Table 11: Composition by study taxonomy of ECM services of
Table
Table
Table
Table
Table
Table
Table 20: Common ECM taxonomy and exclusive list of services
Table 21: National Strategy to End Child Marriage in Nigeria (2016–2021)
Table 22: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and other project expenditure), federal Ministry of Education, 2020
Table 23: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel costs and other recurrent expenditure), federal Ministry of Education, 2020 57
Table 24: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and other project expenditure), federal Ministry of Health and Child Development, 2020 58
Table 25: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and other recurrent costs), federal Ministry of Health and Child Development, 2020
Table 26: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and other project expenditure), federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, 2020 59
Table 27: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including estimate of personnel and other recurrent costs), MHADM&SD 59
Table 28: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and other recurrent costs), federal Ministry of Justice, 2020
Table 29: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and other project expenditure), federal Ministry of Justice, 2020
Table 30: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and other project expenditure), National Population Commission, 2020
Table 31: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and other recurrent costs), National Population Commission, 2020
Table 32: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including capital and other project expenditure), federal Ministry of Women Affairs, 2020
Table 33: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and other recurrent costs), federal Ministry of Women Affairs, 2020
Table 34: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and other project expenditure), Kano State Ministry of Education, 2020
Table 35: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and other recurrent costs), Kano State Ministry of Education, 2020
Table
Table 37: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and other recurrent costs), Kano State Ministry of Health, 2020
Table 38: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and other project expenditure), Kano State Ministry of Justice, 2020
Table 39: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and other recurrent costs), Kano State Ministry of Justice, 2020
Table 40: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget, capital and other project expenditure, Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, 2020
Table 41: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and other recurrent costs), Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, 2020
Table 42: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and other project expenditure), Kano State Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sport Development, 2020
Table 43: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and other recurrent costs), Kano State Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sport Development, 2020 67
Abbreviations and acronyms
COVID-19 coronavirus disease
ECM Ending Child Marriage or End to Child Marriage
GDP gross domestic product
IMF International Monetary Fund
M&E monitoring and evaluation
MDA ministries, departments and agencies
MHADM&SD Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development
MWA Ministry of Women Affairs (Prior to 2019 and the establishment of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, it was known as the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development.)
MWA&SD Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development
n.a. not available
NBS National Bureau of Statistics
NPC National Population Commission
PEFA Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability
UBEC Universal Basic Education Commission
UNFPA United Nations Population Fund
UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund
₦ Nigerian naira
Foreword
As a form of violence against children, the detriment of child marriage to the health, psychological health, sexual and reproductive health rights and education is well documented. However, little is known about the economic dimension of child marriage. This study seeks to unravel the complex interplay between child marriage and the economy, revealing that the issue of child marriage is multifaceted with farreaching economic implications. In a country as rich in potential as Nigeria, the potential loss to human capital and economic productivity due to child marriage is an issue that demands our immediate attention.
This study is significant as it is the first research to estimate the economic burden of child marriage to Nigerian society through its impacts on selected health, education and productivity outcomes. Specifically, the study reveals that “the combined economic value of money lost to health, education and productivity as a result of child marriage in Nigeria is $10 billion annually, representing 2.4 per cent of fross domestic product”. This means investing efforts to end child marriage and its reduced maternal and child health and productivity consequences will potentially boost Nigeria’s gross domestic prodcut by 2.4 per cent.
These findings underscore the detrimental individual and national economic effects of child marriage, providing a case for investments in strengthening child marriage prevention and response efforts. The case for investing in interventions that address all forms of violence,
abuse and exploitation, including child marriage, not only carries a moral imperative but an economic justification as well.
In this last decade of action, ending child marriage must be a priority for policy makers and duty bearers. A comprehensive and whole-ofsociety approach is needed to address this harmful practice in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, specifically Goal 5, target 5.3, which calls for a total elimination of all harmful practices, such as child marriage, by 2030 and ensuring the development and well-being of children and youth.
This findings of this study and the corresponding recommendations represent a call to action and testament to our collective commitment to a brighter, more equitable future for Nigeria.
I would like to thank and commend the tremendous efforts of my staff at the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, especially the Child Development Department, the author and the United Nations Children’s Fund, and indeed all other partners working under the Spotlight Initiative, for pioneering this work.
