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Nigeria: New Human Development Report
AfricaFocus Bulletin
Mar 5, 2010 (100305)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
"Between 1985 and 2004, inequality in Nigeria worsened from 0.43 to
0.49, placing the country among those with the highest inequality
levels in the world. Many studies have shown that despite its vast
resources, Nigeria ranks among the most unequal countries in the
world. The poverty problem in the country is partly a feature of
high inequality which manifests in highly unequal income
distribution and differential access to basic infrastructure,
education, training and job opportunities." - UNDP Human
Development Report, 2008-2009
Nigeria's latest Human Development Report, released in December
2009, highlighted agreement in principle on the desired path of
development among independent development experts and Nigerian
government officials. But the declared goal of "growth with
equity," few can doubt, will face many obstacles on the road from
rhetoric to implementation.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from a press release
and the summary of the report. Both documents, as well as the full
report, are available on the website of the UNDP in Nigeria, at
http://www.ng.undp.org
Another AfricaFocus Bulletin sent out today contains a report
analyzing Shell's failures in "social responsibility" in the Niger
Delta. That bulletin also contains links to a number of other
relevant recent reports. (see
http://www.africafocus.org/docs10/nig1003a.php).
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Nigeria, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/country/nigeria.php
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++++++++
Nigeria Human Development Report advocates for growth with equity
Nigeria's more than 140 million people will be better-off if the 6%
average growth of the economy is matched with more productive and
stable jobs and a more equitable distribution of income. This
theme is the core message of the 2008-2009 National Human
Development Report launched in Abuja, on 7 December 2009.
Dr. Shamsudeen Usman, Nigeria's Minister of National Planning who
launched the UNDP commissioned report, agreed with the theme,
Achieving Growth with Equity. He said, "The choice of the theme
was considered very appropriate, as it is in consonance with the
policy of Government of achieving growth and development as a
panacea to sustainable poverty reduction and high standard of
living in the country."
He said that Nigeria aspires to be among the top 20 economies in
the world by the year 2020. "This can only be done by reducing
poverty and unemployment through concrete measures, policies and
the involvement of all stakeholders. To this end, the report pays
particular attention to strategic approaches to employment
generation using both sector specific and macro-based strategies."
The Minister added.
UNDP Resident Representative a.i. Mr. Turhan Saleh said, "The NHDR
breaks some new ground by generating State and zonal level data on
the human development index (HDI), poverty, inequality and a proxy
measure of State gross domestic product (GDP) through what can be
described as an index of economic activity. These are all firsts
in Nigeria! And, as it happens, a lot of the data and analysis
validates and reinforces the arguments that have been put forward
courageously in the National Vision 20:2020 document."
He was particularly happy that the report is a strictly home grown
product, developed, written, reviewed and revised by Nigerian
experts. Data was supplied by the work of the National Bureau of
Statistics, and an Advisory Board composed of senior Government
officials, civil society, the private sector, independent experts
and UNDP provided guidance. "We are deeply grateful to these
institutions and individuals for their enthusiasm, commitment and
hard work without which this report could not have been written,"
Mr. Saleh said.
Former Economic Adviser to the President and Minister of National
Planning, and a member of the advisory council on the NHDR, Prof.
Ode Ojowu, shed light on the highlights of the Report. He
revealed that inequity in Nigeria was one of the highest in the
world with the top 20% of the population controlling 65% of
national assets. Although there has been significant growth in
recent years with per capita income crossing the $1,000 mark in
2006, there is still prevalence of extreme poverty, with
agriculture, the driver of growth accounting for about 7 out of 10
poor.
The National Human Development Nigeria 2008-2009 sends out five
clear messages.
- The first one is about avoiding the trap of focusing on economic
growth as an end in itself. The Report argues that growth is not
an end in itself but a means to improved human development - better
health and education, longer and more productive lives, higher
incomes, and more opportunities for people, especially the poor and
marginalized, to engage fully in the life of their communities and
country.
