W/Bank, Stakeholders Warn Inadequate Investment in Early Childhood Risks Nigeria’s Long-term Productivity, Growth

• Ritgak Gyado: Demographics alone do not guarantee prosperity

• Ikemesit Effiong: Early years remain one of biggest leaks in nation’s growth strategy

James Emejo in Abuja

World Bank has warned that Nigeria may be unable to meet its long-term growth aspirations if it fails to invest significantly in human capacity development, particularly at the early childhood stage.

World Bank Lead for the Early Years Programme, Dr. Ritgak Tilley Gyado, said Nigeria’s future was not being decided in boardrooms or elections alone but also in how it positioned the youngest population from childhood.

Gyado spoke at the evidence lab on “Early Childhood, Productivity, and Nigeria’s Growth Choices”, which was convened by SBM Intelligence, in collaboration with World Bank and leading Nigerian think-tanks in Abuja.

She said, “We often answer this politically or economically. We point to elections, macro-economic reforms, infrastructure, or job creation and markets. But today invites us to consider something different.

“Can Nigeria become a trillion-dollar economy by 2050 without deliberately investing in its youngest citizens? By then, the cohort of children that are aged 0-5 will be 15-21 years, ripe, active and ready to participate in the labor force or about to be.”

Gyado added, “If sustainable development implies stronger human capital. What is the state of Nigeria’s human capital today?

“Recent global evidence shows that progress in human capital outcomes has slowed across much of the world, with many countries experiencing stagnation in learning, health, and skills despite economic growth.”

She said if sustainable growth was linked to human capital, Nigeria might have to re-strategise on how serious it took its childhood population to achieve the country’s future growth outcomes.

According to the World Bank lead, “Nigeria is a young country, and we often describe this as the nation’s greatest advantage. It is set to be amongst the top four most populous nations by 2050 with close to 180 million young people ready to fuel the economy.

“Demographics alone do not guarantee prosperity. A young population becomes an asset only when its youngest children develop the capabilities to thrive as adults.

“Otherwise, demographic growth can deepen inequality rather than reduce it. This is why early childhood is not only about children.

“It is about productivity. It is about stability. It is about the long-term trajectory of national development. The Nigeria we hope to see in 2045 or 2050 is already taking shape today in homes and communities across the country.”

According to her, the dialogue aims to, among other things, shape how nations define problems even before governments decide how to solve them.

Gyado said, “If early childhood is framed narrowly, either as child health or as nutrition alone or as early learning, responses remain fragmented.

“If it is understood as the foundation of human capability, entirely different policy conversations become possible.”

Managing Partner, SBM Intelligence, Mr. Ikemesit Effiong, said though Nigeria had made progress on some child survival indicators over the last decade, data indicated that the early years remained the biggest leaks in the nation’s growth strategy.

Effiong said, “The 2024 Demographic and Health Survey shows that under five mortality has fallen to about 110 deaths per 1,000 live births, down from 132 in 2018, yet neonatal deaths have remained stubbornly around 41 per 1,000 live births. In plain language, almost half of the children we lose before age five die in the first month of life.

“At the same time, about 40 per cent of children under five in Nigeria are stunted, a marker of chronic undernutrition and poor early environments.

“These are not just health statistics; they are early warnings about the future workforce, future taxpayers and future innovators our economy will either have or not have.”

Effiong stated, “Stunting and early deprivation are strongly associated with lower school attainment, reduced earnings and higher likelihood of poverty in adulthood.

“Global evidence suggests that losses in the first 1,000 days of life are very difficult and often impossible-to fully reverse later, even when we invest heavily in schooling or skills programmes.

“When we look at the scale of undernutrition, preventable deaths, and poor early learning environments in Nigeria, what we are really observing is a productivity crisis that arrives 20 years before someone first searches for a job.”

Effiong added, “If we ignore this, we will continue to pour resources into secondary and tertiary fixes while the foundation remains weak.”

Speaking to THISDAY, Country Director, DAI Global LLC, Dr. Joe Abbah, pointed out that the deficiencies during early childhood did actually impact the country’s growth trajectory.

Abbah said, “Any country’s most important resource is its human beings. If you have a young developing country where the majority of the population are children, then you have a serious problem on your hands.

“You either have a demographic benefit or a demographic disaster. If we don’t focus on it, we’re looking toward the disaster aspect.

“If you look at some of the data that was presented, issues like nutrition and health affect the formation of the brain of a child from a very young age. If you’re not having adequate nutrition, good healthcare, responsible care, and you’re not protecting children from harm, then you’re raising a battalion of very young people who are already disadvantaged at the start of their lives.

“So, that is the challenge we’re dealing with. It’s a very serious problem.”

Similarly, Deputy Country Director, BudgIT Foundation, Mr. Vahyala Kwaga, stated that the country was not spending enough on early childhood development.

Kwaga told THISDAY, “We are not spending as well as we should. We’re not spending enough. The public financial ecosystem does not give a clear line of sight of budgeting and releases. So, it is difficult for those of us in the advocacy space to even make a coherent argument to the government—whether to the executive or to parliament—on how spending should be enhanced.

“If you are not clear on where the money is going and how it is being used, you simply cannot make a proper case for how it should be improved.”

He said, “Where you do not have a clear line of sight from spending on the people who will literally take over society when you leave, it should not be surprising that such statements are made on future growth.

“There’s a saying that societies grow great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit under. That speaks to looking out for the next generation. Where you have a society that treats children quite literally as an afterthought, one cannot be surprised when such statements are made.

“The level of attention and focus you give to spending, to implementation, and to monitoring and evaluating the outcomes of that spending will directly impact the quality of children that you raise.

“For us to show intentionality, we have to move from improved budgeting and releases to studying, monitoring, evaluating, and re-evaluating the implementation of public policy and spending for children.”

Paediatric Neuroscientist, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Dr. Tosin Olorunmoteni, said, “The early years of children are very important for their optimal wellbeing because right from the time of conception—when a woman gets pregnant, even before a woman gets pregnant—there are lots of factors that determine how the child will do.

“Within the first few months of life, about one million neurons are formed every second. So, there are rapid changes happening. The child also learns emotional and relational stimulation through a lot of give-and-return systems. As the child interacts with caregivers, a lot of changes are happening as the child learns the world.

“All these are centred around the nurturing care framework, which is a framework designed for early childhood development. It has to do with providing the child with good health, adequate nutrition, responsive caregiving, early learning opportunities, and safe and secure environments that can support and nurture the child to achieve optimal early childhood development outcomes.”