Nigeria improves in basic services, says UN report

The 2022 annual United Nations report showed that Nigeria has made some improvements in equitable quality basic services.
The improvements were recorded in health, education, protection, water, sanitation, and hygiene.
In health, the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys report for 2021 revealed improvement in Nigeria’s health indications.
For instance, skilled birth attendance increased from 43 per cent in 2021 to 51 per cent in 2022; anaemia in women decreased from 58 per cent in 2021 to 55 per cent in 2022, and 62.4 per cent of women received a postnatal check-up within two days of giving birth.
The Penta-3 vaccination for children under one year old rose to 79 per cent from 75 per cent in 2021 with a 24-point increase in coverage over the last five years, indicating that more children were fully immunised.
Also, contraception prevalence among women was 18 per cent similar to the incidence of adolescent births at the same rate of 18 per cent.
Education improved with a Gender Parity Index of 0.99 for primary school compared to 0.95 in 2017 and 1.05 for junior secondary school compared to 0.97 in 2017, according to the MICS.
The report partly read, “73.1 per cent of children finished primary education as against 63 per cent in 2017. Adult literacy was 65.4 per cent, while the youth literacy rate was 73.5 per cent.
“In 2022, the out-of-school rates were 26 per cent for primary school and 25 per cent for secondary school, and the transition rate from primary to lower secondary was 84 per cent.
“Access to basic sanitation increased from 40 per cent in 2017 to 47 per cent in 2022. Eighty per cent of the population used basic drinking water services and 31 per cent of households had access to basic hygiene services. However, only 14 per cent of the population had access to complete basic water, sanitation, and hygiene services.”
On protection, it revealed that efforts to protect adolescents, women, and girls from sexual violence and abuse had improved, as well as efforts to expand social protection at federal and state levels.