Opinion Article

By

Salim Yushau Mafara

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Zamfara state has successfully aged out of the cave of poverty when its earlier position of being among the (5) state with the highest rate of poverty in the country shifted proportionately.

In 2020 report as released by the NBS indicated that Zamfara is among the five worst poverty driven state.

The state through the effort of Governor Bello Matawalle had initiated strategies and developed socio-economic policies that are able to support human development needs through job creation, development of social supports programmes such as conditional cash transfer, women empowerment among others.

From the initiw ZASIP programme, cash transfer to women, youth empowerment, skills acquisition programmes and support to agriculture, the policies remain significant to the social and economic development of the people of Zamfara.

It is not surprising that despite the security challenges facing the state as a result of the decades of armed bandit activities, social and economic indicators of Zamfara are quite shifting ground to significant level of human development.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) had recently released the highly anticipated multidimensional poverty report for the year 2023.

The report put Nigeria’s poverty index at 0.257, with about 133 million people being multidimensionaly poor.

Sokoto, Bayelsa, and Jigawa States led the list of states in Nigeria with the highest multidimensional poverty index, having an aggregate of 14.18 million impoverished people.

Factors such as healthcare, food insecurity, education, nutrition, and access to cooking fuel contributed the most to the national poverty index. According to the NBS, over half of the Nigerian populace is multidimensionally poor and deprived of cooking fuel.

The highlights: 65% of the poor people in Nigeria, which translates to 86 million live in the Northern part of the country, while 35% (47 million) live in the southern part.

The number of poor people living in rural areas is estimated at 105.98 million, with a multidimensional poverty index of 0.302, while 26.94 million people are poor in urban areas, printing an MPI of 0.155.

The highlights: 65% of the poor people in Nigeria, which translates to 86 million live in the Northern part of the country, while 35% (47 million) live in the southern part.

The number of poor people living in rural areas is estimated at 105.98 million, with a multidimensional poverty index of 0.302, while 26.94 million people are poor in urban areas, printing an MPI of 0.155.

Further breakdown of the data showed that the North-West zone has the highest number of poor people with a 45.49 million impoverished population, with an MPI of 0.324. On the other hand, the South-Eastern region recorded the lowest number of poor people with an estimate of 10.85 million and an MPI of 0.183.

Meanwhile, the South-West region recorded the lowest MPI rate at 0.151, followed by South-East and South-South with 0.183 and 0.25 respectively.

Furthermore, nutritional deprivations contributed the most to the MPI of the North-West region food insecurity contributed the most in the South. Unemployment contributed the most in the South-South region, while security shocks affected the MPI in South-South, North Central, and North East.