Abstract
Background:
Financial resources that are commensurate with the magnitude of malnutrition problem are requisite for effective interventions to reduce malnutrition. Understanding the amount and nature of sectoral investments in nutrition is important for advocating and mobilizing increased government budgetary allocations and release.
Objective:
This study assessed trends in Nigeria’s agriculture sector nutrition allocations and whether launch of nutrition-sensitive agriculture strategy and/or the COVID-19 pandemic may have affected these nutrition allocations.
Methods:
Agricultural budgets from 2009 to 2022 of Nigeria’s federal government were analyzed. Nutrition-related budget lines were identified using a keyword search and were then classified as nutrition-specific, nutrition-sensitive, or potentially nutrition-sensitive, based on defined criteria. Potentially nutrition-sensitive items were further screened. Budget lines finally included as nutrition allocations directly targeted improvements in nutrition or intermediate outcomes in pathways between agriculture and nutrition. Budget lines were summed, and these nominal values were adjusted for inflation (using the consumer price index for each year) to obtain real values.
Results:
Nutrition allocations in the agriculture budget increased considerably even after adjusting for inflation and went from 0.13% of agriculture capital budget in 2009 to 2.97% in 2022; while the real value of total government agricultural budget declined. Large budgetary increases coincided with the development/launch of costed strategies with nutrition-sensitive agriculture components. Still, there were some missed opportunities to increase nutrition allocations.
Conclusions:
Existence of nutrition-sensitive agriculture strategies has facilitated increased nutrition funding and improved the enabling environment. There is need to optimize existing nutrition allocations while advocating for additional funds.
Plain language title
Changes in Federal Government Allocation for Nutrition in the Nigerian Agriculture Sector Budgets From 2009 to 2022
Plain language summary
Adequate nutrition requires widespread access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious foods, empowerment of women, and prevention of illnesses. The agriculture sector is responsible for primary food production and, therefore, has important roles to play in improving nutrition. The agriculture sector also has roles in reducing poverty, empowering women and preventing diseases from contaminated food, water, and environment. Achieving these roles requires deliberate actions that must be funded. This research looked at federal government budgets for the agriculture sector in Nigeria from 2009 to 2022 to see if actions needed to improve nutrition were being funded and how much was being allocated to these actions. Specifically, the research tried to see whether more money was being allocated to nutrition actions after the launch of documents that described actions needed to improve nutrition and the cost of those actions. The research found that some of the actions needed to improve nutrition were being funded, and the money being allocated to these actions increased over time. The years immediately following the launch of the key documents had more money allocated for nutrition in the budgets. More money could, however, have been allocated to nutrition if more agricultural activities in the budget included considerations for improving nutrition among vulnerable people. The conclusions from the research are that documentation of actions needed to improve nutrition, and how much these actions cost, helps in mobilizing nutrition resources. Properly distributing nutrition allocations across relevant actions can ensure that money already allocated is able to address priority actions. Nutrition allocations can be further increased by making sure that agricultural activities included in budgets directly consider how to increase access to safe and nutritious foods, empower women, and/or prevent food, water, and environmental contamination.
