Except Nigeria implement key reforms to fast track economic recovery and achieve sustainable inclusive growth, the World Bank said between 15 million to 20 million Nigerians will join the poverty rank by 2022.
Speaking at the virtual launch of the 2021 Macroeconomic Outlook of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, Gloria Joseph-Raji, a Senior Economist at World Bank, said the COVID-19 pandemic hit the Nigerian economy very hard, plunging Africa’s most populous nation into its deepest recession since the 1980s and the second recession in 5 years.
Therefore, she said Nigeria needs to push forward policies that improve the business environment and support the welfare of the average Nigerian to curb growing poverty.
She said, “We actually consider Nigeria right now to be at a critical junction in the sense that the achievement of its development goal of lifting 100 million people out of poverty by 2030 was already challenging even before COVID-19 struck, and then COVID-19 has made this even more challenging and more urgent.
“So, with lower growth and fewer jobs, and then coupled with high inflation, our estimates are that the number of the poor will increase by about 15 to 20 million people by 2022 from the about 83 million people in 2019. And the 2019 numbers are from the Nigeria Living Standards Survey of 2018/2019.”
While she admitted that the Federal Government has done some adjustments recently to cushion the falling economy and taken some bold reforms, like the electricity tariffs adjustment to more cost-reflective tariffs and the subsidy removal, she said more needs to be done to strengthen the economy.
“However, more needs to be done if Nigeria really wants to make progress towards meeting its broad development goals,” she added.