World Bank sees poverty rising as 10m more Nigerians slip into poverty in 2025
More Nigerians have fallen into poverty as economic stabilisation and growth momentum have yet to improve the livelihoods of citizens of Africa’s top crude producer, according to the World Bank.
Poverty levels are projected to hit 61 percent in 2025 as 139 million people slipped below $3 per person per day, compared to 129 million people last year as weak growth and high inflation eroded purchasing power more sharply since 2019, largely reflecting pre-2023 policy missteps and external shocks.
“Between 2019 and 2023, average consumption fell by 6.7 percent, especially in urban areas, while poverty rose from 40 percent (81 million people) to a projected 61 percent (139 million people) by 2025, with three-quarters of the increase occurring before 2023,” the Washington-based lender said in its Nigeria Development Update report, ‘From Policy to People: Bringing the Reform Gains Home’, Wednesday.
“Recent reforms are correcting past policy missteps, but meaningful improvements in livelihoods will hinge on sustained disinflation, stronger inclusive growth, better public services, and continuous targeted support to the most vulnerable.”
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Nigeria has embarked on a series of reforms since President Bola Tinubu took the helm of affairs some two years ago, including scrapping decades of fuel subsidies that drained government finances and relaxed the exchange rates to be more market determined.
Those radical policies, though have restored long-lost investor confidence in Africa’s most populous nation, stoked inflation to a near three-decade high and saw the naira tumble by more than 70 percent.
But the storm might just be over as key economic indicators are showing signs of recovery and stability, a turnaround that’s expected to slow poverty levels in the medium to long term.
The World Bank wants authorities to bring “reform gains home to Nigerians” by reducing food inflation; improving the use of public resources for development, and strengthening the social safety net to protect the poor and economically insecure.
