Widening social protection gap fuels calls for fresh funding

In this piece, FALAIYE HENRY examines the concerns over inadequate social protection measures in Nigeria, which leave vulnerable members of society helpless

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund has raised concerns about the level of poverty in the nation, specifically noting the adverse impact on children.

A 2023 World Bank survey highlighted that less than 40 million children in Nigeria experienced poverty. The survey identified various causes of child poverty, such as unemployment, low-income levels, rapid population growth, conflicts, climate-related disasters, insufficient social safety nets and investments in social protection policy, and limited access to education and healthcare.

Additionally, the survey also mentioned factors like family size and composition, systemic inequalities, government policies, such as subsidy removal on essential goods, and poor governance impacting household heads and, consequently, their children.

Meanwhile, in Nigeria, poverty remains a significant challenge, with approximately 40 per cent of the population living below the national poverty line. This economic hardship disproportionately affects children, especially in rural areas and urban slums, where access to basic services is limited.

With the high prevalence of child labour in Nigeria, an estimated 15–30 per cent of children aged 5–14 engage in various forms of work. Many of these children work in agriculture, domestic service, and the informal sector, often under exploitative conditions and without access to education.

Also, child trafficking has always been a major concern, with Nigeria being a source, transit, and destination country for trafficked persons, including children. Thousands of children are trafficked within and across borders for forced labour, sexual exploitation, and other purposes, further exposing them to risks and vulnerabilities.

Furthermore, the Nigerian child protection system faces challenges in terms of capacity and resources. There is a shortage of trained social workers, inadequate funding for child protection services, and limited access to services in rural areas, impacting the effectiveness of interventions and support for vulnerable children.

According to new data released by the International Labour Organisation, Save the Children and UNICEF, indicated that globally, 1.4 billion children, aged under 15, lack any form of social protection, leaving them vulnerable to disease, poor nutrition, and poverty.

The report highlighted that in low-income countries, less than 1 in 10 children have access to child benefits, highlighting a significant disparity compared to the coverage enjoyed by children in high-income countries.

It asserted that child benefits were a critical form of social protection, intended to promote the long-term well-being of children. Delivered as cash or tax credits, child benefits are essential for reducing poverty as well as accessing healthcare, nutrition, quality education, water, and sanitation.

“Many children are deprived of the basic resources and services they need to escape poverty and are therefore exposed to the long-lasting impact of hunger, malnutrition, and unrealised potential,” it noted.

According to the report, the data indicated there has been a modest global increase in access to child benefits over 14 years, from 20 per cent in 2009 to 28.1 per cent in 2023.

However, it highlighted that the progress had been unequal, especially in low-income countries, where rates of coverage remain staggeringly low, at around 9 per cent. At the same time, 84.6 per cent of children in high-income countries are covered.

It further indicated that coverage rates for children in countries that are highly vulnerable to the impact of climate change are a third lower than those in countries that are not classified as being at high risk.

“Ensuring children are covered by social protection is key to protecting them from the worst impact of the climate crisis.

“To bolster efforts to monitor and reduce the gaps in child benefit coverage, Save the Children, ILO and UNICEF have developed the Global Child Benefits Tracker, an online platform to monitor children’s access to benefits and advocate with governments and donors to close the gaps,” the report noted.

The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, said the Federal Government had launched the report of the country’s 2022 Child and Forced Labour Survey, carried out to generate data to serve as a reference for assessing the impact of the phenomenon on the lives of children and the entire nation.

She explained that the survey was conducted to get improved information to inform policy direction and interventions towards the elimination of child labour and forced labour in Nigeria.

She described child and forced labour as a global menace that had proven to potentially hinder the development of children, leading to lifelong physical and psychological damage, and keeping the children out of school, thereby perpetuating poverty across generations.

“When an enabling environment is created for citizens to thrive through job creation, especially the adults and parents, it is obvious that they can take care of themselves and their children to send them to school and provide for them, so they have no need to engage them in child labour, forced labour, or even trafficking,” she remarked.

She emphasised that the Federal Government would continue to ensure the formulation of effective policies that address the root causes of child labour, and pointed out that concerted effort and commitment were required to tackle the menace across the states and communities.

According to Onyejeocha, a collaborative effort between the government and the ILO aims to enhance the scope and impact of social protection initiatives in Nigeria and has the potential to significantly improve the lives of many people in the country.

“Everybody is entitled to social protection. Citizens need to be reassured of their protection by the government.

“I want to change the narrative. Labour is the number one ministry charged with the responsibility of pulling the nation out of high poverty and providing employment. We are not going to wait any longer in the implementation of vital programmes like social security. We are going to fast-track the implementation of the social protection policy.

