Nigeria’s Government Spending on Basic Education and Healthcare in the Last Decade: What has Changed After Reforms?

Government spending can be effective and have the desired effect on the level of socioeconomic development when there is consistency and compliance of government agencies with the development agenda a nation adopts. Social indicators (education and healthcare) in Nigeria over the past decade have not been on track with the distributive outcome targets set by the 2004 social sector reforms despite scaling up funding in the two key social sectors (education and healthcare). The study employs a welfare distribution analysis through concentration curves and conducting several dominance tests to ascertain who benefited from public spending in these sectors. Findings suggest that apart from public primary education and healthcare for urban residents, no other level of social service was absolutely progressive for all or by gender or by location. These results were not better than the results of 2003 before these reforms were introduced. The study therefore recommends that strengthening policies should be followed by institutional intensification and other several interrelated areas to attain effectiveness of public spending. Also budget drafting in the executive and legislature must be guided by relevant priority documentation while project costs should be realistic and not inflated as evidenced by several other similar studies and reviews to achieve its desired goals.