Fatima Pate
February 23rd
Home to near 200 million people, Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy and biggest oil producer. Unfortunately, Nigeria has and continues to face trouble in different facets of human development, one of which is poverty. Over 90 million civilians, roughly half of the population, lives in extreme poverty and even more experience chronic poverty. What makes poverty such a pressing issue is the expansive range of those it affects and what it affects. The rate of death is 3 times higher for those below the poverty line between the ages of 25 and 64. Similarly, poverty directly correlates to lack of education, access to health care resources, economic freedom and shorter life expectancy. The costs of it include health care costs, costs in crime, and reduced economic production. Some of the challenges in tackling poverty are that finding accurate data and having complete government cooperation to name a few is quite challenging. In such a large and dense country like Nigeria, gathering data regarding poverty is difficult but the only way to come up with effective solutions is to have as accurate of data as possible. Analysis on poverty in Nigeria indicates that government corruption and instability, lack of health care and access to it, and gender inequality are some of the root causes of this detriment that is too often taking away the lives of many and it is important to question how these three sectors intersect and what role can each play in the national effort to decrease poverty in Nigeria.
An instable government directly affects citizens but the effects are even worse for those below the poverty line. Tracing back to the 1970s-1980s, Nigeria was on track to becoming one of the major economies in the world, right besides China and the United States. Nigeria’s agricultural sector was thriving, the petroleum industry was expanding and infrastructure was spreading until the government slowly began to weaken. In the 1970s, Nigeria was listed as one of the top 50 wealthiest countries but in recent years, it has been listed as one of the 25 poorest countries. Political instability, corruption, and the exploitation of oil have hindered Nigeria’s potential for economic success, created a large gap between the wealthy and poor leaving a very small middle class, and most importantly, has negatively impacted the lives of citizens by directly playing a role in increasing poverty. The purpose of this article is quantify and understand the unequal distribution of wealth in different local governments to find patterns that may be advantaging or disadvantaging communities at localized spatial scales. The research makes use of the geodemographic system which estimates the likelihood of similar characteristics among a small community. More specifically, the Nigerian Local Government Area Geodemographic Classification system was used and themes that the data cover include agriculture, demographics, education, health, household composition, employment, home infrastructure, housing, socio-economic and women and children. The results of the study highlight the importance of creating a larger middle class in Nigeria. A functioning and present middle class is essential to providing good education and taking care of dependents and when there is a small middle class, small upper class that engages in corruption and a massive population living in poverty, it becomes hard for all groups to collaborate in the fight against poverty. The results also indicates that country dwellings have the highest rates of poverty and the most deprived households tend to be located in areas where adult literacy is low and heads of homes are not educated. The research most relates to the 16th sustainable development goal of “peace, justice and strong institutions”. There must be unity in the government, corruption must end, wealth has to be justly shared, and stability has to be restored which in turn will decrease poverty.
For data to be of any use in the alleviation of poverty, it must be timely, accurate and detailed. This article suggests that rather than using a single data source for poverty maps, multiple data sources should be used such as environmental data regarding food security, economic activity and call data records which will give insight on spatial, temporal, and individual aspects of the select group. The reason for this is because the current way of estimating poverty is through household surveys which is costly, time consuming and is more efficient when working with a small amount of households. Similarly, receiving censuses in a timely manner is challenging for developing countries. Additionally, poverty should be approached from multiple dimensions rather than one, which tends to be from the income poverty lenses. In this journal, the Gaussian Process Regression process was used and phone data, and data regarding food security was analyzed. The data used in this research comes from the country of Senegal but the idea and results of the study can be used in Nigeria. Although Senegal is significantly smaller than Nigeria with a population of roughly 16 million, both West African countries are face increasing rates of poverty; Nigeria has a poverty rate of 50% and Senegal has a rate of 46.7%. In Amartya Sens Development As Freedom, he acknowledges that increasing income alone will not eradicate poverty and different dimensions of poverty must be analyzed for progress. Similarly, this study stresses diving into individual dimensions of poverty such as lack of education, standard of living, health, etc. When more dimensions are incorporated, it increases the amount that can be done to alleviate poverty. And when there are more sectors that can be delved into and improved upon, choices for citizens greatly increases, or as Sen put it, it will expand “the real freedoms that people enjoy”. In regards to the Sustainable Development Goals, all 17 can be considered in relation to this journal because the research suggests integrating all dimensions of development into the efforts to decrease poverty.
