World Bank Criticises Nigeria’s Social Protection System, Only 44% of Benefits Reach Poor
The World Bank has criticized the effectiveness of Nigeria’s social protection programmes, revealing in its latest report that only 44% of government-run benefits reach poor households, despite 56% of enrolled beneficiaries being classified as poor. The main flaw is fixed allocations per household, which dilute support for larger, poorer families. The National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), which targets individual pupils, achieves better coverage, but its reach is limited and not nationwide. Social protection spending is extremely low—just 0.14% of GDP, far below the 1.5% global average and 1.1% Sub-Saharan Africa average. The overall impact on poverty reduction is minimal: all safety-net programmes together lower poverty by only 0.4 percentage points. The National Social Safety Nets Programme (NASSP), using the National Social Registry (NSR) to identify vulnerable populations, performs better, reducing poverty by 4.3 percentage points for beneficiaries. Nigeria overwhelmingly […]