Introduction
Adequate nutrition drives economic growth and human development. Malnutrition, including undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and overweight/obesity, remains one of the biggest challenges to global development. 1 Malnutrition reduces cognitive development and educational attainment. It imposes huge economic costs on households and countries because of reduced earnings due to suboptimal human capital development and/or impaired cognitive development in children, reduced labor productivity, increased health care costs, and alternatives foregone due to health care spending. 2,3 Human capital is also lost because of preventable child deaths from malnutrition and premature mortality in adults that is linked to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) for which poor diets and overweight/obesity are important risk factors. 4 The direct and indirect costs of malnutrition in all its forms have huge implications for global progress. It is estimated that about 2% to 3% of global gross domestic product (GDP) is lost annually because of undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies, and economic output losses due to NCDs are similar. 5 The economic burden from all forms of malnutrition is estimated to be around 4% to 5% of global GDP, translating to US$2.8 to US$3.5 trillion annually. 5
Investing in interventions to reduce malnutrition, therefore, makes a lot of economic sense, with estimated returns of US$16 for every US$1 dollar invested in nutrition globally. 6 Yet, financing for nutrition continues to fall far short of need, 7 a situation that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. 8 In 2017, it was estimated that US$7 billion will be needed annually from 2016 to 2025 to achieve the global coverage of nutrition-specific interventions necessary to minimize the immediate causes of undernutrition (inadequate dietary intake and disease) and achieve key global nutrition targets. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, this cost has now been revised to US$10.8 billion per year globally, from 2022 to 2030. 9 In addition, an investment of US$39 to US$50 billion annually would facilitate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to end hunger by 2030, considering the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This global cost for eliminating hunger includes US$11 to US$14 billion annually for interventions comprising agricultural research/development, extension services, and information systems; expansion of small-scale irrigation; and other nutrition-sensitive actions that target the underlying and basic causes of malnutrition. 10
While donor support and Official Development Assistance (ODA) is anticipated to increase to help provide the needed funds for the nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions to address malnutrition, domestic financing in affected countries is expected to be incrementally scaled up to provide the bulk of the funding needed. 7,9 Indeed, the existence of a nutrition budget that is commensurate with the malnutrition burden in a country is a measure of the political commitment and enabling environment for nutrition. 11,12 Against a backdrop of reduced donor, ODA, and domestic nutrition financing because of and recovery from COVID-19 pandemic, there have been increasing calls for prioritization of nutrition resource needs. 9,13,14
Nigeria has one of the largest populations of undernourished people, with an estimated 12 million stunted children in 2020 and 2 million children with wasting. 15 About 14% of women of reproductive age are underweight and micronutrient deficiencies are widely prevalent with 55%, 86%, and 62% of women of reproductive age, pregnant women, and children aged 6 to 59 months old, respectively, having anemia in 2021. 16 Nutrition-related NCDs are also widely prevalent, 17 and overweight/obesity in adults has been increasing. 18 -21 It has been estimated that income losses from NCDs in 2005 was about US$400 million, 0.5% of Nigeria’s GDP 22 ; while losses due to vitamin and mineral deficiencies alone are more than US$1.5 billion annually. 3 Yet, domestic nutrition budgets in Nigeria have been low and may have decreased recently. In 2017, the national nutrition budget accounted for just 0.2% of general government expenditure. 6 Further, public expenditure on nutritional deficiencies appeared to decline from 7% to 2% of national investment needs between 2015 and 2017. 7 The health sector accounts for most of the public spending on nutrition in Nigeria, with 70% of nutrition spending in 2019, followed by water and sanitation sector with 16% and agriculture with 6% of spending. 7
Understanding the amount and nature of sectoral investments in nutrition is important for advocating and mobilizing increased government budgetary allocations and release. 23 Very little such understanding exists for the Nigerian agricultural sector, despite increased attention to nutrition-sensitive agriculture (NSA) over the past decade. 24 A Nutrition and Food Safety Unit was established in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) in 2012 and was shortly thereafter upgraded to a Nutrition and Food Safety Division. An Agricultural Sector Food Security and Nutrition Strategy 2016 to 2025 (AFSNS) was subsequently developed between 2014 and 2015, ratified in 2016, and was launched in 2017. 25
This study aimed to contribute to knowledge about domestic NSA financing in Nigeria. The specific objectives of the study were to: Determine how government budget for nutrition within the agricultural sector has changed over time. Assess whether increased attention to NSA (evidenced by the ratification and launch of the AFSNS) has changed funding for nutrition. Identify whether the COVID-19 pandemic may have affected the nutrition budget within the agricultural sector.
Methods
The study conducted analysis of the federal government budget for agricultural ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs; note 1). Analysis was conducted for 2009 to 2022, the years for which approved budgets were available at the time of preparation of this manuscript. Budgets were downloaded from the website of the Budget Office of Nigeria, except for the 2012 budget that was not online and was, therefore, excluded. For 2020, 2 budgets were analyzed—the 2020 budget initially approved, as well as the amended 2020 budget due to the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Budget analysis was undertaken following guidance published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. 23 The basic method for the analysis includes 3 steps: (a) identifying nutrition-related budget line items; (b) categorizing budget lines as nutrition-specific, nutrition-sensitive, and potentially nutrition-sensitive; and (c) vetting of potentially nutrition-sensitive budget lines.
