Nigeria faces serious challenges to developing its human capital and preparing its large youth population for the future of work. It invests far below international standards in education and health, with average education budget under 7% against UNESCO's recommended minimum of 26%, and health budget below 5% against an African Union pledge of 15%. As a result, Nigeria ranks poorly on human capital development indices and risks high unemployment and low productivity as employment shifts to sectors requiring more advanced skills. To strengthen its competitiveness, Nigeria must substantially boost education and health funding to develop the capabilities and productivity of its workforce.

1. NIGERIA:
THE FUTURE OF WORK

2. HUMAN CAPITAL
DEVELOPMENT AND
ECONOMIC GROWTH

3. HUMAN CAPITAL
• Human capital is the stock of productive knowledge and skills possessed by
workers.
• Human capital refers to the abilities and skills of human resources of a
country.
• Human capital also refers to the human factor in the production process

4. HUMAN CAPITAL
• It consists of the combined knowledge, skills or competencies and abilities
of the workforce
• It is the only factor of production that is capable of learning, adapting or
changing, being innovative and creative.
• While it is important in itself, also important is the accumulation process
because it is an investment made in people to increase their productivity

5. HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT IN
NIGERIA
• A country’s competitiveness in the New International Economic Order
(NIEO) is strongly connected to the quality of her human capital.
• The qualification, skill, knowledge and attitude of the people will be the
greatest impediment or catalyst to Nigeria’s economic growth.
• World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index focuses on 9 pillars
based on 140 questions:
1. Institutions
2. Infrastructure

6. HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT IN
NIGERIA
3. Macro economy
4. Health & primary education
5. Higher education & training
6. Market efficiency
7. Technological readiness
8. Business sophistication
9. Innovation
• Nigeria’s Education and Health index are disturbing.

7. NIGERIA’S FEDERAL ALLOCATION TO EDUCATION
Nigeria’s average Federal budget in Education of 7.07% has consistently been below 10% yearly and falls far short of the
UNESCO recommended minimum of 26% budgetary allocation to Education

8. NIGERIA’S PRIMARY SCHOOL COMPLETION AND TRANSITION
TO SECONDARY SCHOOL RATES (Source – UNICEF)
While the percentage of children completing primary school increased over a decade, the share eventually making it
into secondary schools almost halved between 2007 and 2016/17

9. NIGERIA’S FEDERAL BUDGET IN
HEALTH
Nigeria’s average Federal budget in health of 4.87% and has consistently been below 6% yearly falls far short of
the African Union countries’ pledged target of allocating at least 15% of their annual budget to the health sector

10. THE NIGERIAN HUMAN CAPITAL
• With a population of approximately 197 million, Nigeria accounts for about
47% of West Africa’s population, and has one of the largest populations of
youth in the world.
• Human capital development remains weak due to under-investment. Nigeria
ranked 152 of 157 countries in the World Bank’s 2018 Human Capital Index
• The future of work in Nigeria is heavily threatened.

11. EMPLOYMENT INTO THE INDUSTRY
SECTOR

12. Nigeria and Human Capital Development
• The preceding chart shows an increase in the share of employment into the
industry sector.
• An average 12.9% of total employment was employed in industry sector
consisting of mining and quarrying, manufacturing, construction, and public
utilities requiring less formal education.
• With unemployment rate increasing and education rate dropping, Nigeria
faces serious productivity challenge in the next few years.

13. CONCLUSION
• Nigeria needs to increase its budgetary allocation to education and
significantly.