Agriculture as a Stimulant for Sustainable Development in ECOWAS

摘要

This study utilized secondary data sourced from the World Development Indicators (WDI), International Labour Organisation (ILO), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the System Generalized Method of Moments (SGMM) econometric technique was used to analyze the data. Sustainable Development Goal 1, a proxy for poverty, was used as the dependent variable, while agriculture value added, employment in the agricultural sector, inequality, literacy rate, population growth rate, and gross domestic savings were the explanatory variables. The study found that both agriculture value added and employment in the agricultural sector were statistically significant in explaining poverty and negatively related to poverty in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) subregion. Therefore, based on the findings, the study recommends that the governments of ECOWAS countries should focus more on agriculture in order to become exporters of cash crops to boost their economies and increase savings that can be used to alleviate and eliminate poverty among the people.