Nigeria

This paper examines the links between adverse events, depression, and decision making in Nigeria. It investigates how events such as conflicts, shocks, and deaths can affect short-term perceptions of welfare, as well as longer term decisions on economic activities and human capital investments. First, the findings show that exposure to conflict has the largest and strongest relationship with depression, associated with a 15.3 percentage point increase in the probability of reporting depressive symptoms (from a base of 22 percent).

Empirical literature on digital technologies for student learning is generally unable to identify separately whether learning gains arise from reciprocity in response to the gift of a valuable gadget (the 'gadget effect') or from increasing exposure to relevant materials (the 'content effect'). This paper attempts to disentangle these mechanisms using a randomized control trial in junior secondary schools in Lagos, Nigeria.

In 2004, Africare, with support from the Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF) and the National Agency for the Control of AIDS, initiated a program to reduce risk from HIV/AIDS among young women in 18 peri-urban and urban communities in and around the capital city of Abuja and in two proximal states of Niger and Nassarawa, which have prevalance rates of 3.2 percent and 5.4 percent respectively.

In Nigeria, about one in eight children dies before the age of five; for children born of mothers younger than 18, the risk is higher. Controlling for socio-economic and other characteristics, being born of a mother younger than 18 increases the likelihood of dying before the age of five by five percentage points in the baseline model, as compared to otherwise similar children born of older mothers. 

In Nigeria, women who marry as children have on average 18-33 percent more births over their life time as compared to women marrying after the age of 18. Controlling for socio-economic and other characteristics, the average number of births per woman would be reduced by 0.72 births or about twelve percent if child marriage could be eliminated. This in turn would have a substantial effect on demographic growth. 

SABER-EPS research in Lagos found that access to primary education is not yet universal and that enrolments at the secondary level are very low. This report presents an analysis of how effectively the current policies in Lagos engage the private sector in basic (primary and secondary) education. The analysis draws on the Engaging the Private Sector (EPS) framework, a product of the World Bank’s Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER).

Private schools are currently educating the majority of primary and secondary education students in Lagos State, Nigeria. As such, Lagos is one of the largest private school markets in the world. Notwithstanding the influence of this sector, not enough is known about the operations of private schools in Lagos State, their impact on student learning opportunities, and their overall implications for the economic and social development of Nigeria.