“I want to assure you (ILO) that we will key into the social protection vision, because I don’t know any nation that can survive without employment, both in the formal and informal sectors. We are going to be fully involved. Labour is a ministry to watch, based on partnership with the ILO and deliverables,” Onyejeocha stated.

The Director of the International Labour Organisation Office for Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Liaison Office for ECOWAS, Vanessa Phala, said that based on the 2021 global reports on child labour released by the ILO and UNICEF, the number of children engaged in child labour worldwide had risen by 8.4 million to 160 million.

She noted that, in the face of that, it had become very critical to devise data-driven solutions to child labour and forced labour.

Phala stated that with the survey reports, Nigeria would be able to have accurate and comprehensive data on the prevalence of child labour and forced labour in the country.

In expanding the social protection programme in Nigeria, the Federal Government has joined forces with the ILO to give more people access to social safety nets in Nigeria.

The Director of Social Policy and Social Protection at UNICEF, Natalia Rossi, recently said, “Globally, 333 million children are living in extreme poverty, struggling to survive on less than $2.15 per day, and nearly one billion children are living in multidimensional poverty. At the current rate of progress, achieving the Sustainable Development Goals’ poverty targets is out of reach.

“This is unacceptable. However, ending child poverty is a policy choice. Expanding social protection coverage of children in the fight against poverty is critical, including the progressive realisation of universal child benefits.”

The Director of the Social Protection Department at the ILO, Shahra Razavi, argued that it was a crisis for almost one billion children not to be covered by benefits globally.

Razavi said, “There is an urgent need for effective policymaking to help us close protection gaps. Regional inequalities in coverage and progress are of serious concern; improvement in child benefit coverage is marginal in most regions and too many children are still being left behind.”

Also, the Deputy Director of the Social Security Department of the Ministry, Mrs Ngozi Anukwu, explained that the department had actively pursued its core responsibilities of social security service in the country, despite the challenges encountered.

“On Convention 102, we have been having meetings and were at the stage of forwarding our steps to the Minister, before the former minister in the last administration left,” she noted.

The ILO delegation, led by Regional Social Protection Specialist, Dramane Batchabi, highlighted the urgent need to expand social protection coverage in Nigeria, where he said only 17 per cent of the population currently benefits from such a programme.

Batchabi, who identified some of the challenges and opportunities while speaking on Convention 102 of the ILO, said only 11 per cent of individuals in West Africa enjoy social protection benefits. In Nigeria, this figure dips even lower, with a mere 17 per cent covered.

“We are looking at where the Ministry of Labour has a comparative advantage, and where the Ministry can come in, in terms of a policy measure, considering the already existing National Social Protection Schemes,” Batchabi added.

According to UNICEF, a poor start in life can leave indelible imprints on the future life of a child. The early years of a child’s life come only once, and without proper attention to improving the child’s health, there are long-term consequences for their adult outcomes.

It emphasised that children’s health remained a critical issue in Northern Nigeria, with high rates of poor outcomes demanding significant interventions.

Meanwhile, it added that social protection programs are essential to addressing children’s vulnerabilities in this context of high poverty rates.

The General Secretary of the Federation of Informal Workers’ Organisations of Nigeria, Mr Gbenga Komolafe, said, “I think over 40million children in Nigeria lacking social protection will honestly be an underestimate given what we can see empirically among Nigerians, especially among our members from the informal sector.”

According to him, the informal sector is said to account for 92 per cent of the official statistics of the active working population in Nigeria. This means the cohort of 16 years, which is the official working age in Nigeria, as you can begin to work. That is 16 to 65 years when an individual should have retired.

“At least, we are talking about over 120 million Nigerians and out of these 120 million Nigerians working in the informal economy, we can’t count half a million Nigerians that have any form of access to social protection in the form of old age care or support, maternity support, disability care support, among others,” Komolafe said.

He explained that the percentage of out-of-school children now because Nigeria did not have accurate statistics, stating that the percentage was well over 40 million.

“If children can’t attend school, what social protection are we discussing? Even in the southern regions, known for public education investment, and in Lagos, the wealthiest state, many children are out of school because they must work to survive. Some children even support their parents by hawking goods due to impoverishing government policies,” Komolafe stated.

Also, a senior official of the Nigeria Labour Congress, who sought anonymity, said that ILO Convention 102 deals with social protection, which Nigeria had almost ratified.

According to him, Nigeria has the highest rate of out-of-school children in the world and also has a high poverty rate among children.

“Nigeria has one of the highest concentrations of people who are living in abject poverty in the world.

 “Ensuring social protection programs are effective requires them to be legislated. This means enacting laws to institutionalise these actions, programmes, and policies.

“For instance, Nigeria’s school feeding program lacked legal backing and wasn’t institutionalised, leading to its discontinuation with changing governments. Legislation would give such programmes a lasting framework, ensuring continuity regardless of the administration in power,” he declared.