child labour in Africa's small-scale mining sector

Background: Service delivery is the core business of any government around the world, especially in developing economies. The government uses various public procurement legislation that govern how public services are procured. The current procurement legislation to acquire goods, works and services for the public at large are said to be ineffective and inefficient, hindering the accelerated provision of public services.Aim: This article aimed to ascertain the degree to which public sector procurement processes can be modelled to that of the private sector to improve service delivery.Setting: Several studies have revealed a stagnating nature of service delivery in government entities when it comes to the methods used to procure public services in South Africa. The private sector also does procurement successfully; however, it is slightly different as it is not governed by rigid public procurement legislation causing unnecessary red tapes. The red tapes that are sometimes impeding the accelerated service delivery are a major cause for concern if the government was to improve service delivery at a faster and unhindered pace.Methods: The research was qualitative in nature and used unobtrusive research methods focusing on a literature review technique. The research entailed a robust examination of the existing literature and trends analysis in the field of public procurement and private sector procurement.Results: The article revealed that there are several shortcomings in the form of red tapes that the public sector procurement is currently experiencing, which can be mitigated by adopting some of the private sector operational processes. Of course, this might require a total overhaul of the current public procurement processes including some legislation in an attempt to boost service delivery. Such red tapes include inflexibility of government procurement processes to allow for innovations, long-term supplier relationships and effective communication on future government plans. As such, some of these red tapes have a huge impact on improving service delivery, especially if fraud and corruption are involved; some processes are counterproductive and they end up allowing inexperienced suppliers to be chosen who fail to deliver.Conclusion: Public procurement process in South Africa urgently needs an overhaul to adopt some of the best practices used in private sector procurement operations to improve service delivery. This is because most public resources do not yield value for money because of rigid and stifling public procurement processes.

tractor and the use of mechanical irrigation is increasing in the countryside. The significant policy issue is the role of government in encouraging or discouraging continued labor-saving mechanization. Present policy substantially encourages mechanization; diesel oil is available at prices considerably lower than those in many other countries; village banks provide farmers with equipment loans at rates below commercial levels; machinery is imported at favorable foreign exchange rates and is exempted from import duties. The most telling impact of these policies has been on the rapidly growing use of tractors and irrigation pumps, both of which are believed to displace labor, especially that of children. This article addresses the question of whether such changes have indeed had the desired effect on child employment and family size. Recent developments in the Egyptian agricultural sector also reveal significant changes in crop patterns. These favor fruit and vegeta

The importance of public procurement can be perceived through the opening up of cities, provision of critical infrastructure, leading to the improvement of the quality of life of the citizens. However, the success of public procurement in the provision of fixed infrastructure is at the detriment of grey areas that corrupt public officials use as loopholes to embezzle public funds. Therefore, this study was aimed at examining the grey areas that exist in the public procurement process with a view to identifying the appropriate digital solutions available in e-Procurement technologies. The study utilized a research survey approach using a questionnaire instrument directed at six (6) geopolitical zones in Nigeria. Using a two-stage sampling technique, 759 construction stakeholders with actual knowledge on the use of e-Procurement technologies and public sector procurement participated in the study. The study identified e-Procurement tools and technologies used by construction stakeholders to announce/notify, exchange project information, conduct tendering and submission of a proposal, notification on the award of contract, monitor the progress of work, and make/receive payment for work done in the public procurement sector. This study showed the significant grey areas of procurement processes that need digitalization using e-Procurement technologies to eradicate corrupt behavior/tendencies. The digital divide in public procurement can be reduced, and proper accountability of public funds using digital solutions. The study showed the digital solutions used for public procurement by construction stakeholders in the Nigerian public procurement industry.

This paper explores the challenges associated with public procurement processes in the Czech Republic, as well as globally. In particular, it focuses on small-scale construction projects in the education sector and the problems associated with them, including policy making, pricing, efficiency, and the length of the procurement process. The paper also examines the risks associated with public procurement in the construction industry and how these risks can be managed through risk management. Moreover, it analyses the specific problems in the education sector, including imbalanced contractual conditions and unfair arrangements, which often shift the responsibility for risk aftermath to contractors. To gain insight into these issues, a research questionnaire was conducted among construction companies participating in the public procurement process. Based on the questionnaire results and a comparison between public and private procurement processes in the Czech Republic and Germany, the paper identifies flaws in the system and proposes potential solutions. The paper concludes by emphasizing the need for small changes to be implemented to improve the system, even though corruption remains a major issue that needs to be addressed. Overall, this paper provides valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders on how to address the issues surrounding public procurement in the education sector in the Czech Republic and beyond.

