COVID-19 and Microeconomic Resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Study on Ethiopian and Nigerian Households
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors focused on the economic resilience to investigate the inherent ability of households to cope with and recover from the impacts of the pandemic. The study is interesting but there are a few areas for improvement.
1. Please make the title more details as only Ethiopia and Nigeria are selected in this study.
2. This is not common that there is no abstract in the manuscript.
3. Under Section 4.2, please discuss how the framework development or the research outputs can be helpful for other countries/regions.
4. Section 4.3, provide more demographic details of the respondents. For example, age, income level, gender etc.
5. Please discuss how the impact to the research when Assets (AST) is not covered in the study.
6. Line 347: How can we prove that they provide a linear combination of the resilience indicators? Any statistical analysis to evidence it?
7. For results and discussion (especially Tables 1 - 4), provide more comparison with any relevant past studies to showcase any difference when there is a pandemic impact.
8. Please link the discussion to existing or future policies to be adopted by Ethiopia and Nigeria. Please discuss the current limitations, and any recommendations to be provided based on the empirical results obtained in the study?
9. Please separate the discussion and conclusion section.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This study describes the household economy in the South African region during the New Crown and there are several issues that must be addressed.
1.I didn't find an abstract, which is unbelievable, and this is a key part of the paper.
2.The interpretation of the regression results is necessary, and it is recommended to add a discussion of the reasons for the results.
3.The formula should be followed by an ordinal number, and I suggest a review of the research paradigm in the full text.
4.Some urban economic studies on Africa and even the Belt and Road region should be further cited, as follows:
[1]Wei Guoen,Bi Mo,Liu Xiao,Zhang Zhenke,He Bao-Jie. Investigating the impact of multi-dimensional urbanization and FDI on carbon emissions in the belt and road initiative region: Direct and spillover effects[J]. Journal of Cleaner Production,2023,384.
[2]Gang Xu,Ting Dong,Patrick Brandful Cobbinah,Limin Jiao,Neema S. Sumari,Baohui Chai,Yaolin Liu. Urban expansion and form changes across African cities with a global outlook: Spatiotemporal analysis of urban land densities[J]. Journal of Cleaner Production,2019,224.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors, I congratulate you on your choice of research topic. It is important for the dynamics of scientific research. However, I think that some small additions are necessary:
The abstract and keywords should be in the article.
It should include more precise results. It is also advisable to detail the research methodology.
In the introduction, detail the characteristics of the area and population researched. Specify what is new about this research compared to other research in the field.
For Figure 1. Household Resilience Index Estimation Approach, the source of the data (own or other) is not clear.
Tables 1 and 2 could be reconstructed so as to present the data more focused and visible to the reader.
I congratulate you on your valuable research! For the most part, this research would be well worth replicating in other areas.
Good luck!
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Here are comments on the paper, COVID-19 and Household Microeconomic Resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa, submitted to Sustainability.
1. In the title the s on sub should be capitalized.
2. There is no abstract at the beginning of the paper. The abstract would give the readers what the paper is about.
3. The citations throughout the paper are not correct. Need to use the numbers in brackets. The authors should look at other papers published in Sustainability.
4. covid-19 throughout the paper should be Covid-19.
5. Page 1 line 16, take out the word "has"
6. Page 1 line 40, pandemic. In order to accurately measure the welfare impact of the pandemic on the should be rewritten as pandemic. To accurately measure the welfare impact of the pandemic on the
7. Page 2 Line 58, which is what we do here. should be rewritten as which this paper addressed
8. The review of the literature and the empirical results should be written in past tense as the work has already been completed.
9. Page 3 line 149 take out in nature
10. The review of the literature is quite plodding. Need a brief summary at the end of the review of the literature to summarize the review of the literature.
11. For the descriptive statistics it appears that the variables collected from the survey were Yes/No responses. Can the authors explain more about the type of data collected from this survey?
12. The equations are hard to read in this paper. These equations need to be corrected.
13. Page 8 Line 371 take out the word had and after March put 2020.
14. Page 8 line 355 it should be structural equation approach
15. Page 9 lines 378-380, this sentence is confusing and should be rewritten.
16. Are the figures on 10 the figures 3? It is not labeled
17. The tables summarizing the empirical results need to be reconfigured because they are big and takes up space.
18. In the results showing the empirical results, the authors reported the R2. It would be customary to report the adjusted R2.
19. Page 14 line 483 is confusing. The authors need to rewrite it.
20. Page 19 line 539 take out the word here
21. Page 19 line 535, take out due to the fact that
22 Page 21 line 550 take out the word that
23. Page 21 line 570 the word at should be replaced with on
24. Page 21 line 577 the word be should be replaced with have
25. Page 22 line 603 take out due to
26. How do the authors know that the R2 is too low? Explain.
27. The references do not follow the style of Sustainability. These references, of course, needs to be redone.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The comments have been responded accordingly.
Reviewer 2 Report
Can be publish
Reviewer 4 Report
There are no additional comments on this paper. Kudos to the authors for making all of these suggested changes
