Building the future: Infrastructure in Nigeria until 2040

Nigeria faces a severe deficit in basic physical infrastructure, particularly in sanitation, water, electricity, and roads, which hinders economic growth and human development. Benchmarked against lower middle-income peers, Nigeria lags significantly, and current trajectories suggest it will miss several Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The report models several interventions, finding that increasing access to improved sanitation and clean water provides the highest returns for poverty reduction and health outcomes. However, achieving these targets requires overcoming significant challenges in government capacity, funding, and a heavy reliance on oil revenues.

• Nigeria's infrastructure deficit is a primary obstacle to its economic growth and human development, with the country ranking 132 out of 138 in the World Economic Forum's 2016-17 Global Competitiveness Index.
• Access to improved sanitation is the most severe area of deficit; only about 30% of the population had access in 2016, compared to over 50% among global lower middle-income peers.
• Nigeria's road network is characterized by low density and a lack of paving, with only 16% of roads paved in 2016, while the average for global lower middle-income countries is 50%.
• While 58% of Nigerians had electricity access in 2016, the supply is unreliable due to a gap between generation capacity and demand, leading 86% of companies to rely on standby generators.
• On its current development trajectory, Nigeria is forecast to miss the Sustainable Development Goal of universal access to safe water by 2030, with over 90 million people expected to lack access by 2040.
• Among modeled interventions, increasing access to improved sanitation has the most significant positive impact on GDP growth, poverty reduction, and health outcomes, including a 14% reduction in infant mortality.
• A combined 'Broad Infrastructure Push' paired with family planning (reducing fertility from 5.4 to 3.3 births) could reduce the number of people in extreme poverty by nearly 14 million by 2040.
• Nigeria's infrastructure investment between 2007 and 2017 averaged 3.6% of GDP, which is lower than the African average of 4.3% for the same period.
• Funding is a critical challenge as government revenue remains heavily dependent on oil and vulnerable to international market volatility.

APA

Bello-Schünemann, J., & Porter, A. (2017). Building the future: Infrastructure in Nigeria until 2040. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/war-21.pdf

Chicago

Bello-Schünemann, Julia, and Alex Porter. Building the future: Infrastructure in Nigeria until 2040. Institute for Security Studies, 2017. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/war-21.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Bello-Schünemann |first1=Julia |last2=Porter |first2=Alex |title=Building the future: Infrastructure in Nigeria until 2040 |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=November 2017 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/war-21.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{belloschnemann2017building, author = {Bello-Schünemann, Julia and Porter, Alex}, title = {{Building the future: Infrastructure in Nigeria until 2040}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2017}, month = nov, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/war-21.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }