ISYS40141 - Evaluating Nigeria's Global Competitiveness Factors

This report assesses Nigeria's global competitiveness by examining key efficiency-enhancing factors: higher education and training, technological readiness, and market size. It provides an overview of Nigeria's economic and political landscape, highlighting challenges like recession and insurgency. The analysis evaluates the current state of education, technology adoption, and market size in Nigeria, noting shortcomings in education quality and technology penetration despite a large labor market. Recommendations include increased investment in education, improved teacher compensation, infrastructure upgrades, and a focus on ICT integration and human capital development. The report concludes that addressing these areas is crucial for enhancing Nigeria's global competitiveness and ensuring sustainable economic growth. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and past papers for students.

Running Head: GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS OF NIGERIA
Global Competitiveness of Nigeria
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Abstract
The aim of the report is to deal with the report will deal with the chosen country Nigeria and
evaluate the three efficiency enhancing factors such as higher education and training,
technological readiness and market size. The report further provides detailed description on how
these factors can enhance Nigeria ‘s competitiveness and concludes by giving a recommendation
for the issues.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................2
Nigeria: Country Overview.....................................................................................................2
Factors that enhance the competitiveness of a country...........................................................3
Evaluation of the efficiency enhancers in Nigerian Context...................................................5
Recommendation-............................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
The global competitiveness is nothing but an economic knowledge field that analyzes the
policies and facts which helps to shape a nation’s ability to initiate and retain an atmosphere that
sustains more value creation for its organizations and more prosperity for the people of the
country. The World Economic Forum describes that global competitiveness is the ability of a
particular country to attain high rates of sustained growth in the GDP (gross domestic product)
per capita (Comin, 2017). There are so many factors that affect the global competitiveness of a
country and the government is the most important factor. Among other factors that determine the
economic condition of a country, the trade wars between nations, rise of inflations on goods and
commodities have great impact on the global businesses.
The inflation issues and the unexpected drops in the currencies subsequently affect
people around the world. However, there are some efficiency enhancing factors too by which
countries can sustain such sudden turmoil. The present report will deal with the chosen country
Nigeria and evaluate the three efficiency enhancing factors such as higher education and training,
technological readiness and market size. The report will further provide detailed description on
how these factors can enhance Nigeria ‘s competitiveness and conclude by giving a
recommendation for the issues.
Discussion
Nigeria: Country Overview
In the African continent, Nigeria is the 14th largest country with a population of 189
million people and is the home to more than 250 ethnic groups. The country is famous for the

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cultural diversity it possesses. In the year 1999, a successful presidential election ushered in a
period of relative stability. This greatly influenced the political condition of the country and
between the years 2003 -2004, brought economic dividends (Schaltegger & Wagner,2017).
However, this robust development in the democracy have not resolved all the problems of the
nation. There is a recent fall in the price of oil and has resulted in a recession. On the other hand,
a terrorist insurgency has destabilized the northern stares of the country by Boko Haram
(Sulaiman, 2018). Above all, the country of Nigeria is known for the resiliency it holds and
putting effort to reduce these troubles.
Factors that enhance the competitiveness of a country
The world economy is going through many issues and contrary circumstances. It highly
requires a string and effective economic overhauling. There are many issues starting with the
trade wars among nations, high rise of inflations on the goods and essential commodities have
greater impact on the world economy and global business. Apart from these, the Big data and
easy access to the social media has given rise to the privacy problems among the users and
business organizations (Etuk, Etuk & Michael,2014). Moreover, the cyber security attacks are
increasing and supporting the cyber criminals or the hackers to disrupt the banks business and
economic growth worldwide. The wars in nations also have remarkable effect on the country
economy as the government faces difficulty in bearing the costs wars incur for the country.
It has been found that there are so many determinants that drive the productivity and
competitiveness of a country. It has taken long years to understand for the economists, the
factors behind these process. The theories range from Adam Smith’s focus on the specialization
and the division of labor to the neoclassical economists’ emphasis on the investment in
infrastructure and physical capital. Also, in the recent years, other mechanisms such as ethical

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practice and education in the dealings with the government and other firms has been considered
as enhancers of competitiveness of a country. One of the most effective factor is higher
education and training. It has been suggested that quality in higher education and training is
extremely crucial for the economy of a country. It strengthens the country which wants to move
up the value chain above the simple products as well as the production process.
Higher education and training: It is well-known that today’s globalizing economy needs
the countries to nourish and nurture pools of well –educated workers who are capable of
adapting the changing environment quickly and stay firm at the evolving needs of the production
system. Higher education and training is one of the strongest pillars that can easily measure the
secondary and tertiary rates of enrollment and at the same time the business community
evaluates the quality of education. The employee training is at the same time important and
needs to be taken into consideration. The on-job training and also the vocational training is
neglected in many countries or economies. It should not be neglected ant more as it ensures a
constant upgradation of the workers’ skills.
Technological readiness: The next pillar or the second efficiency enhancer is the
technological readiness of a country. In the globalized world of today, technology is highly
essential for the firms in order to prosper and compete. This pillar measures the enthusiasm and
energy with which an economy adopts the contemporary technologies to increase the
productivity of its business so that it can gain the competitive advantage from the other countries.
It also evaluates how much a country can emphasize few of its capacities in order to leverage the
ICT of the country or the information and communication technologies in the daily operations
supportive of production multiplication and heightened efficiency(Asiyai,2015). The ICT usage
and access are the key factors that enable a country to technological readiness and wide

