Nigeria’s Social Protection Spending Fails To Tackle Poverty says World Bank 

The World Bank says Nigeria’s spending on social protection has had almost no impact on poverty reduction, despite numerous intervention programmes. In its new report titled “The State of Social Safety Nets in Nigeria”, the bank revealed that the country spends just 0.14 percent of its Gross Domestic Product on social protection, compared with the global average of 1.5 per cent and the Sub-Saharan African average of 1.1 percent. The report found that this low investment has only reduced the national poverty rate by 0.4 percentage points.

According to the World Bank, Nigeria’s social protection spending between 2010 and 2021 averaged just 0.45 percent of GDP, with actual spending often lower than budgeted amounts. It said many programmes, including conditional cash transfers and school feeding schemes, have limited reach and fail to target the poorest households effectively. The report also highlighted that poor families, which tend to be larger, receive the same flat payments as smaller households, weakening the impact of the interventions.

The bank warned that Nigeria’s heavy reliance on foreign donors to finance its safety nets poses a major risk. Between 2015 and 2021, official development assistance made up about 60 percent of total safety-net spending, with the World Bank providing over 90 percent of that support. It urged the government to find “fiscal space for sustainable social protection”, noting that low coverage, small benefit sizes and poor targeting all contribute to minimal results.

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Despite these challenges, the bank noted some success in the National Social Safety Nets Programme, which uses the National Social Registry to identify poor households. Among its beneficiaries, poverty fell by 4.3 percentage points, nearly 10 times the national average impact. However, the report concluded that overall, only 44 percent of social safety-net benefits reach poor Nigerians, underscoring weak efficiency and fragmented implementation across the system.