Report on Achievement of Poverty Alleviation Targets in Nigeria
Status Report: Nigeria
Nigeria is classified amongst the lower-middle-income countries. Located in Sub-Saharan Africa, the country is among the few others that have submitted their Voluntary National Review for 2020. Although shallow, the review offers basic information on the current status of the country. Other reliable sources explain its socioeconomic status, level of achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, and progress made in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Particularly, poverty alleviation is a major issue in Nigeria, which has proven hard over the years. Research on the status of Nigeria explains its past achievement in achieving the development goals, challenges, and the ongoing approaches seeking better achievement of poverty alleviation targets.
Background
Nigeria’s Voluntary National Review indicates that the country has embarked on a course in which t seeks to eradicate poverty. The current social and economic indicators can assist in assessing the progress of the country in this deliberate course. Among the main indicators in both aspects include the country’s Gross Domestic Product, total population, poverty headcount ratio, and Gross National Income. According to the World Bank (2021), Nigeria had a GDP of US $448.12 billion in 2019. This figure indicated an improvement up from 2018’s 397.19 US dollars. The real GDP in 2019 was estimated to have been at 2.3% in 2019, which was slightly higher than 2018’s 1.9%. However, the country has experienced a decline in this aspect of the economy, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic (United Nations, 2021). The Voluntary National Review of 2020, amongst the worst-hit areas, is the country’s health and oil sectors. The country is still highly dependent on the performance of the latter.
Other social and economic indicators also show the current status of the country as per the 2019 statistics. The country’s GNI per capita is the US $2030. The poverty levels are significantly high. The number of people living below the poverty line in more than half of the 36 states is more than the country’s average of 69%. The headcount of multidimensional poverty is 46.4% (United Nations, 2021). This high percentage suggests that the Nigerian populace is still lowly endowed in skills and employment opportunities. Literacy rates amongst people above 15 years are 62%. In 2018, 23.1% of the total population was unemployed. This figure was an increase from 2016’s 14.2%. In 2019, the total public debt stood at the US $83.9 billion. The total population of Nigeria was 200,963,599 up from 195,874,740 in 2018 (The World Bank, 2021). According to the United Nations Human Development Reports of 2020, Nigerian people have a life expectancy of 54.7 years at birth (UN HDR, 2020). Their current health expenditure is 3.8% of the total GDP. The number of infants who lack immunization of both DTP and measles is still high at 35% and 46% respectively. These health indicators depict financial strain in the Nigerian populace.
Progress btw MDGs and SDGs
- Progress made towards the MDGs as of 2015
Nigeria made minimal advancements towards the achievement of the Millenium Development Goals by 2015. This observation was made at the turning point between the Millenium Development Goals to the post-2015 agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. Amongst the areas of concentration for the country was MDG goal 1 in which countries sought to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Nigeria sought to reduce both extreme poverty and hunger by half. However, the country did not make any significant progress in both areas. By 2015, the country had very high poverty rates. According to Yisau (2017), poverty was still galloping by 2015. The numerous efforts put in place by different regimes did not bear any significant fruits. Instead, the country retarded to deep and pervasive poverty. By 2011, about t69.1% of the total population lived in abject poverty. The figures indicating this was ironic since the country is known for its vast endowment in natural resources. It was worse for the goal of reducing hunger by half, since the country experienced moderately low hunger, despite being in a region that had improved by far.
Other economic and social indicators within other Millennium Development Goals also indicated unfavorable achievements. MDG goal 2 entailed achieving universal primary education. Between 1999 and 2010, the country experienced a mere 4% increase in the number of children enrolled for primary education (Oleribe & Taylor-Robinson, 2016). This was a low enrollment compared to the regional value of 79.7 that was achieved by 2015 by countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Similarly, negative progress was attained in healthcare. MDG goals 4, 5, and 6 sought to reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases respectively. Between 1990 and 2013, Nigeria achieved negatively in reducing infant mortality by a factor of -45%. Also, maternal mortality increased by 53%. In 2013, the country was also experiencing low access to reproductive health and high mortality amongst tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS patients. The overall access to healthcare assumed a downward trajectory, despite efforts by the government and other concerned parties to improve it according to the respective MDGs. The retrogression attained by 2015 indicated an inability to match the available resources with the goals and plans of MDGs.
- Current Progress
Nigeria has made significant progress in the achievement of various Sustainable Development Goals, although major challenges remain. According to the Sustainable Development Report of 2020, the country is ranked amongst the countries that have made negative progress in most areas, owing to the impact of challenges. Among the areas in which the country has been noted to nosedive is poverty reduction. SDG goal number 1 seeks to eradicate poverty in all its forms and amongst humanity. In Nigeria very few, if any, people have managed to change their status from extreme poverty to afford the necessities of daily life (Aliyu & Dansabo, 2017). The Sustainable Development Report of 2020 indicates that the number of people in Nigeria is skyrocketing instead of decreasing. The poverty headcount ratio was at 47.6 in 2020. The number of people who live below the $1.90 and $3.20 per day marks has been increasing between 2015 and 2020.
