The World Bank on Tuesday advised the Nigerian government to adopt holistic structural reforms in its national development drive as a strategic option of lifting millions of Nigerians out of the poverty line and guaranteeing sustainable, people-oriented development in the country in the years ahead.
The World Bank, in its just published report titled ‘A Better Future for All Nigerians: Nigeria Poverty Assessment 2022’,noted that sluggish growth, low human capital, labour market weaknesses, and exposure to shocks were holding Nigeria’s poverty reduction back, despite sustained efforts by governments to address poverty situation in the country.
To address the lingering poverty crisis, the Breton Woods institution specifically advocated at least three types of deep, long-term reforms to foster and sustain pro-poor growth and raise Nigerians out of poverty.
These include macroeconomic reforms (including fiscal, trade, and exchange rate policy); policies to boost the productivity of farm and non-farm household enterprises; and improving access to electricity, water, and sanitation while bolstering information and communication technologies.
The report stated that the reforms together could help diversify the economy, invigorate structural transformation, create good, productive jobs, and support social protection programs as well as other redistributive government policies.
The report represented the culmination of the World Bank’s engagement on poverty- and inequality-relevant data and analytics in Nigeria in the past two years.
It draws primarily on the 2018/19 Nigerian Living Standards Survey (NLSS), which provided Nigeria’s first official poverty numbers in almost a decade, as well as the Nigeria COVID-19 National Longitudinal Phone Survey (NLPS).
The surveys were implemented by Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in collaboration with the World Bank.
According to the report, which brings together the latest evidence on the profile and drivers of poverty in Nigeria, as many as four in 10 Nigerians live below the national poverty line, with many Nigerians, especially in the country’s North, lacking education and access to basic infrastructure, such as electricity, safe drinking water, and improved sanitation.
The report further indicated that jobs did not translate Nigerians’ hard work into an exit from poverty, as most workers are engaged in small-scale household farm and non-farm enterprises; just 17 percent of Nigerian workers hold the wage jobs best able to lift people out of poverty.
This is even as it further showed that climate and conflict shocks, which disproportionately affect Nigeria’s poor, were multiplying and their effects had been compounded by COVID-19; yet government support for households is scant.
The report emphasizes that these reforms are urgent as Nigeria’s population continues to grow; now is the time to ensure that the country seizes the promise of its young people for economic prosperity. It adds that shaping the specifics of Nigeria’s poverty-reducing policies will depend strongly on redoubling efforts to gather and analyze data regularly.
To cope with the ugly situation, the report noted that households had adopted dangerous coping strategies, including reducing education and scaling back food consumption, which could have negative long-run consequences for their human capital. These issues affect some parts of Nigeria more than others; the report captures this spatial inequality by providing statistics at the state level, which is crucial given Nigeria’s federal structure.
Commenting on the report, World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri, said: “It is clear that much needs to be done to help lift millions of Nigerians out of poverty, including boosting health and education, bolstering productive jobs, and expanding social protection.
“Yet implementing pro-poor initiatives requires unlocking fiscal space; reforming expensive subsidies – including fuel subsidies – will be essential, alongside countervailing measures to protect the poor as reforms are effected”, the banker added.
Similarly, the World Bank Lead Economist and co-author of the report, Tara Vishwanath, said: “Conflict is spreading and intensifying across Nigeria, so it is important to implement programs to support poor and vulnerable Nigerians that are simple and flexible while also limiting the risk of exacerbating fragility and conflict.
This is even as another World Bank Economist and co-author of the report, Jonathan Lain, stressed that “data can provide vital guidance on how to design, monitor, and evaluate pro-poor projects and programs, giving a voice to poor and vulnerable Nigerians.”
The Breton Woods institution stated that new official household survey data, due to be collected later in 2022, will provide far more detailed insights into the dynamics of and the key constraints on poverty reduction, as well as new pro-poor policies.
It stressed that by investing in data, Nigeria can build trust, accountability, and transparency, taking substantial strides on its pathway to poverty reduction.
