Eradication of Poverty and Hunger in Nigeria: Issues and Options for Attainment of Millennium Development Goals

Abstract

The saying that, “a country that cannot feed its poor, cannot assure sleep to its rich” is very apt. Eradicating poverty and hunger is the greatest challenge facing the world today. Progress has been made over the last generation in improving living standards in paper therefore, examined the challenges and options open in the poorest countries, but over a billion people still struggle in absolute poverty. This paper therefore, examined the challenges and options open in order to eradicate poverty in Nigeria. It was discovered that bad governance, poor economic policies, ill-timed reforms, corruption, lack of commitment to poverty eradication programmes and poor investment in rural agriculture were the prime cause(s) of hunger and poverty. All hope is not lost because there are options government can pursue such as ensuring broad-based growth good governance, tackling unemployment, basic needs approach etc in order to eradicate poverty and hunger. The paper is of the view that to eradicate hunger and poverty, economic growth is necessary but not a sufficient condition. There is need to induce broad-based growth and provide social services and infrastructure aimed at reducing/eradicating the depth and sovereignty of poverty and hunger across the country.

Key words: Poverty; Eradication; Hunger; challenges; agriculture