Growth from Below: Poverty Reduction beyond Social Protection in Nigeria

Agriculture and informal economies provide essential livelihoods in Nigeria, but they face challenges such as climate shocks, conflict, low investment, and financial exclusion. Resilience strategies include diversification, microfinance access and entrepreneurial ventures, but policy support is limited, particularly for informal activities. Government focus needs to shift from taxation to productive support, to enhance financial inclusion, strengthen social protection, and empower women through asset ownership and business development. Sustainable poverty reduction requires adaptive policies that integrate economic stability, peacebuilding, infrastructure, and social resilience.

In this brief, we offer some insights:

• Agricultural growth is a basis for escaping poverty, but can be a source of vulnerability when climate-related disasters like flooding can wipe out
  livelihoods.
• Resilience typically derives from combining farm and non-farm economic activities, where market access is good.
• Entrepreneurship is important, supported by enabling factors such as peace and social networks.
• Informal activities dominate growth from below, but suffer from low investment,
  constraints in accessing finance, and a policy focus on taxation, not support.
• Government interventions and other assistance work well but are sporadic,
  inconsistent temporally and spatially, and with gendered implications.
• Some poverty-reduction programmes seek to empower women economically,
  but social norms and legal restrictions on their property rights limit how much.

This brief was produced for the BASIC (Better Assistance in Crises) Research programme in partnership with DEEP.

Available at: https://doi.org/10.19088/BASIC.2025.027