The World Bank has yesterday in its new report said that poverty in Nigeria will increase by 3.6 percentage points over the next five years through 2027. The global bank made the disclosure in its Africa’s Pulse report released at the ongoing Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in Washington DC, United States.
According to the report said resource-rich countries like Nigeria and its likes are expected to sink deeper into poverty compared to its non-resource-rich countries, adding that due to higher prices of agricultural commodities, non-resource-rich countries will see higher growth overall, despite fiscal pressures.
“Conversely, resource-rich countries are not expected to grow at the same rate given decelerating oil prices. As a result, resource-rich countries are expected to see less progress in terms of poverty reduction (figure 1.10).
“Importantly, poverty in resource-rich, fragile countries (which include large countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria) is expected to increase by 3.6 percentage points over 2022–27, being the only group in the region with increasing poverty rates.”
In another part of the report, the World Bank warned that its finding calls for “urgent improvement in service delivery in countries with rapidly expanding populations, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria.”
Explaining the nexus, the report revealed that the development has a well-established pattern, whereby resource wealth combined with fragility or conflict is associated with the highest poverty rates—an average poverty rate of 46 per cent in 2024, 13 percentage points above non-fragile, resource-rich countries. Meanwhile, non-resource-rich, non-fragile countries saw the biggest gains in poverty reduction since 2000 and fully closed the gap in poverty with other non-resource-rich countries by 2010.
Urbanization Impact
Although the global bank acknowledged that the population of Africa and its highest levels of poverty are found in rural areas, however, rapid urbanization could accelerate poverty reduction under the right conditions, it added.
It said “From 2010 to 2019, poverty reduction was primarily driven by urbanization rather than significant decreases in poverty within rural or urban areas. In 2020, only 41 per cent of the continent was urbanized, but the urban population is projected to grow by over 238 million by2035, surpassing the rural population”.
Accordingly, this is an opportunity for the rural poor seeking to improve their livelihoods through migration, to move to the cities.
However, the dynamics of this transition will depend on the ability of urban areas to provide the necessary infrastructure, services, and employment opportunities to support the increased population.
In 2018, Nigeria broke a record that overtook India as the country with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty, with an estimated 87 million Nigerians said to be living on less than $1.90 per day.
Since then, the government has made claims to lifting people out of poverty, even as the living condition in most parts of the country has deteriorated.
President Bola Tinubu after taking over power has introduced sweeping socio-economic reforms which the government said were aimed at fixing the economy and redirecting it on the path of growth – removal of fuel subsidies, unification of exchange rates, among others.
The wave of such policies have aggravated poverty and despair amongst many Nigerians, amid elevated food prices and sundry inflationary pressures, triggering hunger protests across sections of the country.
