A World Bank report says only 44% of Nigeria’s social safety-net benefits reach the poor, warning that low funding and poor design make the country’s welfare spending largely ineffective.
Despite billions spent annually on welfare initiatives, less than half of Nigeria’s social safety-net benefits reach the poor, according to a report from The PUNCH.
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 programmes go to poor Nigerians, even though they make up 56 per cent of beneficiaries.
The report cited poor targeting, inadequate funding, and inefficient design as major factors limiting impact. It noted that Nigeria spends just 0.14 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on social protection — far below the Sub-Saharan African average of 1.1 per cent — resulting in “almost no impact” on poverty reduction. Combined, all current programmes have reduced the national poverty rate by only 0.4 percentage points.
According to the bank, Nigeria’s overreliance on foreign donors — which funded about 60 per cent of safety-net spending between 2015 and 2021 — also poses sustainability risks.
“There is an urgent need for Nigeria to find fiscal space for sustainable social safety-net programming,” the report warned.