Encouraging growth to reduce poverty in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper discusses the challenge of poverty reduction in Nigeria from the macroeconomic perspective. It argues that the country's growth performance needs to be improved substantially in order to raise standards of living to appreciable level and achieve a visible reduction in poverty. A broad range of economic and social indicators of growth is utilized to explain the unsatisfactory growth performance in the past. The essence of our argument is that macroeconomic policy inconsistencies, structural bottlenecks, and institutional deficiencies have increased the risk of investing in Nigeria both by local and foreign investors, undermined growth, and militated against poverty reduction objectives. It concludes that a systematic attack on poverty would be difficult with the current total debt stock.