A new World Bank report has revealed that Nigeria’s social safety-net programmes are failing to adequately reach poor and vulnerable citizens, despite billions of naira spent annually to cushion economic hardship.
In the report titled “The State of Social Safety Nets in Nigeria”, released in November 2025, the World Bank said only 44 per cent of total benefits from government-funded social protection schemes reach poor Nigerians — highlighting serious weaknesses in design, targeting, and funding.
The report noted that while more than half of programme beneficiaries (56 per cent) are poor, they receive less than half of the total benefits. This inefficiency, according to the Bank, stems from the country’s household-based benefit structure, which allocates a fixed amount per household instead of per individual.
“Poor families tend to be larger, so the same benefit amount is divided among more people,” the report stated.
It explained that this approach significantly limits the poverty reduction impact of Nigeria’s social protection efforts, despite widespread coverage under initiatives such as the National Social Safety Nets Programme (NASSP) and the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP).
The report observed that while the NHGSFP targets individuals rather than households, its limited scope — covering only pupils in grades one to three — and partial national coverage restrict the programme’s overall impact.
The World Bank said Nigeria spends only 0.14 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on social protection — far below the global average of 1.5 per cent and the Sub-Saharan African average of 1.1 per cent.
At this level of investment, the combined effect of all existing safety-net programmes has reduced the national poverty headcount by just 0.4 percentage points, the report stated.
It added that “the minimal impact reflects not only low expenditure and coverage but also poor targeting and inadequate benefit levels.”
For instance, both rural and urban households — regardless of size — receive the same flat cash transfer, spreading resources too thinly among the poorest families.
Dependence on donor funding
The Bank further warned that Nigeria’s heavy reliance on donor funding threatens the sustainability of its social safety nets. Between 2015 and 2021, official development assistance accounted for about 60 per cent of total federal spending on safety-net programmes, with the World Bank providing over 90 per cent of that support.
“Nigeria must urgently create fiscal space for sustainable social safety-net programming,” the report urged, cautioning that any decline in donor support could trigger severe funding shortfalls.
Promise of the National Social Registry
Despite these challenges, the Bank acknowledged some progress through the National Social Registry (NSR) — Nigeria’s primary database for identifying and reaching poor households.
With over 85 million individuals already captured, the NSR is now the largest such database in Sub-Saharan Africa. According to the report, the NASSP, which relies on the registry, has achieved notable success, reducing poverty among its beneficiaries by 4.3 percentage points and narrowing inequality by a similar margin.
The report concluded that scaling up targeted programmes like NASSP and improving benefit design could significantly enhance the effectiveness of Nigeria’s anti-poverty efforts.
“Well-targeted and adequately funded programmes have demonstrated measurable impacts,” it said. “What remains is political commitment and financial sustainability.”