- The second key message is that a narrow focus on economic growth
will diminish Nigeria's prospects of achieving key aspects of
National Vision 20:2020 and the MDGs. This is because a narrow
focus on economic growth will fail to tap the potential of the
majority of Nigerian men and women who are poor today but can be
highly productive citizens in the future.
- The third message is that, going forward, the best development
strategy and associated policy choices will be about promoting
growth with equity. Growth with equity is a simple but powerful
idea which aims to set in motion a virtuous cycle of development.
As the population gets healthier, more educated and skilled - and
begins to have access to other inputs such as credit, technology
and equipment as well as markets - productivity increases; as
productivity increases, the economy grows; and as the economy
grows, more resources become available to invest more in people,
infrastructure and other inputs for development, thus, promoting
further economic expansion and making its benefits available to
more people, especially the poor.
- A fourth message is that the growth with equity approach is not
anti-growth: the approach simply says that a 'growth first and then
let us worry about equity later' strategy poses a false choice and
holds back human development.
- A final message that comes through strongly in the NHDR is that
there is a common sense agenda of policies and actions to pursue
growth with equity and achieve Vision 20:2020 and the MDGs.
The report identified a key challenge among others, and one that
the best performing emerging economies have been able to address -
the need to maintain discipline, consistency and continuity in the
setting of priorities and policies over a sufficiently long period
of time to secure an irreversible momentum towards growth with
equity.
The launch was graced by top government officials including the
Minister of Health, Prof. Babatunde Oshotimehin, the Senior Special
Assistant to the President on MDGs, Hajia Amina Az-Zubair, who gave
a goodwill message, the Director General of the Budget Office, Dr.
Bright Okogu, several ambassadors and members of the diplomatic and
development community, civil society and the general public.
Human Development Report
Nigeria 2008 - 2009
Achieving growth with equity
Published for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),
Nigeria
[Excerpts only. For full summary and full report, visit
http://www.ng.undp.org]
Overview
Focus
This edition of the Nigerian Human Development Report focuses on
achieving growth with equity. In its simplest form, this concept
refers to growth which enables the largest number of people,
especially those less advantaged and poor, to participate in
wealth creation and benefit proportionately more from the
increased availability of public and private resources. In other
words, growth with equity aims for a society which is fairer in
the distribution of opportunities and rewards. This approach
contrasts sharply with "orthodox" growth strategies which are
focused principally on increasing the quantum of wealth in a
country and the average level of income of the population. They
are less concerned with whether or not the poor gain relatively
more (or less) from this increased wealth and whether the gap
between the rich and poor either widens or narrows as a result of
the "orthodox" growth path.
Growth with equity, therefore, holds out the promise of a faster
reduction in poverty and inequality, enabling more of the poor to
gain access to productive and stable jobs, improved health and
literacy, higher incomes and increased opportunities to engage
actively in the life of their communities. As a result, growth
with equity helps a society and country to progress from merely
raising incomes to achieving a higher level of human development.
Guided by these perspectives, the Report makes three essential
points: first, that the development debate in Nigeria over the
past few years seems to have focused too narrowly on growth for
its own sake rather than as a means to improved human
development; second, that this narrow focus is likely to reduce
the prospects of achieving the 7-Point Agenda and the National
Vision 20:2020 because it will fail to tap the potential of
countless millions of Nigerians who are poor today but can be
highly productive in the future with the right combination of
public and private policies and investments; and, third, that the
most effective development strategy for the future is one anchored
on growth with equity. The Report marshals the evidence and
provides the analysis to make this central case to Nigeria's
policy-makers, opinion-leaders and general public.
...
Nigeria's Growth Strategies, Outcomes and Implications
...
Growth performance has improved significantly since the return to
civilian rule in 1999. The last seven years witnessed an average
growth rate of about 6 per cent. However, economic growth has not
resulted in appreciable decline in unemployment and poverty
prevalence. This situation is attributable to a variety of
factors that have persisted as important policy challenges. Human
development has remained unimpressive in Nigeria ...
