By Ademola Adekusibe
November 12, 2025.
Despite billions of naira spent annually to cushion economic hardship, a new World Bank report has revealed that only 44 percent of total benefits from Nigeria’s social safety-net programmes actually reach the poor.
The report, titled “The State of Social Safety Nets in Nigeria,” released in November 2025, said that weak targeting, poor funding, and fragmented implementation continue to undermine the government’s welfare efforts.
According to the Bank, while the federal government has launched several intervention schemes, including digital cash transfers and school feeding initiatives, the impact remains limited.
“Most of the funds allocated to social protection programmes fail to reach those who need them most,” the report stated, noting that 56 percent of beneficiaries are poor, yet they receive only 44 percent of total benefits.
The imbalance, it explained, stems from allocating a flat amount per household rather than per person, which disadvantages larger poor families.
Nigeria currently spends only 0.14 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on social protection, far below the global average of 1.5 percent and the Sub-Saharan African average of 1.1 percent.
“This low investment has had almost no impact on poverty reduction,” the report warned, noting that current programmes cut the national poverty rate by just 0.4 percentage points.
It also expressed concern over Nigeria’s dependence on donor funding, revealing that between 2015 and 2021, about 60 percent of the country’s social safety-net budget came from official development assistance, with the World Bank accounting for over 90 percent of that support.
“There is an urgent need for Nigeria to create fiscal space for sustainable social safety-net programming,” the Bank cautioned.
However, it commended the National Social Safety Nets Programme (NASSP) for progress achieved through the National Social Registry (NSR), which currently captures over 85 million individuals, making it the largest database of poor and vulnerable persons in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Bank said the NSR has reduced poverty among its beneficiaries by 4.3 percentage points, calling it a “ready-made platform” for transparent and effective delivery of welfare to the poor.
