The Challenge of Achieving Food Security During Turbulent Times The Case of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

Nigeria has the potential to be an economic powerhouse, but food insecurity stalks a large share of its population. Over the last fifteen years, undernutrition has increased from over 7% (2004-06) to nearly 13% of the population (2017-2019). The COVID-19 pandemic of course exacerbated health and nutrition problems. With the current high inflation, an additional 4 million people have been pushed into poverty, from 90 million (Dec. 2022) to 94 million (April 2023) (WBG, June 2023). Since it became an oil-driven economy in the early 1970s, Nigeria has experienced boom- and-bust cycles, which undermine long-term investment in the transformation of its agricultural economy, and the productivity of the non-oil economy. Successive governments have been unable to mobilize the surplus of the boom years to invest in a diversified, high-productivity economy, leading the structural problems undermining high productivity growth to pile up. Since COVID-19, the global environment has become more challenging for emerging economies to borrow and invest, but there are opportunities, especially for African governments with access to Africa-wide markets in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area. The new Government of Bola Tinubu, who became President of Nigeria in May 2023, has taken a first major reform step: It eliminated the costly and regressive subsidy on petroleum.