In Care of Nigeria’s Poor

Last year, Nigeria’s newly-elected president set forth a seven-step agenda to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals and turn Nigeria into a top-20 industrialized nation by 2020. But this will be no easy task. Nigeria’s wealth inequality is among the worst in Africa – a situation illustrated by the contrast between the nation’s substantial oil wealth and a poverty rate of around 50%. Nigeria’s National Poverty Eradication Program (NAPEP) responded to this challenge in December 2007 by launching an ambitious conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, In Care of the Poor (COPE).

In February, the New America Foundation/Global Assets Project and Displaced Children and Orphan’s Fund‘s STRIVE program led by the Academy for Educational Development hosted development economist, Dr. Magnus Kpakol, for his first public U.S. presentation and discussion of the COPE program.

Kpakol first introduced COPE, a program takes an innovative twist on conventional and increasingly popular CCT programs in place around the world. The program not only provides cash transfers, but also skills training and micro-enterprise start-up funds to households in exchange for enrolling and keeping their children in school and providing for their basic health care needs. Dr. Kpakol outlined how the central government set up the program. This included the government picking 12 states to participate in the “pilot” phase of the program, and the government expecting these states to contribute matching funding for the program.

Following Kpakol’s presentation, international development experts commented on the use and effectiveness of Conditional Cash Transfers for poverty eradication, wealth accumulation, and social protection around the world. Allyn Moushey, an advisor for the Poverty Analysis and Social Safety Nets program at USAID said she believed Nigeria’s COPE is the first CCT program of such a scale in Africa. Alan de Brauw, Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) stressed that transparency, such as in regards to which children are chosen to participate in COPE, is important. Kpakol agreed with this point.

Questions for future consideration about Nigeria’s COPE, and CCTs more generally, include: Even with its community-driven and micro-finance elements, what potential does the program have to enhance livelihoods and empower Nigeria’s future generations? What hurdles must it overcome in order to succeed? What U.S. partnerships and resources could be mobilized to support the development of the program? Coupled with other poverty eradication initiatives, does COPE hold the promise to meet the President’s goals of increasingly access to education, health and food security and providing jobs and micro-credit to the poorest of the poor? And what lessons does Nigeria’s approach offer other countries in their fight against poverty?

-Jeff Meyer is a program associate for the Global Assets Project in the Asset Building Program.

Attachments

• MP3 Audio Recording of this Event

Location

New America Foundation
1630 Connecticut Ave, NW 7th Floor
Washington, DC, 20009
See map: Google Maps

Participants
Featured Speaker

• Dr. Magnus Kpakol
  National Coordinator,National Poverty Eradication Program of Nigeria
  Special Assistant to the President on Poverty Reductions, Government of Nigeria

Commentators

• Allyn Moushey
  Advisor, Poverty Analysis and Social Safety Neets
  USAID

• Alan de Brauw
  Senior Research Fellow, Food Nutrition and Consumption
  International Food Policy Research Institute

• Margie Brand
  Director, STRIVE Program
  Academy for Educational Development

Moderator

• Jamie M. Zimmerman
  Deputy Director, Global Assets Project
  New America Foundation