Nigeria’s Undernourished Children Population Threat To $1trn Economy Ambition – W/Bank, Others

The World Bank has warned that Nigeria’s ambition to build a $1 trillion economy by 2050 could be undermined if it fails to urgently address early childhood undernutrition and human capital gaps.

Lead for the Early Years Programme at the World Bank, Dr. Ritgak Tilley-Gyado spoke in Abuja on Tuesday at the Early Childhood & Nigeria’s Growth Dialogue, organised by SBM Intelligence in collaboration with the World Bank and other Nigerian think tanks.

Vice president/country director for DAI, Dr Joe Abah said Nigeria could be loosing its massive potentials if it fails to deal with the issue of malnutrition and other challenges that confront the Nigerian child.

“Nigeria’s future is not being decided in boardrooms or elections alone. It is being shaped in the earliest years of a child’s life.
Can Nigeria become a trillion dollar economy by 2050 without deliberately investing in its youngest citizens? By then, the cohort of children that are aged 0-5 will be 15-21 years, ripe, active and ready to participate in the labor force or about to be,” Tilley-Gyado said, urging Nigeria to align health, nutrition, education and social protection systems around the child.

“Early childhood investment is not social spending. It is economic strategy.
Because long before a child sits in a classroom, the foundations of learning, health, behaviour, and productivity are already forming,” By the time policy begins reacting to inequality in adolescence or adulthood, many gaps have already taken root. We spend billions trying to fix problems in adulthood that begin before a child turns five. Today challenges us to rethink where development truly starts,” she stated.

By 2050, she noted, today’s children aged zero to five will be between 15 and 21 years old and ready to enter the labour force.
Tilley-Gyado described early childhood development not as social spending but as economic strategy. “Every dollar invested in early childhood can generate returns of up to thirteen dollars through higher productivity and reduced social costs,” she said.

Some speakers at the event said nearly 40 per cent of Nigerian children under five are stunted, stressing that the country’s future workforce is already at risk.

Also, Managing Partner of SBM Intelligence, Ikemesit Effiong warned that Nigeria is jeopardising its long-term economic future, with nearly 40 percent of children under five stunted due to chronic undernutrition.

Citing data from the 2024 Demographic and Health Survey, Mr. Effiong noted that under-five mortality has declined to 110 deaths per 1,000 live births, from 132 in 2018. However, neonatal deaths remain high at about 41 per 1,000 live births.
“In plain language, almost half of the children we lose before age five die in the first month of life,” he said.

Effiong described the situation as more than a health challenge. He called it a productivity crisis that begins long before individuals enter the labour market.

He stressed that early childhood deprivation is strongly linked to lower educational attainment, reduced earnings and higher poverty in adulthood.
Addressing early childhood, he added, requires thinking beyond clinics and classrooms to include caregiving, sanitation, nutrition and institutional coordination.