Democracy Amid Growing Poverty
BY MARYAM UWAIS, MFR
Despite having the largest economy and population in Africa, Nigeria has the 7th lowest human capital index in the world and is said to be the world’s second-largest poor population, after India. In individual households, the inability to make ends meet exacerbates social, physical, and mental problems, all of which undermine economic growth. These challenges manifest in poverty, unemployment, violence, poor education and public health outcomes, as well as insecurity.
After numerous attempts at poverty reduction, the Federal Government of Nigeria created the National Social Investment Office in November 2015, to promote a more equitable distribution of resources to vulnerable populations. Unfortunately, the efforts of that office have been characterised by turbulence in recent times. Political, constitutional, structural, and administrative challenges have continued to bedevil efforts to reduce poverty. Specific difficulties relate to the poor continuity of programmes; the dearth of data; as well as comprehensive information on actual expenditure on social interventions. Other issues that disrupt the best of intentions and planning include the territorial nature of the various Ministries and Agencies in program implementation, inevitably resulting in siloed outcomes or duplicity; unreliable reporting, insufficient resource allocation; overlapping and skewed donor funding; the lack of effective, inclusive coordinating governance platforms; as well as the dearth of transparent and effective initiatives engaging in research, monitoring and the measurement of progress.
Poverty remains endemic and pervading, irrespective of culture, religion, or political affiliation. Incongruously, social interventions in Nigeria have been characterized by a culture of entrenched partisanship, nepotism, and a sense of entitlement. Despite numerous initiatives targeting the poor, powerful individuals (often parading as politicians) frequently exploit social investment programs for personal political gain, rather than for supporting those in need. Sound political will is now necessary to ensure that only the truly deserving receive government support. The narrative in the Nigerian social space must shift towards insulating poverty reduction from politics. It is time to establish a fresh social contract between the government and its citizens. The powerful must focus on serving all Nigerians, not just their party or vested interests. With poverty affecting 63% of the population (133 million people) according to the 2022 multi-dimensional poverty index, authentic service must remain at the core of all government undertakings.
In Nigeria, Sub-National units (States and LGAs) are constitutionally mandated to provide primary education, primary healthcare, and empowerment to all citizens, including women, youth, children and the aged within their jurisdictions. However, aligning policies and priorities across all States has proved to be a complex and complicated task, leading to varying priorities, thereby hindering progress amongst the States. The FGN should consciously restrict itself to setting targets, coordination, advocacy, and monitoring, as well as analysis & research, without being directly involved in implementation. At best, the FGN should collaborate with and support States and LGAs on social interventions, for sustainable progress in the aspiration to achieve the SDGs within designated timelines.
The unique challenges of each Nigerian State require tailored targets to achieve specific SDG(s). States and LGAs have the competence and capacity that can be harnessed, incentivized, and strategically supported through a specialized Federal team established to focus on coordination, monitoring, and incentivizing compliance around mutually agreed targets, while continuously building capacity at all levels to meet specific needs and the peculiarities of each jurisdiction. Such a team should, however, have a direct reporting line to a compelling Sub-National authority, as well as to the human capital development-related Ministries, to ensure buy-in, continuous engagement with policy and alignment with those saddled with the relevant mandates for execution.
Mention should also be made of the tendency of elected leaders to focus more on the more ‘visible’ outcomes, whereas the intangible is just as important. For example, prioritising the construction of school infrastructure as part of the education budget, without addressing such other important factors as social protection (for the parents), maternal and child health, teacher training, and security concerns can undermine effective learning and full classrooms. These subtle intangible aspects require extensive data collation, continuous training, surveys, and analysis over a minimum of 3 to 4 years as evidence of verifiable performance, making these issues less appealing to politicians who are elected to serve a 4-year term. Interestingly, even private sector entities seem to be more focused on immediate returns on investment, and consequently, longer-term outcomes are often deprioritized, even where essential for wholesome impact. We must depart from the norm of focusing clinically on singular issues, without including other vital, interconnected elements.
It must be emphasised that whether manifest, or not, all inter-related factors must be prioritized and factored into implementation, to achieve the desired goals. A comprehensive strategy that involves all the vital components is key to successfully addressing poverty, not only the palpable evidence of ‘brick and mortar legacies.’ Poverty is multidimensional, requiring a holistic approach that factors in relevant sectors due to the interwoven nature of the underlying issues. Thankfully, Nigeria has adopted the multi-dimensional poverty index for measuring poverty as it has proven to be a more accurate tool for measuring poverty.
