The landlocked and fragile countries’ ability to create a sustainable path to economic growth and poverty reduction is inextricably linked to their export diversification potential, itself related to their connectivity within themselves, in the region, and other external markets. Mali, Chad, and Niger are first challenged by their geography—their landlocked nature with their vast and thinly populated space serves to isolate the most vulnerable communities from external and internal markets. Adding to these geographic disadvantages non-landlocked is incentive environment—defined by high and variable customs common external tariff regimes resulting from multiple overlapping regional trade arrangements—places a wedge between domestic and international prices, provides a disincentive to exports in favor of non-tradable and domestic-oriented sectors. By bringing greater coherence and convergence between the many common external tariff regimes in operation and the rationalization of their structures, and improving connectivity within and between markets, Mali, Chad, Niger, and Guinea can better promote the reallocation of resources toward tradable goods and services, putting the countries on a path toward greater economic inclusion and sustainable growth.

Since an outbreak of COVID-19 in the late 2019 in Wuhan in China, the pandemic and contagious nature of coronavirus did not spare Nigeria as the most populous Africa nation from being affected. Statistical records have shown that a large number of citizens were affected and overwhelming literature has explored different dimensions of the impacts of COVID-19 in the country. However, there is a less attention in exploring legal, economic, health and ethical impacts of the pandemic on Nigerian children. The paper primarily aims at filling this gap in the existing body of knowledge. Systematic literature review (SLR) and content analysis of secondary data of online peer-reviewed, scholarly articles among others were used as methodology. The findings revealed that, the general economic impact of COVID-19 that affects trade and small & medium scale business activities of parents also directly or indirectly affected their children. The health consequence of COVID-19 affects provision of nutritious foods that would help their balanced diet and growth. It is further noted that the ethical impact of COVID-19 affects their right to education as a result of lockdown during the first phase of the out-break. It is however reiterated that, there has not been adequate legal framework to address the multifarious im-pacts of COVID-19 on the Nigerian children. In conclusion, this paper has novel contribution specifically showing concern for children during the period of COVID-19 pandemic in the country. It is therefore suggested that efforts should be galvanized by the stakeholders in addressing multifarious challenges of the impact of COVID-19 on the Nigerian children as explored in this study.

Ancient Minipe Anicut, Sri Lanka is world-famous for its engineering excellence. Due to its importance, conserving the ancient anicut, another anicut was constructed downstream in the 20th century. Nevertheless, the water diverted from the ancient anicut to the Minipe Left Bank (LB) Canal was kept as it was due to inherited agricultural importance. This research focuses on studying the contributions made by the adjacent catchment along the Minipe LB Canal. There are several level crossings along the Minipe Left Bank Canal from which the runoff of the local catchment flow into the Minipe LB Canal. Hydrologic Modeling System (HEC-HMS) is used to obtain the yield from each catchment into the Canal, which was compared with the annual diversions from Minipe anicut. The total yield from each stream has been compared with the annual diversion of the Minipe LB Canal from 2014 to 2020. The results obtained from this study reveal that there is sufficient water available for water augmentation in the basin, with an estimated annual average cumulative yield from the catchment of 453.6 MCM. This cumulative yield is 1.7 times the annual average diversion from the Mahaweli River, which is 271.9 MCM. With the findings, it is concluded that there is a potential to augment water from the catchment to address pertaining water shortages conveyance in the command area.

The COVID-19 crisis, which occurred in 2020, brought crisis events back to the attention of scholars. With the increasing frequency of crisis events, the influence of crisis events on stock markets has become more obvious. This paper focuses on the impact of the subprime crisis, the Chinese stock market crash crisis and the COVID-19 crisis on the volatility and risk of the world’s major stock markets. In this paper, we first fit the volatility using EGARCH model and detect asymmetry of volatility. After that, a VaR model is calculated on the basis of EGARCH to measure the impact of the crisis event on the risk of stock markets. This paper finds that the subprime crisis has a significant influence on the risk of the stock market in China, US, South Korea, and Japan. During the COVID-19 crisis, there was little change in the average risk of each country. But at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, there was a significant increase in the risk of each country’s stock market. The Chinese stock market crash crisis had a more pronounced effect on the Chinese and Japanese stock markets and a lesser effect on the US and Korean stock markets.

In recent years, Vietnam has achieved great achievements in the implementation of economic growth, which has contributed to reducing poverty and is highly appreciated by the international community. Although Vietnam has made remarkable achievements in reducing poverty and meeting the requirements of sustainable development, there are still many challenges and work to be done. Vietnam needs to continue to push ahead to improve the quality of life for the poorest, reduce the development gap between regions, and strengthen its response to climate change and the environment. This study uses a qualitative method to analyze the current situation of poverty reduction in Vietnam. The article also uses analytical, synthetic, logical, and historical methods to clarify the results and limitations of poverty reduction. The value of the research helps the Vietnamese government to be aware of the results and limitations of poverty reduction and suggests scientific and timely solutions to implement poverty reduction work in Vietnam.