For the step to identify nutrition-related budget lines, a search of key words was conducted following the FAO guidance. 23 Thirty-four (34) key words were used for the search, based on key interventions in the AFSNS. 25 These key words were aflatoxin, biofortification, borehole, carotene, cash, child, children, diet, dietary, education, farmer, feeding, food, fortification, garden, gender, health, home, meal, micronutrient, mineral, nutrition, nutritional, nutritious, price, protein, safe, sanitation, small, smallholder, vitamin, vulnerable, water, and women. All budget lines with any of these key words were extracted and compiled. Subsequently, the extracted budget lines were reviewed line by line and any budget line where it was not possible to identify the target population (direct or indirect beneficiaries), and/or an AFSNS-associated measurable outcome, was deleted. Duplicated budget lines, due to such lines having more than 1 key word, were also deleted.
For step 2, the remaining budget line items were categorized as nutrition specific if they included a nutrition department, nutrition program, nutrition intervention, or nutrition activity, and were targeted at improving diets/nutrient intakes, feeding and caregiving practices, and parenting practices. 23 Budget lines were categorized as nutrition sensitive if they explicitly described actions to make healthy diets more available, accessible, and affordable, including activities to increase production or productivity, processing, storage, distribution, and/or sale of identified foods. Budget lines explicitly aimed at improving availability, accessibility, and/or affordability of drinking water, sanitation, hygiene, or health care were also classified as nutrition sensitive, as were budget lines targeted at providing nutrition/health education. Budget lines were classified as potentially nutrition sensitive if they could be linked to nutrition, foods, and diets, but it was not entirely clear that they were linked, that is, they did not include an explicit nutrition objective, outcome, or indicator. For instance, activities aimed at training women, but in which the training topic or outcome was not specified, were categorized as potentially nutrition sensitive.
For step 3, budget lines classified as potentially nutrition sensitive were vetted through a consideration of the MDA in which a line item was domiciled, as well as informal discussions with personnel at FMARD. Potentially nutrition-sensitive actions in agricultural MDAs that were not recognized to have a nutrition mandate or nutrition goals, actions, or tools 26 were excluded. For instance, if a line item to empower women for increased income was domiciled in the rubber research institute, such a line item was excluded because the rubber research institute does not have a nutrition mandate. Line items were also excluded if there was no explicit indication of the pathway between the potentially NSA action and nutrition. 23,27 For example, line items to supply fertilizers to farmers that did not specify the expected outputs from increased fertilizer supply, or the food crops targeted, were excluded. Budget lines simultaneously targeting food crops as well nonfood or cash crops, for example, a budget line targeting increased production of both cassava and cocoa, were excluded. Water interventions that were not clearly described as targeting food production or improved drinking water supply were excluded. Similarly, irrigation projects were excluded if it was not clear that irrigation was targeted at production of food. Actions targeting increased production of commodities for export markets were also excluded. Table 1 summarizes the number of budget lines included at each step of the analysis.
Summary of Budget Lines Included at the End of Each Step of Analysis.
Although many budget lines included construction of boreholes, and activities related to agricultural production and processing, the activities were typically not completely described (including target crops or animals), or only nonfood crops or cash crops were targeted, or objectives/expected outcomes were not stated, or outcomes focused on income generation or export only without strong links to food security and nutrition. These budget lines frequently included just the overarching activity and the target communities. Thus, most budget lines that included the study key words were initially categorized as potentially nutrition-sensitive and were later excluded.
Furthermore, our analysis does not include the costs of nutrition governance and personnel costs/salaries. The budget structure in Nigeria groups all personnel costs together, and so it was not possible to determine the costs for personnel involved in implementing NSA. It was similarly not possible to delineate the costs for governance activities such as information management, coordination across agriculture MDAs, and institutional capacity building. Hence, according to nutrition budget analysis guidance, 28 we excluded these costs.