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infrastructure. It does not matter whether a technology used in the country has or has not
developed. The main concerning factor is that, the country needs to have the access to
modernized and advanced technical products and the knowledge and capability to use them. The
FDI, plays a key role among the foreign technological sources. It has to be noted that in this
context, is has to be distinguished that how is the level of technological availability is a given
country. This is because, this factor determines the country’s ability to innovate and expand the
knowledge.
Market size: The third pillar is the market size of a given country. The productivity of a
country gets affected by the size of the market because the large markets allow the companies to
destroy the economies of scale. It is quite traditional that the national borders constrain the
market availability to the firms. This is the age of globalization and the international markets
have become a replacement for the domestic markets and it happens more in the small countries.
A vast empirical evidence show that the trade openness associated with growth in positive terms.
There is also a general sense that the growth of a country is positively affected by trade and it
happens more in the countries with limited domestic market (Rafindadi & Yusof, 2015).
Therefore, it can be said that the exports are a substitute for the domestic demand of a country
that highly determines that market size and the form size of a nation. In this context, it can be
said that by the inclusion of both the foreign and domestic market in the measure of market size,
credit must be given to the export –driven economies and the geographic areas too which are
divided between many countries having a single common market.
Evaluation of the efficiency enhancers in Nigerian Context
Since the quality of education in a country is one of the primary key for national
development, in case of Nigeria it seems to be not fared well. The country is confronting

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challenges in this sector. It has to be sad that the quality and standard of education in Nigeria has
witnessed a geometric drop and it is highly unfortunate that the students are migrating to other
parts of the world searching for quality education. The reasons behind the fall of its standards are
poor funding, bad governance, low university admission capacity, academic fraud, indiscipline
and corruption, politicization of education and many others.
The score of below 50 highlights that Nigeria has recorded the lowest scorer under the
ICT adoption and capacity for innovation. However, it is also true that the country of Nigeria
holds the largest score in the ‘Market Size’. The labor market of Nigeria is also large. This is an
advantage for the country that has held the nation firmly, although there is serious need of other
fields to be upgraded. Apart from these, the country has a poor technological hold and it is not
harnessing latest technologies and implementing those in order to increase the productivity of the
country. The low rates of ICT penetration reflect the condition well (Weforum.org, 2018).
Recommendation-
Hence, after reviewing the efficiency enhancing factors that are crucial for a country in
terms of economic stability and global competitiveness, it is recommended that –
 The education system can be improved by the commensurate funding system up to 99%.
However, it might take a long period since this sector has suffered from a long period.
 An increase in the salary structure can attract teachers who are intelligent and qualified at
the same time. This would improve the quality of the students too.
 An upgradation in the infrastructure including labs, hostels, workshops, libraries will
make the environment conducive to learning. The teachers’ training also has to be present
to make good teachers in future.

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 The subject English has to be given extra importance in all standards because that is the
language of instruction in Nigeria. Without a good hold over this language, the students
might face difficulty to understand other subjects.
 The government support is the most necessary and the government must monitor the
activities of the education and training sector to ensure that everything is going as
planned.
 Restating what the United States specified, there must be minimum of 26 % of a
country’s budget dedicated to the educational upliftment of the country to see significant
improvement (Fafunwa, 2018).
 A restructure in the educational system to provide information and communication
technology (ICT), to students via trainings can change the scenario. A strong financial
support for innovation centers that incubates the business ideas is also necessary.
 The government needs to focus on the human capital investment so that Nigeria’s
competitiveness can be improved.
 The country essentially needs to invest in the quality of education that will drive the
workforce with the necessary requisite skills for the 4th industrial revolution named as the
‘digital revolution’.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that a country’s
competitiveness is determined by so many factors among which the selected three efficiency
enhancing factors play the key roles. The report has started by giving a brief introduction of
factors that negatively impact a country ‘s competitiveness such as the trade wars between
nations, rise of inflations on goods and commodities, exchange rates, corruption in the cyber

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world, national wars and many others. These factors waver the economic stability of a country
and at the same time segregate the country as backward. However, there are few field focusing
on which a country can sustain the turmoil and retain the positive position in the world rank. The
report has evaluated the importance of higher education, technological readiness and market size
which contribute to the well-being of a society or country. It has been found as per the records of
Global Competitive report, that although comparatively strong in the market size, the country is
extremely poor in terms of education and technological readiness. Lastly, the report has
recommended the future actions for the country that can enhance its competitiveness and
sustainability.

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Reference
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