The World Bank has expressed serious concern over the poor performance of Nigeria’s social protection programmes, revealing that less than half of government social benefits actually reach the poorest households.
In its latest report, The State of Social Safety Nets in Nigeria, the global lender disclosed that although 56 percent of beneficiaries of various welfare programmes are poor, only about 44 percent of the total benefits end up in poor households. This, it said, exposes the inefficiency of Nigeria’s safety net framework, which appears robust on paper but falls short in practice.
The World Bank noted that the imbalance stems largely from how benefits are allocated—mostly at the household level instead of the individual level. This structure, it explained, disadvantages the poorest citizens who often live in larger family units, resulting in the limited impact of cash transfers and welfare initiatives.
The News Chronicle learned that the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) was identified as one of the few schemes targeting individuals directly. However, its coverage remains restricted to pupils in primary grades 1 to 3, limiting its potential to alleviate widespread poverty or reach a broader number of vulnerable children across the country.
According to analysts, this study points to persistent shortcomings in Nigeria’s welfare distribution system, including inadequate targeting of those most in need, subpar coordination between federal and state agencies, and poor data integration.
Additionally, pushing the government to redesign its social protection system to make sure that funds really get to underprivileged people, particularly in the middle of economic changes causing high inflation and lower household buying capacity, economists have said.
Emphasizing the need for clear, data-driven initiatives to soften the consequences of subsidy cuts and economic changes, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had also expressed worry in previous releases about Nigeria’s poor safety net systems.
According to the World Bank, social benefit programs must be more focused, clear, and inclusive of the most disadvantaged inhabitants of Nigeria for them to meaningfully reduce poverty.
