Poverty reduction through economic empowerment in states' 2025 budgets

Official surveys of household income and expenditure in Nigeria point to a rising tide of poverty and deprivation, especially for women.

The recently released Nigeria General Household Survey-Panel (Wave 5, launched on 21st November 2024) by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) finds that “price increases on major food items were the most prevalent shock reported by households, affecting 71.0 per cent of surveyed households”. The Survey also found that the Northwest is the geopolitical zone with the greatest increase in households unable to eat healthy and nutritious/ preferred food, an increase of 33% in 2023 above 2022. The Survey further shows an overall 48.8% reduction in household food consumption in 2023 and that only “43.5 per cent of women of reproductive age (ages 15 to 49) reported consuming diets that meet standards for minimum dietary diversity”.

The Survey of Bureau of Statistics had much more to say about the poverty of households where women had a leading income-earning role, called female-headed households. The Survey found that 72.2% of female-headed households could not afford healthy or preferred foods, while the figure was only 55.4% for male-headed households. Additionally, 55.2% of female-headed households said they ran out of food because of a lack of money, while only 41.3% of male-headed households reported the same.

The Nigerian government has not been unmindful of the new economic reality captured in the NBS Survey. At national and state levels, the government has worked tirelessly to mitigate the poverty impact of the current dual economic policy shocks on households and vulnerable populations, such as rural populations and women in particular.

A recent study on poverty dynamics and social assistance in Nigeria, anchored by the development Research and Projects Center (dRPC) under the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN) of IDS and funded by FCDO, documented over 50 targeted interventions at the national level to mitigate the poverty conjuncture of the monetary policy shock of exchange rate harmonization and the fiscal policy shock of fuel subsidy removal.

At sub-national levels, in the CPAN/BASIC study the dRPC’s budget analyses of specific lines covering – social protection/humanitarian and poverty alleviation/social welfare of states in Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones also found significant mitigation efforts. The analysis of 2023 budgets for Akwa Ibom; Anambra; Benue; Borno; Ekiti; and Jigawa States found noteworthy allocation of funds to specific lines for – social protection/humanitarian and poverty alleviation. Allocated sums ranged from as high as 8.5% of the capital budget of 2023 for social protection and poverty alleviation in Borno state; to ranges to 4.33% and 5.16% in states such as Benue and Anambra states respectively. States such as Akwa Ibom, Ekiti, and Jigawa fall in the middle with allocations of 6.45%, 6.91%, and 7.71%, respectively.

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Source: State 2024 Approved Budget Estimates
The dRPC’s budget analysis also found that while the majority of these budget lines were designed to fund classic social transfer interventions such as food distribution, many sub-lines also include economic empowerment components, especially for women, to catalyse sustainable poverty reduction.

This pattern of findings from the six focal states in the CPAN/BASIC study can be generalised across multiple states of the federation, where states are experimenting with transfer payments coupled with economic empowerment programs, projects and initiatives to mitigate the impact of the current poverty conjuncture on youth, the rural poor, displaced persons, women, and other vulnerable populations. As states allocate funding and design innovative programs, projects and initiatives into their 2025 budgets, the dRPC’s analysis shows that while almost all states propose social transfer interventions in line with some variant of social protection policies, only one state is aligning allocations for economic empowerment. These programs benefit women through a Women’s Economic Empowerment Policy. This state is Kaduna State.

While many states in Nigeria are reluctant to domesticate yet another national policy, often with no implementation plan, Kaduna and Kano States have hastened to domesticate the National WEE Policy and Implementation Framework of 2022 in a practical, inclusive, and workable manner. With the technical support of the dRPC, the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), and other partners, over 40 stakeholders from Kaduna state collaborated to develop a uniquely Kaduna WEE policy. This policy brought together all existing and medium-term projected livelihood initiatives for women under one coordinated mechanism and hub. Not only was this policy development approach practical, but it was also cost-effective and expeditious, as it chose not to reinvent the wheel but brought together strategic women’s livelihood interventions already being implemented under one roof. But perhaps more importantly, the Kaduna WEE Policy also identified women survivors of gender-based violence and chronic poverty as key beneficiaries to be targeted. This was an intentional strategy of applying an economic policy instrument to address broader social challenges of displacement, violence, and barriers to inclusion faced by many women of the state. At the launch of the Kaduna State WEE Policy on 19th November 2024, the Executive Governor, Senator Uba Sani, spoke of the policy as a game changer and put on record his unwaning commitment to supporting its full implementation. This was later followed up with a pledge of an N5 billion-naira addition to WEE lines in the 2025 budget.

The Kano State WEE Policy, to be launched in the coming weeks, has also adopted an integrated, harmonised and innovative approach. The validation workshop of the Kano WEE Policy, which took place in Kaduna State on 4-5th December 2024, brought together 60 Kano stakeholders under the guidance of the Hajiya Aisha Lawal Saji, the Honorable Commissioner of the Ministry of Women, Children and the Disabled to finalize a uniquely Kano WEE wrap-around policy. The 4-5th workshop, with technical facilitation by the dRPC and NIPSS, brought together women’s cooperatives, traditional and religious leaders, private sector representatives, and MDAs to review and finalise the policy.

As states experiment with new models of poverty mitigation in their 2025 budgets to address the reality captured in the NBS, Survey, Kaduna and Kano States lead the way in demonstrating that coordination of current and medium-term initiatives under one policy umbrella is an effective mechanism for supporting vulnerable women. At the WEE Policy Domestication Project launch at the Abuja Continental on the 16th of April 2024, Commissioners and their representatives from Akwa Ibom, Borno, Enugu Kwara, Lagos, Plateau, States, all present at the kick-off meeting, heard from dRPC subject experts and the NIPSS Directorate staff about the advantages of inclusive domestication and the effectiveness of practical wrap-around policies for impact. Kaduna and Kano states, whose Commissioners were also present at the project launch, must be commended for leveraging lessons from the launch to improve the lives of women in their states and lift them out of poverty.

Judith-Ann Walker is the Executive Director at the development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC) and can be reached at [email protected]