From world’s poverty capital, Nigeria emerges sixth worst in World Bank’s Human Capital Index

Following Nigeria’s recent emergence as the new world’s poverty capital, the country has again bagged the sixth worst nation in World Bank Group maiden Human Capital Index after Chad, South Sudan, Niger, Mali and Liberia.

Nigeria ranked 152 out of 157 countries covered in the survey over low health spending and poor educational outcomes.

World Bank President, Jim Young Kim, unveiled the report of the index on Thursday at the ongoing annual meetings of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Bali, Indonesia.

The global lender’s ranking is coming after about seventh months the co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, had urged the Federal Government to focus on human capital development.

Gates had noted that the proportions of the nation’s budget to health and education sectors were too low and not enough to spur growth.

Nigeria had appropriated 3.9 percent of her 2018 budget on health and 7.03 percent on Education as against 14 percent and 15 – 20 percent recommended by the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), respectively.

According to Young Kim, “Nigeria, unfortunately, ranks 152 out of 157 countries. We provide quite a bit of support for Nigeria in terms of the health budget.

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“But we feel that the overall spending on health is far too low, 0.76 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). And also the educational outcomes in Nigeria are very poor,” he said.

“Many African countries are in the red zone. I think that the World Bank has to take some responsibility for having emphasized hard infrastructure, roads, rails, energy, for a long time.

“And you know, that changed about 20 years ago. But there has still been the bias that says ‘You know, we’ll invest in hard infrastructure and then when we grow rich, we’ll have enough money to invest in health and education’.

“We’re now saying that that’s really the wrong approach, that you’ve got to start investing in your people right now.”

Speaking further, Young Kim stressed the need for African leaders to prioritise investment in health and education sector, adding that most of nations in the continent have relied so much on grants to fund the sectors.

“In many African countries, if they don’t receive grant-based financing they simply don’t spend on health and education,” he said.

Also speaking, the Managing Director of IMF, Christine Lagarde, said the nation’s domestic revenue was too low, urging that it was important to drive higher non-oil revenue mobilization and tighten monetary policy.

“I remind you that domestic revenue mobilization is 5 percent of GDP in Nigeria, and that is just way too low, relative to where Nigeria should be in order to address the issues of health, education, proper social spending on the people.

“That would certainly be a very strong recommendation that I would give her. And structural reforms that would probably include really making sure that the refineries and the oil equipment that is available in Nigeria works well and works for the benefit of Nigeria,” Lagarde said.

 

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