帮助尼日利亚人成长：尼日利亚安全网干预措施对粮食安全和营养的影响（英）2025

DECEMBER 2025|NO.26-07 Helping NigeriansGrow HIGHLIGHT A rigorous randomized controlledtrialin Nigeria shows thatintegrated safety nets producesustainedimprovementsinnutrition and food security forpoorhouseholds relative toabasic safety nets program,with effects lasting three years.Stuntingrates among youngchildren fall by 18% only when allthree critical features are present:Public Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure Authorized Food security and nutritionimpacts of safety nets Maheshwor Shrestha,Oyebola Okunogbe, Naira Kalra,Ayodele Fashogbon, Thomas Bossuroy,Robin Audy, Kehinde Ajayi Key messages 1.In Nigeria,a combination of safety netsinterventions leads to sustained improvementonnutrition and food security outcomes.Comprehensive safety nets interventions in Nigeria—onethat combines large productive grants,‘co-responsibility’ training, life skills and microenterprisetraining, and regular cash transfers—produce significant 2.Stunting rates fall by 18 percent when threecritical features are present. First, it is importantto target children in their earliest years, as no reductionis observed for those older than five at follow-up orover two during the intervention. Second, effectsare prominent when households are provided with asubstantial grant. Children whose families only receiveda top-up to a regular cash transfer program did not (21 percent) in Nigeria experience severe food insecurityand 34 million people (16 percent) are undernourished.Over 11 million children (37 percent) under 5 are stunted,dwarfing their future potential. Nigeria has the highest In this context, interventions that have demonstrated impacton helping the poor to transition out of poverty and makesignificant strides on nutrition and food security—whichremain the driver of future human capital—should be the This policy brief highlights that key components of safetynets interventions—targeting children in the first yearsof their lives, basic training on nutrition, and sizablegrants—can significantly improve nutrition and food 3.Scaling up proven interventions offers a pathwaytosustained improvements in nutrition andfood security in Nigeria.Since childhood stuntingis associated with irreversible damages to physicaland cognitive growth that limits their future potential,addressing this challenge is urgent. With one of the The Program TheGovernment of Nigeria launched the NationalSocial Safety Net Program (NASSP) in 2016 to providepoorhouseholds with cash transfers and to pilotscalable livelihoods interventions to support sustainableincome-generatingactivities.The main intervention,the Household Uplifting Program (HUP), provided cashtransfers to 2 million households by June 2022 together Context Povertyand vulnerability situation is deterioratingin Nigeria. In 2019, 40 percent of Nigerians (around84 million people) were living below the national povertyline. By 2023, the rate had risen to 56 percent of thepopulation (about 127 million people), largely driven byshocks like the COVID-19 pandemic, persistent inflation,naturaldisasters,and conflict.Essential macro-fiscal The NASSP program also piloted additional interventions,building on global evidence of sustained impacts onliving standards1, to understand their effectiveness in the 1.Basic Cash Transfer (HUP): Regular cash transferof N5,000 (US$12 in 2022) per month per household,with savings group formation training and support to The escalating poverty directly feeds into a severe foodand nutrition security crisis. Over 45 million individuals package were piloted in six states. All interventions wereimplemented by the government through the state cashtransfer units. A total of 116 community facilitators,typicallyemployees of the local government,were form saving groups.2The package was targeted atcaregivers, usually mothers of young children. 2.Human capital co-responsibility package:Additional transfer of N5,000 (US$12 in 2022) permonthlinkedto positive behaviors in health,education,nutrition, and sanitation. This package was targeted Research design The pilot was designed to rigorously evaluate the impacts ofthese complementary support packages using a randomizedcontrol trial design. The impact evaluation pilot covered 400communities and an average of 20 households per communitywith a total of 8,000 households drawn from six statesacross Nigeria (Anambra, Bauchi, Cross-River, Jigawa, Niger, 3.Livelihood package: This consisted of life skills andmicroenterprise training, group coaching and individualmentorship, followed by a lump sum grant of N150,000(US$352 in 2020). The recipients for this package were The basic package sought to meet daily needs and encouragesavings; the co-responsibility package additionally soughtto incentivize positive behaviors towards investments inhuman capital; the livelihoods package also sought toprovide them with necessary socio-emotional and life skills,microenterprise trainings to open and manage household Figure1 below shows