Following the determination of budget lines that can be considered nutrition sensitive, totals were obtained per year and per category, and additional budget analysis techniques were applied. Additional analysis included estimation of percentage shares of nutrition budget out of total agriculture capital budget and total overall agriculture budget, and average annual percent change in nutrition budget. The analysis also assessed total budget for agricultural MDAs as a percentage of total Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) budget. Additionally, data about the actual expenditures were obtained to assess how actual NSA expenditures differ from approved budgets. However, actual expenditure could only be obtained for the FGN capital and total budgets. Thus, it was inferred that the percent of approved budget that was actually expended for NSA was the same percent that was expended at the federal government aggregate level.
Budget Naira (₦) values were converted to United States dollars (USD, $) using the Central Bank of Nigeria exchange rate for each of the budget years. Conversion of nominal to real values was further done to adjust for annual inflation. Deflators used to adjust nominal values were based on average annual consumer price index (CPI) obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics. Year 2009, which was used as the base year, has a CPI of 100 as this is also the base year of the National Bureau of Statistics.
Results
General Analysis of Agricultural Budget
A general overview of the agricultural budget of the FGN from 2009 to 2022 is provided in Table 2, including the total agriculture budget and total agriculture capital budget. The table also includes the total and capital FGN budgets and the agriculture budget as a percent of the FGN budgets. Nominally, in Naira, there was an overall upward trend in the budgetary allocation to the agricultural sector from 2009 to 2022, with an average annual rate of growth (AARG) of 8%. However, when the rates were converted to USD, no trend was observed because the Naira increasingly lost value compared to the USD from 2009 to 2022. The nominal value of the total FGN budget increased in both Naira (13% AARG) and USD (4% AARG) from 2009 to 2022.
Summary of Agriculture and FGN Nominal Budget From 2009 to 2022.
Abbreviation: FGN, Federal Government of Nigeria.
Furthermore, there were meaningful differences when the real value of the budgets and expenditures were considered after adjusting for inflation. From 2009 to 2022, the real value of the total agriculture budget in Naira decreased with an average annual rate of reduction (AARR) of 4%, while the real value in USD decreased with an AARR of 12%. The real value of the total FGN budget in Naira did not appear to change meaningfully across the years, while the real USD value decreased with an AARR of 7% (Table 3).
The share of the agriculture budget in the total FGN budget showed a declining trend. Whereas the share of agriculture in the FGN budget was 4.7% in 2009, it was 2.6% in 2022. The 2009 share was the highest share over the period studied, followed by the 2010 share of 2.9% (Table 2). Actual expenditures over the period studied were consistently lower than the budget (except in 2015), to reach a low of 71% in 2022. The performance of capital budgets was consistently poorer than that of the overall FGN budget and just 30% of the capital budget was expended in 2022 (Table 2).
Summary of Agriculture and FGN Real Budget From 2009 to 2022.
Abbreviation: FGN, Federal Government of Nigeria.
Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Budget
The nominal and real values of the NSA budget showed an increasing trend from 2009 to 2022 (Figure 1 and Table 4). The AARG from 2009 to 2022 was 37% based on nominal values, and the average annual nominal NSA budget from 2016 to 2022 was 13 times higher than that from 2009 to 2015. The AARG for real values was less at 22%, and the average annual real NSA budget from 2016 to 2022 was 5 times higher than that from 2009 to 2015. These results indicate that although the NSA budget increased, some of the increases were due to inflation and not to actual increases in value of the budget.
Trends in nominal and real nutrition-sensitive agriculture budget in Nigeria from 2009 to 2022.
Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture Budget in Nigeria From 2009 to 2022, With Budget Lines Grouped by Type of Investment.
Besides, there were a few variable trends across the years (Figure 1 and Table 4). The budget decreased from 2009 to 2010, due to reduced spendings on drinking water and food security (Table 4). Budgets then increased steadily to reach a peak in 2018 (with a dip in 2015). The budget decreased in 2019 and 2020 and then regained an upward trend.
Apart from the budget amounts, the types of nutrition-sensitive activities included changed over the years. In 2009 and 2010, budgets were driven by activities focused on increasing the availability of improved drinking water. There were no budget lines specific to a Nutrition Unit/Division (Table 4). From 2013 however, the scope of activities expanded to include activities around nutrition-sensitive fish production and processing, and there was a budget line specific to the Nutrition Unit/Division. The budget for the Nutrition Division increased from 2013 to peak in 2017 (with a dip in 2015), declined between 2017 and 2020, and then regained an upward trend from 2021.
