Purpose The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the relationship between foreign capital inflows, human capital development (HCD) and economic growth in ECOWAS countries. Design/methodology/approach In line with the augmented Solow model, the relationship between foreign capital inflows, human capital development and gross domestic product in the ECOWAS member countries is investigated using the pool mean group method. Findings The authors find overwhelming evidence that foreign capital inflows and human development have a significant effect on economic growth in ECOWAS member countries. However, foreign direct investment (FDI), official development assistant, HCD and gross domestic investment are positively related to economic growth in sub-regions economies. Conversely, migrate official remittance, portfolio investments and external debts are negatively related to economic growth. Research limitations/implications The authors recommend that sound economic policies should be targeted in encouraging foreign capital accumulation and HCD, especially on FDI, official development assistance that exerts a positive impact on the economic growth of the sub-region. Therefore, training is required to prepare the labor force to work with new technologies and promote efficient enterprise for ECOWAS economies to compete with developed countries and emerging economies. Social implications This study argued that the development of human capital is a pathway that may lead countries away from sustained growth. In the context of any economy which lack well-developed capital and education markets, many otherwise qualified citizens may be denied the basic skills they need in order to contribute fully to the nation’s economic development. HCD would encourage foreign investments, resulting in reduction in poverty in ECOWAS countries. Originality/value Several studies have been done on foreign capital inflow and economic growth nexus such as Orji et al. (2014), Ajide and Raheem (2016), Musibau et al. (2017), etc.; however, none of the research studies has actually examined the effect of the relationship between foreign capital inflows and HCD on economic growth in ECOWAS countries. This study is designed to fill the vacuum.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic on 11 March 2020. Iran was one of the most severely affected countries with around 50,000 new cases reported daily at its peak (World Health Organization, 2022). Job demands are notoriously high for nursing, and the outbreak of COVID-19 overstretched nurses in Iran given the limited resources and manpower (Mirzaei et al., 2021). Nurses were working under unprecedently challenging conditions: heavy workload, high risk of infection, insufficient protective gears; some nurses are quitting or considering quitting

SUMMARY This briefing examines the effects of globalisation and the challenge posed by China to the Nigerian textile industry in the twenty-first century. The meteoric rise of imports of cheap Chinese textiles into the Nigerian market, which was formerly dominated by local fabrics, has shifted the balance in favour of the imports, which has consequently destroyed the economic base of the local textile industry.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the institutional structures and other predictors that determine bilateral trade between Africa and China from 1995 to 2017. Design/methodology/approach In line with the gravity model of trade, institutional, geographical and socio-economic determinants of China’s bilateral trade with 18 African oil/minerals exporting countries are examined by deploying Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood and dynamic bias-corrected least squares dummy variable econometric techniques. Findings The results indicate that China’s oil/minerals imports from Africa are higher than imports of manufacturing and agricultural goods, and institutional structures indicate that a weak politically stable region with less control of corruption has a discernible effect on trade. Research limitations/implications Further insight can be gained if the type of manufactured goods being exported to China is examined; this is necessary given that China crowds out Africa’s manufactured goods. Therefore, this study recommends the need for Africa to continually strengthen its institutional structures to stimulate trade from other regions. Originality/value This study examines the quality of the institutional structures (political stability and corruption) in African oil/minerals exporting countries, considering that China has been alleged for capitalising on Africa’s weak institutional structures to trade with the resource-endowed region. For the first time, the UN COMTRADE HS product-country-partner-year trade data is used to examine on bilateral sector trade China–Africa links rather than proxies used in the studies of Biggeri and Sanfilippo (2009), De Grauwe et al. (2012) and Foad (2011) that did not capture the real trade value.