Policy Brief & Alerts

Recent evidence suggests that the Nigerian economy has entered 2026 with the weight of a hard-won stabilisation and rising structural fragility. This transition follows the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) implementation of several reforms since March 2023. Specifically, the CBN cleared the $7 billion backlog of verified foreign exchange obligations. Inherited in September 2023, settling the residual balance and announcing full clearance in March 2024, following an independent audit by Deloitte Consulting to verify the legitimacy of claims. The CBN also launched a banking sector recapitalisation programme in March 2024, requiring banks to meet substantially higher minimum paid-up share capital thresholds by 31 March 2026.” At the close of the programme, the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) confirmed that 33 of Nigeria’s 37 banks had met the revised minimum capital requirements, with N4.65 trillion raised in aggregate. 
It also allowed the naira to float under a unified, market-driven foreign exchange framework. In addition, the removal of the long-standing fuel subsidy to eliminate a structural fiscal drain also created conditions that generated substantial inflationary pressure.” Moreover, evidence indicates that the foreign exchange reserves recovered substantially, inflation began moderating after a substantial spike, and the manufacturing sector posted predominantly expansionary but uneven PMI readings throughout 2025.
However, analysis points out that Nigeria’s Central Bank now faces a dilemma that those reforms could not resolve. On the one hand, consistently raising monetary policy rates compounds and starves productive investment in real sectors already under severe structural constraints. On the other hand, cutting policy rates risks capital flight. In this light, this article argues that the interaction effects of the four unresolved structural failures in Nigeria’s financial sector, energy sector, manufacturing sector, and fiscal policy have made the monetary policy rate (MPR) a blunt and often less effective instrument.

Summary

Northern Nigeria faces a growing resilience deficit as climate shocks, conflict, and economic instability converge, exposing households to repeated crises that erode livelihoods and deepen poverty. Despite existing policies on disaster management, social protection, and climate adaptation, responses remain largely reactive, focusing on relief rather than strengthening households’ ability to anticipate, absorb, and recover from shocks. Drawing on recent research, this policy brief argues for an integrated resilience system linking early warning, anticipatory action, adaptive social protection, and livelihood recovery. Lessons from sub-Saharan Africa highlight the importance of coordinated institutions, predictable financing, and shock-responsive systems to build lasting resilience.

Key messages

1. Northern Nigeria is increasingly exposed to overlapping climate hazards, conflict and economic shocks that repeatedly erode household assets, livelihoods and resilience.

2. Current disaster risk management and social protection systems remain largely reactive, with limited coverage, delayed financing and weak coordination, reducing their effectiveness in protecting vulnerable households before shocks occur.

3. Nigeria requires an integrated resilience system that links early warning, pre-arranged financing, adaptive social protection and timely livelihood recovery.

4. Strengthening resilience will require scaling up anticipatory action, expanding adaptive social protection, integrating livelihood recovery into existing programmes, and adopting conflict-sensitive climate responses supported by stronger institutional coordination and more predictable financing.

5. Greater political commitment, stronger coordination and sustained financing are also needed to transform systems into a coherent, shock-responsive resilience architecture.


This study, first published HERE, was developed by the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network, represented institutionally by the Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa and the Institute of Development Studies.
The authors are grateful to the FCDO, particularly the Data and Evidence to end Extreme Poverty (DEEP) programme, for financial support. DEEP is funded by the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) through its Global Research and Technology Development portfolio. The author’s views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of FCDO.
Authorship: Adedeji Adeniran, Vidya Diwakar and Jamilu Ilyasu.

Digital safety programming across Africa, and specifically in Nigeria, is often built on the widely held assumption that merely equipping women with digital skills will shield them from online violence. This policy brief, based on the report of the TFVAWG-CSEA-AEGIS project, empirically tests that assumption. The findings reveal a paradox with insightful implications for digital development policies and programming. Using configurational methodologies, specifically Crisp-set and Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA and fsQCA), the research reveals that higher digital literacy consistently appears in every pathway leading to TFVAWG, rather than operating as a straightforward protective factor. Hence, constituting a paradoxical situation where the heaviest burden of Technology Facilitated Violence Against Women and Girls (TFVAWG) falls not on the digitally impoverished but on the digitality literate. Digital literacy was found to combine with conditions such as young age and heavy online presence as a reliable pathway to TFVAWG.

A compelling global consensus has formed around achieving Net-Zero emissions as the indispensable framework for collective climate action. This framework, which aims to balance greenhouse gases emitted with those removed from the atmosphere, is grounded in the Paris Agreement's objective of limiting global temperature rise to well below 2°C. It provides a common language and a set of quantifiable targets that shape national policy, international finance, and corporate strategy. The urgency for this framework is clear: between 1990 and 2023, annual energy-related CO₂ emissions surged from 20.5 to 37.3 gigatonnes, with the global per capita average standing at 4.67 tonnes in 2023.

Author: Ezra Ihezie

In Nigeria’s secondary schools, students are typically grouped into one of three subject streams: Science and Technology (Sciences), Humanities (Arts), or Business Studies (Social Sciences). This grouping is typically done at the start of senior secondary school. The system is intended to align students’ education with their intended career paths, ensuring they take subjects required for national examinations, such as the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). However, this well-intentioned structure can inadvertently narrow learning opportunities. A prominent example is that students placed in the Social Sciences stream who hope to study Economics at university are often unable to take Further Mathematics, a course where calculus, a fundamental skill for advanced Economics, is first introduced. This results in a likely gap in mathematical preparedness that scholars have called “the mathematics problem”. This challenge is not unique to Nigeria; many Economics students worldwide report being unprepared for the level of mathematical rigour required in their programmes. Evidence from the Economics Network Student Survey in Scotland, for instance, revealed that over 80% of students found their Economics degree involved far more mathematics than they had anticipated. Globally, studies have shown that a robust mathematical background acquired during secondary school is a crucial predictor of academic success and retention for students pursuing Economics at university. For instance, a study in Spain found that students from the Technological stream, which offers Advanced Mathematics, including more extensive math concepts and geometry modules, outperformed their peers from the Social Sciences stream at university, despite being the recommended stream for Economics Business students in secondary school. Similarly, research at the Erasmus School of Economics in the Netherlands demonstrated that science-preparatory students with strong math foundations achieved higher first-year credit attainment (45% vs. 30%) and lower dropout rates (under 25% vs. 45%) compared to non-science students. Collectively, these studies emphasise the essential role of advanced mathematics instruction at the secondary level in enhancing students’ academic outcomes in university Economics programs. 

Authors: Obiageli (Oby) Ekwunwa,  Adejo Moses Adejo, Chinecherem Jacinta Orji