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Child labour in Ghana is a multifaceted issue often examined through a multisectoral lens, which frequently overlooks the legal factors that engender the practice of the menace. Addressing this gap, the present study, by means of a qualitative desk review, explores the legal inadequacies that perpetuate child labour in Ghana. With over two million children engaged in child labour, it is imperative to examine the legal loopholes that inadvertently fester prevalence of such acts of human rights violation. By analysing these legal gaps, the study aims to provide both theoretical insights and practical solutions to mitigate the prevalence of child labour. This research underscores the necessity of a robust legal framework to combat the complexities of child labour effectively and uphold children’s rights in the country and across jurisdictions within Sub-Saharan Africa, where child labour is known to be prevalent.

The paper examines child labour in Africa in the context of its rising incidence and implications globally. After a very careful historical review, the paper finds that child labour as a form of exploitation and deprivation of children was minimal in the pre-colonial African society. Conceptually, it was a form of education meant to equip children with societal values. However, the planting of colonial rule in Africa brought about an economy that laid the necessary conditions for child labour; in agriculture, extractive and services sectors. Today, the rising incidences of child labour in Africa are due largely to the high prevalence rate of poverty, capitalist values, disease, corruption, etc. Based on investigation of the situation in selected African countries, the paper suggests appropriate government policies, propelled by practical actions to ameliorate abject poverty, corruption and disease.

Due to its complexity and a series of interdependent activities, public construction procurement (PCP) is often prone to problems such as cost overruns, time overruns, quality compromises and fraud and corruption. These problems ultimately lead to disputes challenging value for money (VFM), which is anticipated particularly in public construction projects. The success of public construction projects ensures VFM, and it is heavily dependent on the competencies of professionals involved in the procurement process. It was revealed that limited research has been conducted, shedding light upon the competencies required by the professionals in the procurement team specifically for the public construction procurement process. Therefore, the research aimed to explore competencies required by professionals, such as Quantity Surveyors, Engineers, and Architects, who are engaged in the procurement team in the public construction procurement process. The research is conducted with a particular focus on laying the foundation to explore these competencies to overcome the identified problems. Accordingly, a comprehensive literature review was conducted. The findings revealed 14 problems in the public procurement process (PPP), and the competencies expected from the leading professionals in the procurement team, including Engineers, Architects, and Quantity Surveyors, were detailed and analysed according to the competency requirements of the selected professional institutes. The findings suggest that procurement professionals must possess a robust understanding of legal, financial, and technical aspects, alongside strong communication and negotiation skills, to navigate the complexities of public construction procurement. The findings of this research will contribute to minimising disputes and improving the efficiency of public construction procurement processes.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic posed unprecedented public healthcare procurement challenges. The objective of this review was to identify and characterise the scope of the literature on public procurement strategies for healthcare supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic (2019–2023) in relation to the public procurement contexts, systems, and processes and methods (the public procurement ecosystem) worldwide. Methods: We performed a scoping review of governmental strategies for the procurement of medical equipment, personal protective equipment (PPE), or medications related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Extracted data were mapped to the fields of the public procurement ecosystem. We used inductive thematic analysis to derive within-field themes, and subsequently, cross-cutting themes through which we structured a narrative synthesis. Results: 1909 unique studies were identified through a systematic search, of which 89 met the inclusion criteria. One hundred and ten themes were derived from the extracted data within the 21 fields of the public procurement ecosystem, and from these, 10 cross-cutting themes were identified which served to structure the narrative synthesis. It was clear in this literature that the scale and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic required governments to act well outside of the public procurement processes and methods themselves, to procure and distribute the required supplies. Notwithstanding the significant attention to contextual and system-level responses, there were significant responses at the procurement process and methods level, including rapid and temporary expedited procurement processes and longer-term strategic procurement responses.Conclusion: This scoping review of public procurement strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated a focus of the literature not only on the public procurement processes and methods themselves, but also on governmental actions to adapt both structures of public procurement systems and conditions within broader environmental contexts to facilitate procurement goals.

This article analyzes the determinants of child labor in Africa as inferred from recent empirical studies. The empirical analysis is based on five country studies undertaken in three different African countries, namely, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Zambia. Some support is found for the popular belief of poverty as a determinant of child labor; however, other determinants are of similar importance. Among school costs, transportation costs have the greatest effect on child labor and school attendance, whereas the hypothesis of imperfect capital markets and that of household composition generally find some support.