Some of the factors responsible for the low response of poverty
and human development generally to economic growth may be found
in the structure of production and nature of growth. Nigeria's
top two primary products, agriculture and oil, continue to
dominate both sectoral contributions to GDP and, in the latter
case, exports. Agriculture continues to account for more than 50
per cent of employment while the oil sector accounts for over 95
per cent of foreign exchange earnings and 80 per cent of
government revenue. The declining share of agriculture in GDP in
the mid and early 1970s has been reversed since 1999: agriculture's
share of GDP rose from 30 per cent in 1981 to about 36 per cent in
2000 and 42 per cent in 2007. The share of oil in GDP also rose
during the period to about 24 per cent in 2007. The two sectors
therefore account for more than 60 per cent of GDP. In contrast to
the relative performance of agriculture, the manufacturing sector
has been relatively stagnant and losing its share of GDP from 6 per
cent in 1985 to a range of between 4 and 5 per cent during
1990-2007. ... Overlaid by sustained high inequality, Nigeria's
overall economic growth improvements has translated to little or
insignificant improvements in the welfare of the poorer segments of
the population.
...
Inequality
Between 1985 and 2004, inequality in Nigeria worsened from 0.43 to
0.49, placing the country among those with the highest inequality
levels in the world. Many studies have shown that despite its vast
resources, Nigeria ranks among the most unequal countries in the
world. The poverty problem in the country is partly a feature of
high inequality which manifests in highly unequal income
distribution and differential access to basic infrastructure,
education, training and job opportunities. Sustained high overall
inequality reflects widening income gap and access to economic
and social opportunities between genders; growing inequality
between and within rural and urban populations; and widening gaps
between the federating units/economies.
Inequality between genders stands out as a key policy challenge.
The female gender is generally disadvantaged in access to
education and employment, agricultural wage and access to land,
among other things. Gender inequality is fuelled by many factors,
including sociocultural practices, low economic status,
patriarchy and low education. Conditions that prevent the
girl-child from receiving early education or that totally
undermine her right to education are still prevalent in Nigeria.
These conditions include early marriage and the vulnerability of
the girlchild to menial jobs as a coping mechanism among poor
households. Evidence abounds that gender inequality affects
growth and perpetuates poverty among the disadvantaged groups.
Clearly, inequality hurts the economy and women and girls in
particular.
High inequality points to corruption, the absence or failure of
redistribution policies, significant institutional shortcomings
in the provision of basic services as well as many years of
mismanagement of public resources, among many other causes.
Concern about inequality is strong in Nigeria, and has prompted a
variety of past and ongoing re-distribution programmes woven
around poverty reduction and women's empowerment, but
improvements have been slow in coming. ...
Poverty
The number of poor people in Nigeria remains high. The total
poverty head count rose from 27.2 per cent in 1980 to 65.6 per
cent in 1996, an annual average increase of 8.83 per cent in the
16-year period. However, between 1996 and 2004, total poverty head
count declined by an annual average of 2.1 per cent to 54.4 per
cent.
...
Relationship between Growth, Poverty and Inequality and
Implications
Three key relationships emerged from the analysis of data on
Nigeria. First, changes in poverty and inequality move in the same
direction, suggesting that as inequality deepened, the poverty
situation deteriorated further; second, economic growth and
poverty move in opposite directions, implying that as growth
improves, poverty incidence reduces; and third, inequality and
growth are positively correlated, i.e., they move in the same
direction.
Positive correlation between growth and inequality potentially
suggests that some kind of trade-off has to be accepted. To
reduce poverty, the situation suggests, would entail choosing
between promoting growth and accepting higher inequality as a
consequence or focusing on reducing inequality at the expense of
growth. This would be a poor choice as neither can permanently
lead to poverty reduction on a sustainable basis without the
other. The situation is a reflection of institutional fragility
and some fundamental weaknesses in the management of resources
and governance (both economic and political). These weaknesses
inhibit the effectiveness of distributional policies and
mechanisms while promoting rent-seeking behaviours and corruption.
