Because of the COVID-19 pandemic humans have found themselves suddenly in the most challenging times. This has given rise to Klaus Schwab’s idea of the Great Reset, meaning that there is no way back to the “normal” and that our lives should never be the same again. However, when we read the book COVID-19: The Great Reset that he wrote together with Thierry Malleret what we find is not very promising. The reset as envisioned by influential world financial and political elite, whom Schwab represents, is neither a way back to the past nor a way to the great future. It merely emphasizes the materialistic and conflicting sides of human existence and accelerates accelerate trends that have been with us for a prolonged period of time. Therefore, I argue that if we really want to consider the Great Reset as a new way for the humanity, we need to propose a normative vision that should ultimately include human evolution and social harmony. There are global problems that we need urgently to solve, such as the problem of hunger and environment, of wealth and poverty and of peace and war. These are related to our survival as humankind. But beyond this, we also need to ask ourselves the question of a good life. I want to propose the Great Reset that is really transformative. It shall lead us to a new age of humanity that I call “evolutionity”. While modernity was inspired by the mechanistic and deterministic view of the universe and postmodernity has been characterized by unsolved problems related to globalization, environmental destruction, social unrest, political instability and a regress to irrationality, which has now all been magnified by the COVID-19 crisis, evolutionity is inspired by the idea of human evolution, and by the organic and holistic world view emerging from the new science. It leads to a world of social harmony.
This study investigated the impact of monetary policy on trade openness in Nigeria. Annual time series data were used between 1987 and 2020. Haven used broad money growth, lending rate and exchange rates to proxy monetary policy in Nigeria, VAR model and Granger Causality techniques were employed for the analysis. The study found out that monetary policy has a significant impact on trade openness in both the short-run and long-run periods. Specifically, broad money growth has a significant direct/ positive impact on trade openness while lending rate has a significant inverse impact influence on trade openness. However, the exchange rate does not have any significant impact on trade openness in Nigeria. The study, as such, suggests that monetary policy be used to boost the economy’s trade openness by increasing the broad money growth and reducing the lending rate which could improve quality investments for export.
Occupational health and safety implementation, compliance and management has continued to take the center stage in the decision-making process in most organisations. This view is supported by the fact that the South African Department of Labour and government intervene through legislation to promote safer work environment. The increased emphasis on occupational health and safety in the manufacturing industry in recent years, necessitates continuous research on management of health and safety at workplace, as the motive behind the implementation of health and safety practice in the manufacturing sector has been explored to a limited extent. \nThe current study investigates the level of implementation, compliance and awareness amongst employers and their employees concerning safety and health matters and discusses the level of safety culture and employees’ attitude concerning the underlying principles of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) of 1994 in South Africa, that promotes self-regulation and monthly checklists at workplaces. Furthermore, the study investigates the prevalence of implementation and compliance to OHSA requirements through using a questionnaire interviews. The findings reveal conflicting responses between both management and subordinates and this is crucial in understanding health and safety practices and their effectiveness on employees’ performance for the success of the organisation.
The recent tremors in the Naira exchange rate amidst the COVID-19 pandemic is quite worrisome. Countries whose exports are not demanded in the international market because of the fear of spreading the pandemic, whose external reserves are depleted because of incessant need to import pandemic related goods, are worst hit. In such instant, exchange rate is highly fragile. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the exchange rate in Nigeria. The Naira exchange rate was made the criterion variable and Covid-19 pandemic, disaggregated as Covid-19 new cases, Covid-19 period and Covid-19 new death were put as the predictor variables. ARDL technique was employed as informed by the unit root tests. The finding revealed that, in both short run and long run, the period of COVID-19 had significant direct impact on exchange rate in Nigeria. However, COVID-19 new cases and new deaths could not have any significant impact on exchange rate. The study therefore, suggested that Nigerians should be aware that the upsurge in the naira/dollar rate is due to the COVID-19 period. The economy should step-up other internationally demanded products like crude oil, and produce in large quantity in order to cushion the effect of low export.