For there to be significant development, the citizens of the nation must be in good health. When there is a lack of health care resources, countries begin to see an evident decline in national progress. In specific places in Nigeria, there are absences of the amount of health care providers available, vaccines available, sanitation and access to clean water. Evidence from research carried out by the country indicate that people who reside in places with low water quality, sanitation and hygiene are at a higher risk of getting sick. Unfortunately, the lack of detailed and reliable geo-referenced data inhibits researchers ability to compare levels of cleanliness and sanitation and to find patterns. This journal aimed to pinpoint areas where there is a lack of access to clean water and sanitation in Nigeria through surveys, specifically the National Water and Sanitation Survey and the use of geolocational data. Additionally, geo-spatial covariates were uses to measure the vegetation index, aridity, land-surface temperature, brightness of nighttime lights, and estimated travel time to the nearest functioning water source. The sustainable development goals that can be considered in regards to this article are “clean water and sanitation”, “Good health and well-being”, and “no poverty”. With clean water and sanitation, comes good health and well-being. If citizens are in good health, it will make it easier for them to rise out of poverty but the first step is clean water and increased hygiene and sanitation. An example of this is the fact that many girls drop out of school due to lack of hygiene, sanitation and clean water. If all these were provided, many girls would be able to attend school, receive an education, and expand their capabilities. Correspondingly, this study relates to Amartya Sens definition of development because once specific locations that need help are found, aid can be provided and better policies can be implemented which then expands the citizens freedom and capabilities as they are now able to access clean water and sanitation. And as supported by developmental patterns, good health and well-being are the first steps a nation must take for development.
The increasing rates of poverty in Nigeria are influenced by gender inequalities, one being employment. Girls are less likely to attend school leading to high illiteracy rates and in the poorest parts of the country, near 75% of girls are out of school. Similarly, only 50% of women participate in the labor force whereas 60% of men do. With no policies in place that prevent discrimination based on gender or allow for equal pay for the the same work, women are at a significant disadvantage in the work force and poverty will see no decrease if half the population is held back from engaging with the economy. This article aimed to assess different types of employment women in Nigeria engaged in and the differences in these jobs based on location. The data came from the 2008 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) which asked women about their employment status, who they worked for, how long they worked, and the format of their earnings. Factors such as education level, religion, type of place of residence, and marital status were incorporated as well and the structured additive regression (STAR) model was used. This journal relates to the sustainable development goals of “gender equality”, “reduced inequalities” and “decent work and economic growth”. Gender inequality appears in many forms across Nigeria whether it is in the work force, in the academic sphere or access to health care. The reduction of poverty is an active effort with participation and cooperation from all genders and if one gender is excluded, there will be little to no change as supported by Nigeria’s current situation. Similarly, inequalities as a whole must be reduced. Inequalities in Nigeria come in the form of colorism, sexism, religious intolerance, ageism, homophobia and more. Just like for gender inequality, inequalities in general only hinder the process of alleviating poverty. When these inequalities are reduced, decent work and economic growth will occur as well. This article relates to Amartya Sen’s definition of human development that development is the expansion of citizens capabilities because decreasing inequalities which will increase employment opportunities for women will in turn expand their choices, capabilities, and freedoms. Additionally, Sen believes that “development requires the removal of major sources of unfreedom and…systematic social deprivation”. These injustices are examples of unfreedoms that are stopping the efforts to alleviate poverty in Nigeria.
The main idea of this journal is that for there to be a significant decrease in poverty in Nigeria, more focus and aid should be given to senatorial districts where there is a higher poverty density. The study resulted in locations of senatorial districts which are made up of federal constituencies with similar patterns of poverty incidence which will help researchers identify specific factors of specific locations. According to the author, poverty is a “threat to well-being and economic development of Nigeria”. For example, Nigeria has implemented Poverty Reduction Strategy Programs such as National Economic Empowerment Development Strategies and National Poverty Eradication Programs and although these programs have addressed the root causes of unemployment, they have been inefficient at producing any sustainable and long term result. The authors suggest that this is because of the current way poverty studies are carried out which fails to see the complexity of poverty. Additionally, studies treat geographic units as independent units rather than acknowledging them as entities surrounded by other units to which they interact with. The author suggests that Senatorial Districts should be used as geographic units through the use of spatial econometrics techniques that will give more detailed and contextualized observations of poverty in these geographic units. Furthermore, spatial econometrics prevents the occurrence of the spillover effect or spatial autocorrelation in the data. The study used exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) which focuses on distinguishable characteristics of data and GIS software. The sustainable development goal considered in this study is the first one, “no poverty” and it relates to Sen’s definition of freedom because the authors urge the importance of studying poverty in a multidimensional way rather than a narrow view point.