The World Bank has projected that poverty in Nigeria will worsen over the next five years, with an increase of 3.6 percentage points expected by 2027.

This sobering forecast is contained in the Bank’s latest Africa’s Pulse report, released during the ongoing Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in Washington, DC.

Despite modest improvements in economic activity—particularly in Nigeria’s non-oil sector during the last quarter of 2024—the report warns that persistent structural challenges such as over-reliance on natural resources and national fragility are likely to undermine efforts to reduce poverty.

“Nigeria, alongside other resource-rich and fragile countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, is expected to experience a worsening poverty situation,” the report stated. “Poverty in resource-rich, fragile countries—including large economies like Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo—is projected to rise by 3.6 percentage points between 2022 and 2027.”

Sub-Saharan Africa continues to have the highest rate of extreme poverty globally. In 2024, the region was home to 80% of the world’s 695 million people living in extreme poverty. Of the region’s 560 million extreme poor, half were concentrated in just four countries.

In contrast, other regions recorded significantly lower shares of the global poor: South Asia (8%), the Middle East and North Africa (5%), Latin America and the Caribbean (3%), and East Asia and the Pacific (2%).

The report attributes the poverty disparity to economic structure. Resource-rich countries like Nigeria are lagging due to declining oil prices and weak fiscal systems. Meanwhile, non-resource-rich countries are benefiting from strong growth fueled by high agricultural commodity prices, despite fiscal challenges.

“This reflects a longstanding pattern,” the World Bank noted, “where resource wealth, combined with fragility or conflict, is associated with the highest poverty rates—averaging 46% in 2024, which is 13 percentage points higher than in non-fragile, resource-rich countries.”

To reverse the trend, the World Bank recommends that Nigeria and similar economies prioritize fiscal reforms and strengthen the social contract with citizens to promote inclusive growth and sustainable poverty reduction.