The years in which budgets were higher were those years in which nutrition considerations were included in investments across MDAs and not just in the activities of the Nutrition Division. For instance, in 2018, nutrition-sensitive fisheries and food security investments contributed substantially to the budget. Likewise, fisheries, animal source foods, provision of drinking water and food aid were important contributors to the 2021 and 2022 budgets. The contributions of food aid in the budget were another aspect that changed over years. Prior to 2019, there were no budget lines identified where food items were provided to displaced or vulnerable persons. Also noteworthy is budget allocated to school meals. School meals had budget lines only in 2014 and 2015.
In most years (2013 and 2017–2022), the budget for the Nutrition Division was included as a single line without a breakdown of the activities incorporated. In 2014 and 2015, some of the activities carried out by the Nutrition Division were included as budget lines. These activities included nutrition advocacy and campaigns, work on partnerships to facilitate local production of therapeutic foods, and distribution of micronutrient powder using an agro-inputs distribution platform. There was no budget line for the Nutrition Division in 2016. Regarding the other types of investments, the budget lines for food security included activities related to training, provision of inputs, support for irrigation or processing, and other support related to the increased availability of and access to staples (cereals and tubers), legumes, nuts, and seeds. The budget lines for animal source foods included the provision of starter stock, inputs, training, and other support to promote increased availability of and access to animal source foods.
Budget revisions in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, increased the NSA budget by 15%. Investments in food security and animal source foods increased in the budget revisions—grants were allocated to farmers for increased food production after budget revisions, while fisheries investments decreased. The budget allocated to the Nutrition Division did not change in the budget amendment. Budgets also increased in 2021 and 2022 for the Nutrition Division, as well as for other types of nutrition-sensitive investments, indicating that the COVID-19 pandemic did not decrease allocations. Investments in food security interventions, animal source foods, fruits and vegetables, and the provision of food assistance and drinking water, increased.
Additionally, even as the share of agriculture in the total FGN budget decreased, the share of NSA in the agriculture capital budget and total agriculture budget increased, including in the 2020 amended budget (Figure 2 and Table 4).
Trends in nutrition budget as a percent of agriculture capital budget and total agriculture budget.
Discussion
Understanding the types and amount of existing nutrition investments within a sector is necessary to advocate for and mobilize greater resources. This study aimed to provide this understanding for the agricultural sector in Nigeria by assessing trends in NSA budget, budgetary changes following the ratification of the AFSNS, and budgetary changes following the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that NSA budget increased between 2009 and 2022, with significant increases commencing in 2013 after a Nutrition Unit was established in FMARD, and even greater increases following the development of the AFSNS and its launch. There were increases in the nutrition-sensitive budget in 2020 budget amendments due to COVID-19, and budgets have increased since 2020. Budgetary increases remained even after adjusting for inflation and devaluation of the Naira over the years. Budgetary increases also occurred in the context of decreasing real value of agriculture budget and total FGN budget. The share of NSA budget in the total agriculture budget also generally increased across the years, even as the share of agriculture in the total FGN budget declined.
Funding is an integral part of the enabling environment for nutrition and a fundamental measure of the extent of nutrition political commitment. 11,12,29 Government nutrition allocations are especially very important. 30 There is limited information about the enabling environment for NSA in Nigeria and other West African countries. Relevant studies have however been conducted in several East African and South Asian countries. A study of the nutrition-sensitive enabling environment in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda found that limited knowledge about the pathways through which agriculture influences nutrition; inadequate institutional mechanisms and accountability structures for nutrition within the agriculture sector, including limited indicators and poor data availability; and insufficient financial and other resources; were key factors hindering NSA. 31 Similar challenges were reported about the enabling environment for NSA in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. 32 In addition to insufficient funding, the efficient use of existing resources has also been emphasized as a challenge. 32 Budget analysis has been described as an accountability tool that provides indicators for tracking nutrition progress. Institutionalization of budget analysis, coupled with advocacy using results from budget analysis, can facilitate the incorporation of nutrition components, indicators, or objectives into agriculture sector interventions and increase the efficient use of financial resources. 23,28 Budget analysis can, therefore, improve both the enabling environment for NSA as well as the design, implementation, and monitoring of NSA interventions. 23,28,33,34
Our study contributes to data about budget analysis and nutrition-related financing, which has been reported to be insufficient. 34 Available sources of nutrition budget analysis data include the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement (SUN) budget analysis reports, the United Nations Children’s Fund nutrition public expenditure reviews, the nutrition component of the System of Health Accounts data supported by the World Health Organization, and the World Bank public expenditure reviews that are nutrition-focused. 34 These sources generally publish the results of nutrition budget analysis in gray literature. Our study reports a sector-specific analysis spanning 14 years, which is longer than the years covered by other nutrition budget analysis for Nigeria and other countries. 35 -40 Our study further examined how changes in budget may be related to the launch and development of a nutrition strategy for the agricultural sector (AFSNS).
