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07030248044CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, there has been a growing amount of interest in how poverty is affected by economic growth. This is due in large part to the adoption of the so-called Millennium Development Goals, which make eradicating poverty a key goal of development (Chimobi, 2011). The authors claim that there is frequently a conflict between macro and microanalysis in the literature on the connections between growth, poverty, and inequality. According to Joe (2012), although looking for general conclusions may seem natural at a macro level, meticulous micro effort is necessary to fully address poverty challenges.
The World Bank and IMF have started to emphasize how important it is to increase GDP growth and, in particular, how important it is to achieve "pro-poor" GDP growth. Pro-poor growth, according to Aku and Oladeji (1997), is growth that significantly lowers poverty levels. The link between GDP growth and inequality will determine whether or not it automatically reduces poverty (Mukta, 2011). According to the authors, GDP growth will increase inequality but have no impact on poverty if the gains go exclusively to the wealthy. Even worse, it's likely that the poorest parts of the economy experience losses as a result of GDP development in a modern sector of the economy. In this case, GDP growth produces widening inequality and higher levels of poverty immiserizing growth. African Development Bank(2011) stated that growth in the economy of any nation is a clear indication of an improvement in the socioeconomic well-being of its people. African Development Bank (2011) report indicated that a deterioration in the growth rate as shown in most developing countries is thus a manifestation of the fall in the standard of living of the people that cumulates into poverty.
To date, poverty situation in Nigeria remains a paradox, at least from two perspectives. Firstly, poverty in Nigeria is a paradox because the poverty level appears as a contradiction considering the country‘s immense wealth. Secondly, poverty situation has worsened despite the huge human and material resources that have been devoted to poverty reduction by successive governments in Nigeria with no substantial success achieved from such efforts (Ogunjiba, 2014). According to the authors, since poverty remains a development issue, it has continued to capture the attention of both national governments and international development agencies for several decades. Since the mid 1980s, reducing poverty has become a major policy concern for governments and donor agencies in all poverty-stricken countries, Nigeria inclusive. As a result, the government has focused on the expansion of the economy as a requirement for better welfare in order to achieve the goal of reducing poverty in Nigeria. As a result, the government started a number of economic reform initiatives, including the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986, Economic Emergency Measures in 1985, and Economic Stabilization Measures in 1982. The market-determined currency and interest rates, the financial sector's liberalization, trade liberalization, commercialization, and the privatization of a number of firms are all SAP components(Olu, 2014).
Additionally, specialized organizations were founded to advance the goal of reducing poverty. These include, among others, the National Agricultural Insurance Scheme, the Nigeria Agricultural, Cooperative and Rural Development Bank, the National Primary Health Care Agency, Peoples Bank, Urban Mass Transit, mass education through Universal Basic Education (UBE), and Rural Electrification Schemes (RES) (NBS, 2014). The recent attempt is founded on the agenda's seven points. Similar to prior reform initiatives, the concept views economic growth as essential to reducing poverty.Power and energy, food security, wealth growth, and transportation are among the seven-point agenda's top concerns. Others include mass education, security, and land reforms. A shrinking middle class in the Nigerian economy may be a result of growing income polarization, which has led to a bigger gap between the rich and the poor. Income disparity has exacerbated the aspect of poverty notwithstanding earlier policy measures to remedy this irregularity (Arogundade, 2011). In addition, it appears that awareness of the significance of income distribution in reducing poverty is expanding. However, the impact of growth on inequality and how much this influence feeds into poverty determine whether growth reduces poverty and whether in particular growth can be said to be pro-poor (International Monetary Fund, 2013).
Ogwumike (1998) asserts that from the 18th century, when economic thought first began to develop, the idea of poverty has through various stages of development. At the conclusion of the colonial era, there was a fresh awareness of the issue of poverty as it affects developing nations, which marked the beginning of the second shift in the history of the notion of poverty. The creation of anti-poverty policies in Europe throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been purposefully transferred from the North to the South during the post-colonial era. A state of material deprivation caused by a lack of access to resources, productive assets, and income has traditionally been considered to be poverty (Baulch, 1996).
Progress in reducing poverty has emerged as a key indicator of the success of development policies. The desire to expand economies and incomes was a major concern throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Growth was viewed as a requirement for rising welfare. In order to boost economy, many developing nations undertook structural adjustment programmes (SAP) in the 1980s. Following these initiatives, real growth rates in many countries were positive. In the 1990s, the idea that growth is essential to any policy aimed at reducing poverty predominated the development literature. Countries that made noticeable progress on poverty reduction were those which recorded fast and high growth rates (World Bank, 2000).
The number of individuals living on less than $1 per day (using PPP exchange rates) and an alternate metric of less than $2 per day are how the World Bank defines poverty, according to Miles and Scott (2005). According to the writers, these are incredibly low income levels by any standard (not enough to provide clean water, sanitation, and adequate food, let alone health and education). More than 2.8 billion people were living on less than $2 per day in 1998, and about 1.2 billion on less than $1, according to a World Bank analysis from 2003.Even worse, the population of those in poverty has grown over time. The United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which seek to cut by half the number of people living on less than $1 a day, include reducing world poverty as one of their main policy objectives. By 2015, this will include reducing the percentage of the world's population living in poverty from 29% to 14.5% and the overall number of impoverished people from 1.2 billion to 890 million (Miles and Scott, 2005).
