Despite billions of naira spent annually to reduce hardship, Nigeria’s social protection programmes are failing to reach those most in need, according to a new World Bank report.
In its November 2025 publication titled “The State of Social Safety Nets in Nigeria,” the bank revealed that only 44 per cent of total benefits from government-funded welfare schemes actually reach poor Nigerians.
The report, obtained on Tuesday, examined how weak funding, poor targeting, and fragmented implementation have undermined the effectiveness of safety-net initiatives, leaving millions of vulnerable citizens without meaningful support.
“Safety nets expenditure is inefficient, with a smaller share of benefits going to the poor. While 56 per cent of the beneficiaries are poor, only 44 per cent of the total safety net benefits go to the poor,” the report stated.
The World Bank explained that most programmes, including the National Social Safety Nets Programme (NASSP), allocate a uniform amount per household, regardless of family size. This approach, it noted, means poorer families with more members receive less per person.
“That is, even for well-targeted programs, the same benefit amount is divided over a larger number of people living in poorer households,” the report said.
While initiatives such as the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) are designed to reach individuals rather than households, their limited coverage restricts impact. The bank observed that the school feeding programme “only benefits children in grades 1 to 3, and does not yet have full coverage, which limits the number of children per household that can benefit.”
The report also criticised Nigeria’s low investment in social protection, which stands at just 0.14 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) far below the global average of 1.5 per cent and Sub-Saharan Africa’s 1.1 per cent.
“At the existing level of social protection expenditure, there is almost no impact on the overall poverty headcount rate, gap, or depth,” the World Bank warned. “The impact on the poverty headcount rate of all social safety net expenditure combined is just 0.4 percentage points.”
The report highlighted that the inefficiency of most programmes results from “low coverage, inadequate benefit levels, and poor targeting,” all of which contribute to the minimal impact on reducing poverty and inequality.
The bank also expressed concern over Nigeria’s reliance on donor funds. Between 2015 and 2021, foreign assistance accounted for about 60 per cent of federal safety-net spending, with the World Bank providing over 90 per cent of that support.
“There is an urgent need for Nigeria to find fiscal space for sustainable social safety-net programming,” it warned, cautioning that dependence on donor funding could expose the country to serious financing risks.
Nonetheless, the World Bank acknowledged that the NASSP which uses the National Social Registry (NSR) to identify poor households has shown positive results. Among its beneficiaries, the programme reduced poverty by 4.3 percentage points and the poverty gap by 4.2 percentage points, making it about ten times more effective than other schemes combined.
With over 85 million Nigerians already captured in the registry, the bank described the NSR as “a ready-made platform” that could significantly improve the reach and transparency of future social assistance programmes if properly scaled up.