The existence of a policy that explicitly addresses NSA is enabling. 31 -33,41 -43 A costed policy or strategy in particular helps to mobilize resources for nutrition and facilitate prioritization and planning. 3,44 The Nigeria AFSNS is one such costed strategy and highlights needed NSA interventions from 2016 to 2025 and the costs needed to implement the strategy for each year from 2017 to 2020. Apart from the AFSNS which was developed by FMARD, the Nigeria Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning ratified a National Policy on Food and Nutrition in 2016 and an associated, costed National Multisectoral Plan of Action for Food and Nutrition (NMPFAN) in 2021. 45 The NMPFAN includes estimated costs (2021–2025) for each sector, including the agriculture sector, to perform assigned roles in achieving the National Policy on Food and Nutrition. Both the AFSNS and the NMPFAN are thus likely to have contributed to observed increases in budget allocation for NSA, especially since remarkable upward trends in budget correspond with the years for which costs estimates exist.
The Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program (CAADP), launched in 2003 by the African Union, promotes the development of National Agriculture Investment Plans for Food Security and Nutrition 46 and led to the first agriculture framework in Nigeria that had nutrition considerations, the National Agriculture Investment Plan 2011 to 2014 (NAIP). 47 It is, therefore, possible that the NAIP stimulated the increases in budget for NSA. While the influence of CAADP and the NAIP cannot be denied, because they contributed to birthing the AFSNS, the limited budgetary increases during the active period of the NAIP (2011–2014) suggests that the AFSNS (and later the NMPFAN) played a big role in motivating increased NSA budgets.
Nevertheless, the budgetary allocation for NSA in Nigeria in 2022 (≈₦11.5 billion) still fell short of the amounts needed to implement the AFSNS for one year (>₦81 billion), even as it more than tripled the estimated cost of FMARD’s obligations in the NMPFAN (≈₦3.7 billion). The differences in NSA costs between the AFSNS and NMPFAN are due to the fact that the NMPFAN costs the agricultural sector contributions toward the achievement of the National Policy on Food and Nutrition, while the AFSNS incorporates these costs as well as the cost of integrating nutrition into the implementation of the national Agriculture Policy. The fact that the NSA budget is more than the estimated cost of FMARD’s responsibility in the NMPFAN suggests that FMARD can financially fulfill its NMPFAN obligations. However, this may require reallocation of the available budget according to expected budget items based on the NMPFAN. Many of the expected FMARD interventions in the NMPFAN, including focus on fruits and vegetables, fisheries, aflatoxins, animal source foods, and promotion of good agricultural practices, are already covered in the NSA budget. However, the distribution of costs across various interventions may need to be revisited. Thus, even while advocating for sufficient funds to implement the AFSNS, it would be important for existing NSA funds to be efficiently allocated. There are tools, such as
Still, the decrease in budgetary allocations to the Nutrition Division from 2018 to 2020 is of particular concern because it might be due to inadequate spending by the Nutrition Division in 2017. Several authors have highlighted that implementation of the AFSNS has been inadequate, 49 -51 not just because of inadequate funding, but because of insufficient capacities to implement. 49 Nigeria used incremental budgeting in preparing budgets up until 2016. Incremental budgeting increases or decreases the allocation to a budget line based on the expenditure on that budget line in the preceding year. In this case, budget lines that spent all allocated and released budgets were more likely to receive increased budgets, and vice versa. From 2016, Nigeria began to use zero-based budgeting which allocates a budget to activities based on the justification made for a budget line and the priority accorded to it. 52,53 With the inadequate implementation of nutrition activities, it would have been difficult for the Nutrition Division to justify the need for additional funds following 2017, given that there had been limited change in the insufficient organizational and personnel capacity. 49 In addition, the switch from the incremental budgeting to the zero-based budgeting affected the activities that were included in the NSA budget. For instance, in 2014 and 2015, the NSA budget included school meals because the FGN was promoting school meals delivered through linkages with farmers. From 2016 however, although FMARD was still expected to facilitate linkages between farmers and the school feeding program, a nonagriculture MDA started leading the program and FMARD could no longer include a budget for it. Similarly, in 2015, FMARD included a budget line for the procurement of micronutrient powders to be delivered through the platform of a fertilizer subsidy delivery system. However, from 2016, this budget line could no longer be included because delivering micronutrient powders is primarily a role for the Federal Ministry of Health.