The country has difficulties progressing in other significant SDGs. Amongst the main areas experiencing failed progress is in minimizing hunger. SDG number 2 seeks to achieve zero hunger. However, the number of people who are undergoing malnutrition had increased by 13.4% in 2017 (United Nations, 2021). The country was also unable to achieve better maternal and neonatal health. Both increased by 0.917 and 0.036 respectively. Traffic deaths, and sustainable nitrogen management index have also been decreasing since 2015. Most other areas within healthcare stagnated. Among them were incidences of Tuberculosis, infant mortality rate, and new HIV/AIDS infections. The country has either stagnated or retrogressed in most areas and the most important aspects of the SDGs. In the provision of affordable and clean energy, the number of people who have access to electricity has decreased by 54.4% since 2016 (United Nations, 2021). The country has stagnated in most other aspects of clean and affordable energy, including the number of people with access to clean fuels and technology, and the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from the fuel used in the process of creating electrical energy. In gender equality, the country is now performing worse than it did five years ago. The number of women in the national legislative seats has declined by 3.6%. SDG number 8 sought to have decent work and economic growth. However, Nigeria has performed dismally in that the percentage of adults who are unemployed has declined by 8.15 since 2019, and the number of people who use the services of financial banks and mobile banking services has declined by 39.7% since 2017.
Despite challenges, Nigeria has made a few areas of importance. Amongst the main ones is in providing its population with clean water and achieving sanitation. Although not entirely, the country has made some progress in some aspects of water and sanitation. Amongst them is in reducing the scarcity of water consumed in imports (Durokifa & Abdul-Wasi, 2016). Since 2013, Nigeria has managed to increase this aspect of water consumption by 0.7 cubic meters per capita. In industry, innovation, and infrastructure, Nigeria is performing better than it did in 2017 in some areas. Amongst the notable ones is the rise of the population using the internet by a notable factor of 42% between 2017 and 2020. The average score of tertiary institutions, such as universities, has also increased by 34.3 in the number of universities that rank amongst the top 100 in the Sub-Saharan region. The country is also performing well in the climate action goal number 13. Between 2015 and 2017, it managed to reduce energy-related CO2 emissions by 0.6%. It also reduced CO2 emissions embodied in imports by 0.1 between 2015 and 2017. The improvements are commendable. However, most of them are by far below the set global targets.
- Challenges towards progress
According to the Voluntary National Review of 2020, Nigeria faces significant challenges in its quest to achieve targets in various SDGs. Amongst the most significant is the rise of epidemics that minimize the speed at which the country achieves its health goals. The country has had a fair share of health epidemics, including Ebola and COVID-19, which have been derailing its plans and progress in providing effective healthcare. The country has also faced challenges in achieving its goals in education goal number 4. One of them is the regional disparity in the levels of literacy. The country has a large population of about 200 million people, which makes it difficult to provide the necessary amount of learning resources in some states. Administration difficulties also make it difficult to match the educational gap and the skilled teachers. For this reason, both education and employment are affected significantly.
SDG Goal number 1- No Poverty
Poverty is both a major issue in the socioeconomic spectrum and a hindrance to the achievement of various other goals in Nigeria. For this reason, analyzing the Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating poverty is an interesting engagement. In Nigeria, the levels of poverty are at a record high to date. A significant percentage of the people who live in the country have been experiencing abject poverty since birth. The incoming generation also faces a high risk of facing the same fate if the right procedures of eliminating the pandemic are not taken, or fail to materialize in both the short and long-term.
Within the topics of poverty eradication are several aspects that demand to be addressed. An important dimension of the same encompasses the targets specified in the goal. The first goal is the eradication of extreme poverty of everyone in every place (United Nations, 2021). This goal was in the Millenium Development Goals from which the Sustainable Development Goals were curved. It means that the target of eliminating all kinds of poverty for all people has been in existence since the Millenium Summit of the United Nations in the year 2000. Nigeria failed to achieve the goal within the set period of 15 years that elapsed in 2015. It also failed to achieve any tangible improvements five years later. Sadly, the current trajectory also suggests that the country will deteriorate in the future if the right measures are not enacted. Currently, most people live below the poverty line of earning and using less than US $1.90 and the US $3.20 every day. About 46.4 persons per group of 100 people live in multidimensional poverty.
Another target within the goal is to reduce the number of men, women, and children who are experiencing difficulties wallowing in poverty by at least 50%. This target focuses on specific aspects of the population. It seeks to minimize poverty in each of the groups by at least a half by the year 2030 (United Nations, 2021). The current statistics indicate that less than 20% of women own land and less than 5% have access to agricultural rights. They are the most affected by the rampant poverty in Nigeria. The effect further spreads to their children. At least double the population of children in Nigeria lives in similarly poor conditions. Although not better, men are the least affected, since they have greater occupational and geographical mobility than both women and children. The allocation of social roles amongst men and women also significantly contributes to the high poverty levels amongst the two genders. Men’s roles ground them less than the roles of women.
