Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, is far off from reaching the number one Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of ending eradicating extreme poverty and hunger by 2030,according to world poverty clock , a non-governmental organisation in Vienna that shows real-time poverty estimates of different countries.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 global goals set by the United Nations in 2015. The world poverty clock used the Dollar per day approach had sets poverty at $2 a day or less and extreme poverty at $1.25.
According to a world bank study, nearly 70 percent of the world’s population live in just five countries, those of whom are subsisting on less than $1.25 a day and are concentrated in five areas which are India, China, Nigeria, Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
These countries have similar characteristics in terms of their rising population but based on the poverty clock and their policies, countries like China, India and Bangladesh are on track of ending extreme poverty.
“The difference is that if you look at china and India, these countries are doing a lot to pull people out of poverty. For instance, china within the last 30 years has pulled more than 500 million people out of poverty. India in the past ten years has a lot to reduce the incidence of poverty in their country,” Johnson Chukwu, CEO of Lagos-based financial advisory firm, Cowry Assets, said.
“Unfortunately both Nigeria and Congo are on the opposite side of development in the sense that their poverty levels is worsen. We are seeing poverty level in Nigeria decrease as GDP per capita is detetorating,” Chukwu told BusinessDay on phone.
China has a target of eradicating poverty by 2020 and to achieve this the Chinese authorities introduced poverty relief measures, creating different policies which for different regions according to their needs.
These Policies include developing business, relocating the poor, compensating peasants in ecologically fragile areas, promoting education and improving social security. As a result of these policies, China ‘s poverty level having a population of 1.39 billion people dropped to 1.4 percent in 2014 from 66.6 percent in 1990 according to the world bank poverty data and also based on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) per capital data, the country’s income levels increased to $348.7 in 1990 to $7,701.7 in 2014.
Also, India government came up with several programmes in order to ease the burden of poverty holding India back. The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) is one such programme. It looks to provide economically-disadvantaged people access to different financial services such as a basic savings account, insurance, credit as and when needed, pension and remittances.
As a result of these policies, India poverty level having a population of 1.34 billion decreased to 21.2 percent in 2011 from 38.2 percent in 2005 which led to a corresponding increase in their per capita income levels of $747.3 in 2011 to $1,497.7 in 2015.
Bangladesh is also a country that offers lessons to countries in ending extreme poverty. The leaders of the country arrived at the logical conclusion that countries can never reach their full economic potential if half the population is not fully participating.
In the 1980s, it developed a national family planning program that created an army of women health workers who went door to door to bring contraceptives to women. This helped reduce fertility rates dramatically and sparked the demographic transition that continues to support remarkable development progress.
From this, the country’s poverty level reduced to 14.8 percent in 2016 to 44.2 percent in 1991 with tier incomes reducing from $331.7 in 1991 to $1,458.9 in 2016.
The National Bureau of Statics (NBS) data on poverty rate of Nigeria is at 62.6 percent as at 2010 and according to the world poverty clock the rate is rising.
Ayodeji Ebo, Managing Director, of Lagos-based financial advisory, Afrinvest Securities limited said, “Currently, we are growing at 1.95 percent with a population growing at 2.6 percent per annum. Our growth rate is not exceeding the population growth rate. So as we progress, our standard of living will be impacted significantly.”
According to the poverty clock as at December 2017, China had a poverty rate of 0.5 percent out of a population of 1.39 billion; India had 6.4 percent out of population of 1.34 percent, Nigeria had 44.1 percent out of 193.9 million people while Bangladesh had 11 percent out of a population of 165 million people.
Nigeria per capita income has been experiencing a decline in its per capita income. Based on the IMF capita income data, the country per capital income rose from $2,365 in 2010 to $2,582 in 2011 and further rose till $3,268 in 2014 but started declining from $3,268 in 2014 to $2,763 in 2015. In 2016, it declined to $2,207 and in 2017 declined to $1,994.
Last month the IMF predicted that the country’s income levels will further decline from 2015 to 2023.This falls as a doom for the country as the poverty level may further increase.
Analysts have suggested ways that can help to prevent this forecast and improve the standard of living of people in the country
“To avert this gloomy forecast, the government needs to rethink its economic strategies and adopt policies that will attract both local and foreign capital into strategic sectors of the economy so as to improve the country’s competitiveness and productivity. Such initiatives will include opening up the infrastructure sector to private capital, improving access to capital in terms of availability and cost as well as addressing the energy supply crises,” Chukwu said.