Our study had a few limitations. First, it is possible that our study underestimates the budget for NSA, because of the noninclusion of personnel and governance costs, as well as the relatively conservative approach toward the inclusion of budget line items. Nonetheless, reports guiding our analysis 23,28 underscore the importance of erring on the side of caution rather than overinflating NSA budgets. A 2014 and 2015 SUN analysis of nutrition budgets in Nigeria, including for the agriculture sector, 36 reported higher numbers of line items and higher budgets for both 2014 and 2015 than we do. However, the budget analysis methods used by SUN at that time included a final step to weight budget line items according to expected contributions of a line item to nutrition. This method allows a greater inclusion of line items classified as potentially nutrition sensitive, since it is possible to include just a proportion of the costs of a line item. On the other hand, our estimates of NSA costs are more robust than estimates in an analysis of Nigeria budget data from 2014 to 2022. 39,40 This second analysis appeared to include just the budgetary allocations to the Nutrition Division as NSA allocations. A second limitation of our work was the inability to assess actual budgetary releases and budget expenditures for the various line items included in our budget analysis. Because we were only able to access aggregate actual budget expenditure for the FGN, we assumed that the percent expenditures for the NSA line items will be equivalent to the percent expenditures for the entire federal government spending, which may not be the case. As mentioned previously, budget expenditures for the Nutrition Division may have been differentially low due to inadequate capacity.
Despite these limitations, our findings emphasize that ongoing efforts to improve nutrition through the agriculture sector in Nigeria are facilitating increased mobilization of resources. Our study also provides direction for improving the design and implementation of NSA by critically thinking through planned activities during budgeting and ensuring that they incorporate necessary nutrition elements and are aligned with the AFSNS and NMPFAN. A key strength of our study is that we were able to analyze several years of budget before and after the introduction of key policy/strategy frameworks. Additional strengths of our study include the adjustments for inflation and devaluation, as well as the comparison with changes in the total agriculture budgets and FGN budgets. Other reports of budget analyses 35,39,40 limitedly include such adjustments and comparisons, limiting the understanding of nutrition financing that could be gained from the reports.
Conclusion
The enabling environment for NSA in Nigeria has increased over the past decade, as evidenced by increased budget allocation to NSA despite reductions in the real value of agriculture budgets and overall FGN budgets. Periods of particularly sharp increases in budget coincide with the starting years of key national frameworks guiding NSA in Nigeria. The 2022 NSA budget meets the cost of the agriculture sector’s obligations in the NMPFAN. The NSA budget can, therefore, be optimized to ensure full implementation of the agriculture sector component of NMPFAN, even while advocating for adequate funding for the more comprehensive AFSNS. NSA budgets can be further increased by incorporating nutrition into many potentially nutrition-sensitive budget lines within the budgets of agriculture MDAs.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
The study was conceptualized and/or designed by Victor Ajieroh, Larry Ummuna, Francis Aminu, Adeyinka Onabolu, and Olutayo Adeyemi. Data collection and/or analysis were conducted by Adekunle Adanlawo, Yeside Adesiyun, Samuel Omenka, Rasaq Oyeleke, Oluchi Ezekannagha, and Olutayo Adeyemi. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Olutayo Adeyemi. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript and approved the final manuscript.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Financial support for the research and publication of this article was provided by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN).
