Nigeria will soon begin measuring the success of its economic reforms using a new scorecard tracking poverty, real incomes and inequality, as President Bola Tinubu’s administration seeks to demonstrate that macroeconomic stability is translating into better living standards.
Taiwo Oyedele, the nation’s finance minister and coordinating minister of the economy said the Ministry of Finance would introduce the framework to gauge “shared prosperity,” moving beyond traditional measures such as economic growth and inflation.
“We came up with a framework to measure shared prosperity based on reduction in the number of people living in multidimensional poverty, increase in real income per capita and reduction in inequality,” Oyedele said on Thursday during a keynote address at the BusinessDay’s 14th CEO Forum in Lagos.
“We think the combined impact of those three measures will tell us whether growth is inclusive and whether shared prosperity is shared.”
The government will publish the indicators “very soon,” allowing Nigerians to assess whether reforms are improving welfare, he said.
“You will see very soon from the Ministry of Finance that we will be measuring the important indicators of the progress we are making as a nation and as Nigerian people because the government owes accountability to the Nigerian people.”
The proposed scorecard comes as Africa’s most populous economy emerges from three years of sweeping reforms, including the removal of petrol subsidies, exchange-rate liberalisation and tax changes aimed at restoring fiscal sustainability.
While those measures have won praise from investors and ratings agencies, they have also fuelled inflation and squeezed household purchasing power.
Oyedele said the country had largely achieved macroeconomic stability and must now shift its focus to ensuring growth benefits ordinary Nigerians.
“The conversation a couple of years ago was whether our economy would restore stability. The answer today is yes,” he said.
“The question now is how we translate that hard-won stability into prosperity that businesses can invest in, workers can earn from and families can build on.”
He outlined three priorities for the next phase of reforms, including raising productivity by expanding value-added industries, optimising government revenue through broader tax compliance rather than higher tax rates, and promoting inclusion by investing in skills development and supporting small businesses.
“No nation has ever achieved greatness simply by keeping its macroeconomics stable,” Oyedele said.
“Countries become prosperous when stability attracts investment. Investment drives productivity. Productivity creates jobs. Jobs raise incomes, and incomes improve living standards.”
The new metrics are expected to become a key benchmark for evaluating the Tinubu administration’s ambition to build a $1 trillion economy by 2030, shifting the focus from headline economic growth to whether reforms reduce poverty and narrow income disparities.
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