The goal also targets a social protection system for all people and measures that are all-inclusive. The main target is to substantially cover the poor and vulnerable (United Nations, 2021). Nigeria, like most other impoverished countries, institutes measures aimed at achieving effective social protection. The country has several programs at both the local and national levels that aim at protecting the susceptible groups. The programs are instituted by both the authorities and private organizations. Amongst them are social protection interventions for rural women, family support programs, and employment programs (Oleribe & Taylor-Robinson, 2016). However, the programs have not been effective in providing the desired level of social protection. One of the main challenges that obstruct the achievements is that most of them are anti-poverty related. The implementation processes of such interventions are successful. However, it is difficult to sustain them, owing to the difficulty of sustaining the organizations that institute them. Most organizations die within the first two years of the institution. For this reason, different targeted demographics hardly gain in social protection.
Another target is a situation in which all men and women have equal access to economic resources. It is especially particular to vulnerable and poor societies. This target seeks to have a situation in which all people in all countries can access all the right technologies, natural resources, and financial services without discrimination (United Nations, 2021). In Nigeria, this target has hardly been achieved. Different demographics in Nigeria have different access to these important resources. One of the indicators of this disparity is the widening gap of land ownership. Due to corruption, some groups of people in Nigeria hardly get the chance to own land. Instead, land ownership is based on income and wealth. For this reason, the poor have low chances of owning land, and the small tracts that they have are sometimes lost to the wealthy and powerful. In 2015, a total of 62 people had an equivalent wealth to the total population. The wealth included land and other tangible assets (Oxfarm International, 2017). Such statistics indicate the level of wealth disparity that has been plaguing the country since independence.
Nigeria has also scored low in the target of achieving resilience amongst the poor and people in vulnerable situations. In this aspect, the SDG goal seeks to strengthen the vulnerable persons and ensure that they are not exposed to extreme climate-related conditions, as well as negative effects within the social, economic, and environmental conditions (United Nations, 2021). Nigeria has made minimal progress towards issues within the social realm. Amongst the most rampant include corruption, terrorism, inequality, and tribalism. Similarly, the country has hardly achieved any significant progress towards economic equality. There is extreme inequality in the country, whereby the poor are hardly surviving, owing to lack of job security, unemployment, and poor working conditions. On the contrary, the rich control about 42% of the total economy (Oxfarm International, 2017). The country is improving in the prevention of people from extreme climate conditions, although it is still lagging in hitting the targets set by the United Nations Environmental Program. There has been a reduction in the amount of CO2 emissions between 2015 and 2020. However, the fact that hunger and malnutrition are still a major issue shows that the concerned parties have not sufficiently protected the vulnerable groups and empowered them against the extremities.
Challenges
Sufficiently achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of zero poverty has been difficult, owing to numerous and diverse challenges. One of them is the high level of corruption in the country. Nigeria is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Most of the funds directed towards poverty alleviation programs end up in the hands of politicians and other powerful members of the community instead of the persons in need (Taiwo & Agwu, 2016). Another hindrance is the use of the top-bottom approach in handling issues of poverty. Most programs are handled by powerful representatives, such as legislatures, instead of involving the people in the grassroots and using evidence-based approaches informed by proper research. Also, Nigeria is a political country. Most social issues face the obstacle of politicization and subsequent bureaucracy. For this reason, the persons who are supposed to benefit from the poverty alleviation interventions hardly do so, owing to delay and eventual failure of the respective programs.
Approaches to solving the challenges
The Nigerian government is assuming proactive actions in achieving the set targets of poverty alleviation. Among failures of past approaches used in handling the challenges. The list of approaches includes the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), which acts at national levels (Yisau, 2017). The State Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (SEEDS) acts at state levels, while the Local Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (LEEDS) acts at local levels. The three combine to combat the challenges from all the necessary perspectives. Another strategy of tackling the challenges is the formulation and enactment of respective policies. The government is aware of the potential of key economic policies in transforming the entire economy. The Nigerian government is changing the macro-economic framework through fiscal prudence, seeking to create jobs through vocational training, and improving the management of public expenditure by pursuing a culture of accountability.
The government is also addressing the underlying issues that minimize the effectiveness of the various programs. One way in which it is doing so is addressing the issue of corruption (Taiwo & Agwu, 2016). It is seeking ways in which it can minimize corruption by increasing the independence of the judiciary to better its position in solving cases related to corruption. The government is also pursuing strategies that can minimize unemployment in the country. For example, it seeks to instill skills into the young population by setting up more skill acquisition centers. It is also promoting the enrollment of children into schools by pursuing strategies through which infrastructure can be availed in all learning institutions. The authorities also seek to address the issue of the unproductive bottom-up approaches by considering the contributions of the local populace in policy formulation, as opposed to acting on assumptions.
Conclusion
Nigeria has been experiencing difficulties achieving both the MDGs and SDGs. Most socioeconomic indicators show that the country has been retrogressing in most aspects as opposed to making meaningful progress in achieving the goals. The most affected areas include poverty and hunger relief, healthcare improvement, and education. SDG goal number one of achieving zero poverty raises concern since it affects several other goals. Several challenges, including corruption and wrongful approaches, hamper the processes of improvement. However, the government is making deliberate steps to mitigate the challenges hindering success in achieving the targets of the goal.
