A new World Bank report has revealed that Nigeria’s social protection programmes are failing to reach those most in need, with only 44 per cent of total benefits from government-funded safety nets going to poor Nigerians — despite billions of naira spent annually to cushion economic hardship.
The report, titled “The State of Social Safety Nets in Nigeria” and released in November 2025, paints a stark picture of inefficiency and poor targeting in the country’s welfare spending. It shows that while 56 per cent of programme beneficiaries are classified as poor, they receive less than half of the total benefits, leaving millions of vulnerable citizens without meaningful relief.
According to the World Bank, this imbalance stems largely from the design of programmes such as the National Social Safety Nets Programme (NASSP), which provides a fixed amount per household rather than per person — meaning larger, poorer families receive disproportionately less 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.
“Even for well-targeted programmes, the same benefit amount is divided over a larger number of people living in poorer households.”
The report identified the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) as one of the few initiatives that focus on individuals rather than households. However, its limited scope — feeding only pupils in grades one to three — and incomplete national coverage restrict its potential impact.
The World Bank further noted that Nigeria spends just 0.14 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on social protection — far below the global average of 1.5 per cent and Sub-Saharan Africa’s 1.1 per cent average. The result, it said, is that social spending has had “almost no impact” on national poverty levels.
“At the existing level of social protection expenditure, there is almost no impact on the overall poverty headcount rate, gap, or depth. The combined impact of all social safety-net spending in Nigeria has reduced the national poverty headcount by just 0.4 percentage points,” the report added.
The findings come despite the federal government’s ongoing digital cash-grant scheme, which targets 15 million households (around 70 million people). Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, recently disclosed that 8.5 million households had already received at least one tranche of the ₦25,000 payment, while the remaining 6.5 million households are expected to be paid before the end of the year.
The World Bank also raised concerns about Nigeria’s heavy reliance on foreign donors to finance its safety-net programmes. Between 2015 and 2021, official development assistance accounted for about 60 per cent of federal spending on these initiatives — with the World Bank funding over 90 per cent of that support.
“There is an urgent need for Nigeria to find fiscal space for sustainable social safety-net programming,” the report warned, cautioning that the country risks major funding gaps whenever donor support declines.
Despite its overall criticism, the report acknowledged that the National Social Safety Nets Programme — which leverages the National Social Registry (NSR) to identify poor households — has produced some measurable success. Among its beneficiaries, the programme reduced poverty by 4.3 percentage points and the poverty gap by 4.2 percentage points, making it nearly ten times more effective than the combined impact of all other schemes.
With over 85 million Nigerians already captured in the registry — the largest social database in Sub-Saharan Africa — the World Bank said the NSR offers a “ready-made platform” for more transparent and equitable delivery of social assistance going forward.
“If well-targeted programmes are scaled up, the poverty impacts can be significantly higher,” the bank concluded, urging Nigeria to reform its social safety-net structure to ensure that resources truly reach those who need them most.
