Social Protection Services and Socioeconomic Development in Nigeria: A Systematic Review (Published)
The paper examined the effects of social protection services provided and their impact on the socioeconomic Development of the Citizens of Nigeria using a systematic review method. It uses thematic analysis to subject the information obtained from various secondary sources from which the findings are provided and inferences are drawn. The findings revealed that, social protection services in Nigeria are empowered by certain legal framework supported by the Sections 16 and 17 of Chapter 2 of the 1999 Nigeria Constitution hence, the Nigerian government continually indulged in the provision of several social protection services towards enhancing the socioeconomic status of the citizens of the nation. However, despite these, not much effect is felt on the socioeconomic development of the citizens because of the prevailing increasing rate of poverty, unemployment and inequality in the nation. These inefficiencies are traced to several challenges such as inadequate funding, corruption/lack of transparency, over-politicisation of social protection programme, lack or inadequate data, the lack of synergy between the three tiers of government, and several others. The study concludes that the social protection services provided in Nigeria has failed to pose positive impetus on the socioeconomic development of the citizens. It further recommends that government should scale up coverage of social protection benefits because certain fragmented target population such as, a greater percentage of the poor, informal workers, displaced persons, persons with disabilities, and others are excluded from these services. Also, this could include the introduction of a universal child social protection benefit for children between age 0-5 and also social pension for elderly citizens of 70+ as foundation programs.
Keywords: Nigeria, Social protection programmes, Social protection services, Socioeconomic development