To achieve both growth and inequality reduction simultaneously,
economic policies must be complemented by social and governance
reforms aimed at removing these weaknesses.
From 2000 to 2007, the employment growth rate failed to keep pace
with expansion in economic activity in the key sectors and overall.
In the manufacturing sector, employment growth rates were lower
than the sector growth rates, except in 2001 and 2003. ...
These developments and challenges suggest that the task of
achieving growth, poverty reduction and equity needs to be viewed
in broader terms, including the following:
- First, the challenge of making the growth process more pro
-poor suggests the need to focus on ways of increasing
opportunities for the poor to participate more fully in the growth
process not just by increasing agricultural incomes but also
through off-farm employment.
- Second, greater dispersion of the poor suggests there may be a
case for rebalancing the focus of poverty reduction efforts from
poor areas to poor people.
- Third, the rapid increase in inequality between as well as within
rural and urban areas suggests that fostering equity cannot be
delinked from the overall poverty reduction agenda.
The changes and trends described above have not gone unnoticed in
government circles. Indeed, a number of recent policies indicate an
increasing commitment of the government to a broader poverty
reduction, social protection, and human development Agenda.
...
Policies to Achieve Growth and Equity
1. Create an environment for high levels of investment and growth
Economic growth remains a critical factor in improving people's
welfare in Nigeria. Currently, the country is pursuing a vision of
becoming one of the 20 largest economies in the world by 2020, and
so the need to quicken growth beyond the current 6 per cent
average is not debatable. It is estimated that Nigeria would
require overall growth of above 10 per cent on a consistent basis
to attain this vision. What is more urgent and important, however,
is that sustainable human development would require that growth
becomes increasingly pro-poor going forward.
...
The immediate focus of the government's growth strategy should be
on reforms and investments that will improve investment returns
and efficiency, particularly improving power supply and enhancing
access to efficient infrastructure. ...
2. Make Growth Pro-Poor and Inclusive
In spite of the economic growth recorded in recent years, progress
in human development has been quite unimpressive in Nigeria
considering various indicators such as poverty incidence,
inequality and access to basic social services. As earlier noted,
poverty incidence is still very high. The manifestation of
disparities includes gender inequality in educational attainment
with female primary and secondary school enrolment rates being
consistently lower than the national average, and inequality in
asset distribution such that 20 per cent of the population own 65
per cent of national assets.
Additionally, there is unequal access to basic needs and social
infrastructure by sector (urban and rural) and within sector
(urban poor versus urban non-poor, and rural poor versus non
poor). Growth in Nigeria, therefore, has to incorporate
distributive features and a higher level of inclusiveness.
...
3. Achieve Effective Multi-Tier Cooperation
This report lays out
an expansive agenda of policy actions and investments which can
have a significant impact on Nigeria's human development indices
over the medium term as long as there is persistent, focused, and
determined leadership to make the difference. More importantly,
the fact of federalism, marked by the overlapping of economic and
political responsibilities among tiers of government, makes
intergovernmental co operation essential, if not inevitable, to
achieve the goals of human development in a federation.
In the Nigerian federation, the 36 states, the Federal Capital
Territory as well as 774 local governments share about 45 per cent
of consolidated revenue while the federal government controls the
rest. However, the federal government has no statutory powers to
control the sub- national governments for the purposes of macro
stabilization. Apart from this, areas such as primary and secondary
education, primary and secondary healthcare services, rural roads
and infrastructure, water and sanitation and community services,
with direct implications for human development, are assigned to
these lower tiers of government in Nigeria.
However, the federal government often provides services in most of
the areas where the sub-national governments have responsibilities,
thus resulting in conflicts, waste and inefficiencies the adoption
of a cooperative approach to governance is, therefore, essential.
Towards this end, strengthening of institutional coordination
across the three tiers of government, particularly the national
councils on planning and the sectoral councils, should be given
strong emphasis. Progress on these fronts will enable a pattern of
accelerated growth of an inclusive kind in the country.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
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