To effectively address poverty concerns, dealing with population growth is essential. Effective planning and resource allocation for quality education and healthcare are impossible to achieve with unrestricted numbers. Nigerian politicians often avoid this topic due to political, religious, or cultural sensitivities, but no faith promotes having children beyond the parent’s capacity to provide for and nurture them. Paradoxically, the poor tend to have more children than the well-off, for varying reasons. This critical but sensitive narrative needs to be handled with discretion at the highest levels, and also include our faith-based and community leaders.
The big elephant in the room relates to governance and corruption. Corruption is pervasive at all levels in Nigeria and often undermines poverty-related interventions. While sufficient resource allocation has been a struggle, the mismanagement of funds and the lack of transparency (including claims of ‘ownership’ by the appropriating arm) in government allocations can only result in ineffective execution. Innovative and integrated financing are critical, and the private sector, donors and development partners, philanthropists as well as impact investors should be encouraged to complement budgetary releases, especially because experience has shown that external finance has the effect of securing government resources in any given project, given the additional scrutiny.
Addressing income inequalities requires targeted social investments for marginalized communities, while promoting economic empowerment and social inclusion across all government levels. Vested interests persist in disregarding or belittling the existence of reliable data (instead of interrogating same for updates), just so that they can sustain the subjectivity and influence as the pattern for targeting. Additionally, security challenges like insurgency, communal violence, and crime disrupt social investment activities and hinder progress. Developing painstaking guidelines linked to verifiable data, is a pre-requisite for measuring impact.
For all of these initiatives, technology must be utilized to achieve scale and objectivity in poverty alleviation. Robust feedback and grievance redress mechanisms are essential to ensure continuous improvement across Nigeria’s vast and diverse landscape. Authentic data is essential for measuring poverty reduction efforts, allowing for continuous monitoring and research. Strengthening data collection, analysis and research are an imperative for evidence-based decision-making, accountability and socio-economic growth. Beyond sound databases, technology offers hope in diverse areas, such as through the concerted efforts of social entrepreneurs and Fintechs working assiduously in this space.
Despite strident efforts to improve access to education, healthcare, and livelihood opportunities, too many Nigerians lack quality services due to inadequate facilities, and the shortage of skilled personnel. To address youth employment and underemployment, sustainable livelihood opportunities, mentorship and the promotion of entrepreneurship are crucial. Governments must enhance financial inclusion and literacy, as the provision of financial services to the disadvantaged is the foundation for empowerment. Furthermore, Nigeria’s vulnerability to climate change impact (such as droughts, floods, erosion and desertification) necessitates incorporating climate resilience strategies into social interventions to mitigate risks and enhance community adaptive capacity.
In conclusion, investing in Nigeria’s voiceless populace faces numerous challenges that mirror the country’s broader socio-economic issues. Key obstacles include the politicisation of initiatives and infrastructural deficiencies such as unreliable electricity, poor transportation networks, and inadequate communication systems. The media must commit to amplifying the voice of the poor by engaging them directly, although the messaging must be circumspect due to the cultural sensitivities. The Federal structure presents difficulties in terms of alignment, but this can be overcome through an innovative approach that does not attempt to usurp the mandate of States, LGAs and especially communities, where such interventions should commence from. Poverty reduction interventions must, however, acknowledge and navigate around these imperfections, as we can hardly wait for everything to be in place, before stridently working towards poverty alleviation.
Today, vested interests and a sense of entitlement remain prevalent, disrupting objective implementation through power and influence. Addressing these challenges requires a concerted and collective effort from governments, civil society, the media and the private sector. Strong political will, adequate resources, policy reforms, institutional strengthening, advocacy, close monitoring and enhanced collaboration among stakeholders are essential. We must prioritize comprehensive, efficient, objective, and transparent social interventions, to ensure security and stability in our dear country, Nigeria.
BY MARYAM UWAIS, MFR Uwais is a lawyer, the Special Advisor on Social Investments to Muhammadu Buhari from 2015 till 2023. Appointed a member of the advisory group to accelerate progress of the sustainable development goals (SDG) by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Uwais is a recipient of National Human Rights Commission Awardee for Outstanding Contributions in the Advancement of the Rights of Women and Children in Nigeria, 2015 and the ‘Public Social Intrapreneur’ award by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.