Child labour remains a prevalent global concern, and progress toward eradicating harmful children’s work appears to have stalled in the African continent and henceforth, integrated social policy intervention is still required to address the problem. Among several forms of social policy interventions, stomach infrastructure (i.e., in-kind and/or cash transfers) have been a key policy approach to support vulnerable families to lighten households’ resources burden, which forces them to consider child labour as a coping strategy. There is growing evidence on the impacts of these programs in child labour. However, this evidence is often mixed regarding children’s work outcomes, and the existing studies hardly describe such heterogeneous outcomes from the child-sensitive approach. To this end, a systematic literature search was conducted for studies in African countries. From 743 references retrieved in this study, 27 studies were included for the review, and a narrative approach has been employed to analyse extracted evidence. Results from the current study also demonstrate a mixed effect of in-kind and cash transfers for poor households on child labour decisions. Hence, the finding from the current review also demonstrates a reduced participation of children in paid and unpaid work outside the household due to in-kind and cash transfers to poor households, but children’s time spent in economic and non-economic household labour and farm and non-farm labour, which are detrimental to child health and schooling, has been reported increasing due to the program interventions. The question remains how these programs can effectively consider child-specific and household-related key characteristics. To this end, a child-sensitive social protection perspective has been applied in this study to explain these mixed outcomes to inform policy design.

Corruption finds room for its proliferation precisely where there is extensive, opaque and little controllable regulation by the state. In this context, it is the role of the rule of law to apply the principles of legal (enforceability) accountability in the context of corrupt behaviour and the drawing of consequences. The level of rule of law in this area affects the risk of corruption in public service procurement processes. The main goal of the study is to demonstrate the problem of corruption as the threat of the rule of law by the results of qualitative analysis of the legal framework defining corruption and of the methods of public procurement used by us in the contracting out of local public services in Slovak republic. The study answers research question on impact of legal accountability with implications for the risk of corruption on the methods of public procurement of public services. Data qualitative analysis is descriptive in nature. The real enforceability of legal responsibility for corrupt acts against public officials is very low in Slovakia. The quality of this legal framework has real impact on risk of corruption in public procurement processes, which can be identified by often using the direct purchase as the method of public procurement. Public organizations do not always proceed in accordance with applicable legislation, at least in accordance with its ethics and essential principles of public procurement. This problem reflects the proposed system's changes in public procurement in contracting out public services, which should eliminate the risk of corruption at the level of formal and informal rules.

This paper draws on interviews with 1,535 parents and their children to examine the relationship between child labour and various household variables in urban Nigeria, where child labour studies have been very limited. We provide a comprehensive overview of the household factors and residential dynamics through which child labour evolves. Our findings demonstrate the usefulness of the household production theory in explaining the socio-economic ramifications and household context of child labour. Our findings indicate that although child labour is mostly caused by poverty and the need to prepare children with skills and training useful for future occupations, the size of the household, number of children in the household, number of children contributing to the household income, child's age, and age at which child started working – are all significantly and positively correlated with children's hours of work. However, gender compositions of the children or of the household head and age of the household head have little or no relationship with children's hours of work. Additionally, parental socio-economic status and family structure variables are associated with fewer hours of children's work. The findings have implications for policies aimed at regulating child labour in Nigeria. Africa Development Vol. 31(1) 2006: 50-65

Child labor is a widespread, growing problem in the developing world. About 250 million of the world's children work, nearly half of them full-time. Child labor (regular participation in the labor force to earn a living or supplement household income) prevents children from participating in school. One constraint on Ghana's economic growth has been inadequate human capital development. According to 1992 data for Ghana, one girl in three and one boy in four does not attend school. The figures are worse in rural areas. The authors studied the dynamics of how households decided whether to send children 7 through 14 to school or to work, using household survey data for 1987-92. They do not address the issue of street kids, which does not imply that they are less important than the others. Unlike child labor in Asia, most child labor in Africa, especially Ghana, is unpaid work in family agricultural enterprises. Of the 28 percent of children engaged in child labor, more than two-thirds were also going to school. Of all children between 7 and 14, about 90 percent helped with household chores. Boys and girls tend to do different types of work. Girls do more household chores while boys work in the labor force. The data do not convincingly show, as most literature claims, that poverty is the main cause of child labor. But poverty is significantly correlated with the decision to send children to school, and there is a significant negative relationship between going to school and working. Increased demand for schooling is the most effective way to reduce child labor and ensure that Ghana's human capital is stabilized. The high cost of schooling and the poor quality and irrelevance of education has also pushed many children into work. And family characteristics play a big role in the child's decision to work or go to school. The father's education has a significant negative effect on child labor; the effect is stronger on girls than on boys. So adult literacy could indirectly reduce the amount of child labor.