The only area of the developing world, according to Page (2005), where the number of people living below the international poverty threshold of $1.00 per day has increased, is Africa. The author highlighted that in reaction, shifts in donor goals and conduct put the underprivileged at the forefront of development assistance policy in Africa starting in the early 1990s. The development of methods for pro-poor growth in Africa was encouraged by civil society organizations and humanitarian organizations as disparate as the Vatican and the British government's DFID. Over the past three decades, Nigeria has made more than US$300 billion from just crude oil. Today, this ought to have resulted in a significant socioeconomic development of the nation.Instead, Nigeria is currently one of the 25 poorest countries in the world according to basic socioeconomic metrics (Akanbi& Du Toit, 2009). The authors claim that, despite the Nigerian economy's rising GDP growth, particularly during the past few decades, neither increased employment nor a decline in the country's poverty rate have resulted. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) decreased in the nation from an average annual rate of 10.5 percent in 1985 to 3.2 percent in 2007. (Ijaiya et al, 2011). Nigeria likewise experienced a fall in its per capita income, which fell from US $1600 in 1980 to US $1160 in 2008, according to an additional research by the African Development Bank (AfDB) published in 2010. Within some 18 years, Nigeria had declined from being a low middle income country and amongst the fifty richest countries in the world to one of the 30 poorest (Blench, 2004).
According to the Nigerian Living Standard Survey (2004) report, poverty decreased from 65.6% in 1996 to 57.8% in 2004, while the percentage of non-poor people rose from 34.4% in 1996 to 42.2% in 2004. About 20% of the population was classified as core poor, 38.1 percent as moderately poor, and 42.2 percent as non-poor when this relative poverty metric was further broken down into two degrees of poverty. These similarly demonstrated that 10% had transitioned from Core to Moderate Poverty whereas the moderately poor, which stood at 36.3 % in 1996 and 38.1 % in 2004, had undergone little change.Interesting, from 34.4 percent in 1996 to 42.2 percent in 2004, the Non-Poor rose(NBS, 2005). This study is aim at examining the United Nation’s sustainable development on Poverty reduction in Nigeria.
Many economists think that promoting economic growth and keeping it going are the most effective and long-lasting ways to combat poverty. According to international research on economic growth and poverty reduction, a 1% rise in growth has been correlated with an average 1.5% decrease in poverty (African Development Bank, 2012). There is a lot of difference in how much economic growth has reduced poverty between nations and even within countries over different periods of time, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) report from 2004. According to statistics in the report, variations in economic development can only account for about 45% of variations in poverty reduction.Although poverty reduction and economic growth are closely related, there are two obstacles for policymakers in light of these two stylized truths about the relationship between growth and poverty, including the fact that this association is far from perfect (Hasan et. al., 2007). What are the policies that can first spark and then sustain growth, according to the author? Second, how might progress create major opportunity for the underprivileged?
Numerous empirical studies to explore the relationship between economic growth and poverty reduction have been conducted as a result of the rate at which poverty is rising in Nigeria. However, many studies (such as Aliu, 2001, and Obadan, 1996) are biased because they concentrated on how different government policies effect poverty reduction rather than whether growth performance is pro-poor. It is still debatable in the theoretical literature whether a nation should prioritize growth first and then make sure that it favors the poor or prioritize eradicating poverty first and then make sure that doing so will promote growth. This calls for additional empirical research, particularly in the case of Nigeria. This study is therefore designed to fill these gaps by attempting to address the following research questions: why has the rate of poverty been so high in Nigeria despite record increase in economic growth? What is the nature of relationship between poverty and Economic growth in Nigeria? If recorded economic growth cannot be translated into improved living condition of the poor, what other measures of policy can be explored to reduce poverty and how?. It is based on this background that this study seeks to the UnitedNations sustainable development goal 1 and poverty reduction in Nigeria.
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The main objectives of this study UnitedNations sustainable development goal 1 and poverty reduction in Nigeria. Other specific objectives of the study include;
The following questions will give direction this study;
Research Hypotheses
The following were hypothesized in this study;
H0: There is no significantimpact of United Nations sustainable development goal 1 on poverty reduction in Nigeria
H1: There is a significantimpact of United Nations sustainable development goal 1 on poverty reduction in Nigeria
H0: There is no significantrelationship between United Nations sustainable development goal 1 and poverty reduction in Nigeria
H1: There is a significantrelationship between United Nations sustainable development goal 1 and poverty reduction in Nigeria
Significance of Study
This research would contribute to the ongoing policy debate by identifying growth patterns of the Nigerian economy and to what extent the poor benefit from economic growth.
The findings of this study will enable the Nigerian government to know how to mitigate poverty in Nigeria vai the United Nations ‘sustainable development.
This measure of pro-poor growth according to the authors, captures a direct linkage (or monotonic relation) with poverty reduction, indicating that poverty reduction takes into accounts not only growth but also how benefits of growth are shared by individuals in society.
The findings of this study will fill the dearth on existing literature about the impact of UN sustainable development on poverty reduction in Nigeria.
Scope of the Study
The scope of this study is on UnitedNations sustainable development goal 1 and poverty reduction in Nigeria. All the data adopted in this study was gotten from Nigeria population.
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