Barr. Uju Kennedy Ohanenye Honourable Minister of Women Affairs Federal Ministry
of Women Affairs
Preface
It is with great pleasure and a sense of responsibility that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) presents this publication in collaboration with the Government of Nigeria. It is a testament to our shared commitment to address one of the most pressing challenges facing the nation – child marriage.
Child marriage is a deeply entrenched social issue that has far-reaching consequences for the lives and futures of countless children in Nigeria. It robs young girls and boys of their childhood, education and potential, perpetuating a cycle of poverty and inequality. Recognizing the urgency of this issue, the Government of Nigeria has undertaken a courageous journey to integrate policies and plans aimed at ending child marriage into the national budget.
UNICEF, as a longstanding partner and advocate for the rights of children, is honoured to have been a part of this significant endeavour. Our collaboration with the Nigerian government underscores our shared vision of a Nigeria where every child can grow up in a safe, nurturing and supportive environment, free from child marriage. This publication is a comprehensive assessment of the progress made and challenges faced in integrating ending child marriage policies and plans into the national budget. It serves as a
vital tool to promote transparency, accountability and informed decision-making. Through careful analysis and data-driven insights, we aim to empower policymakers, civil society organizations, development partners and all stakeholders with the knowledge needed to advance our collective mission.
We wish to express our heartfelt gratitude to the Government of Nigeria and our partners, as well as individuals and communities across the nation, for their tireless efforts in working to end child marriage.
The path to ending child marriage is long and arduous, but with the combined strength of our efforts, we can pave the way for a brighter, more equitable future for all children in Nigeria. We hope that this publication provides a foundation for informed action and that it fosters a shared determination to end child marriage in Nigeria.
Cristian Munduate UNICEF Representative in Nigeria
Acknowledgements and disclaimer
Acknowledgements
The review team expresses its gratitude for the valuable guidance and support provided by the Evaluation Coordinator, Mona Aika, and her colleagues Michael Castro and Ramatou Toure from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) West and Central Africa Regional Office, as well as Amandine Bollinger and Hamidou Poufon from the UNICEF Nigeria Country Office. In the UNICEF Kano field office, Ramatu Aliyu, Muhammad o Okorie, Emelia Allan and Fatima Adamu, under the leadership of Maulid Warfa, provided valuable context and facilitated access to government ministries. In Abuja and Kano, many federal and state officials, including Sanjo Faniran and Oluyide Adesola and their teams at the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, gave generously of their time during a busy phase in the planning and budget cycle.
Professional quality support was provided by Stephen Lister.
Disclaimer
This report summarizes the approach, findings, analysis and conclusions arising from the review, analysis and diagnosis of the integration of policies and plans on ending child marriage into Nigeria’s budgets.
The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this document do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNICEF concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delineation of its frontiers or boundaries. The opinions and interpretations presented in this report are those of the study team and do not represent the views of UNICEF.
It should be recognized that this report is based on the information available to the team at the time of writing. In some cases, sufficient and current information was not available, and this has led to some limitations in the analysis.
Executive summary
Country context
Declining per capita income since 2014 in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and biggest economy, reflects demographic change (there is a population growth rate of 2.6 per cent per year) and economic slowdown. Economic slowdown has resulted from dependence on declining oil prices and production and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Investment in human capital by the government remains inadequate to transform the demographic change into a strongly positive force. In this context, economic and social instability, exacerbated by insecurity, impacts increasingly on households and communities, where unemployment and poverty are rife.
Child marriage
Rates of child marriage remain high in Nigeria. In 2016/17, among women aged 20–49, 20.5 per cent were married by the age of 15 and 44.1 per cent by the age of 18. In 2016/17, 22 per cent of girls aged 15–19 were married. The country has seen a decline in child marriage of only -0.5 per cent over the last 10 years (UNICEF, 2023).
Child marriage rates differ significantly across the country, being below 5 per cent in the south and averaging nearly 40 per cent in the north west and exceeding 50 per cent in some states. The key drivers of child marriage and the differential between regions are location (urban versus rural), level of education and extent of poverty. Child marriage is much higher in poorer communities, in communities where education levels are low and in rural areas. Differences in incidence between language groups, with much higher rates among the Hausa than among the Yoruba and Igbo, point to the impact of history, culture and religion on the norms regarding child marriage.
Child marriage impacts girl brides, the children of girl brides and the economy through a number of channels. In addition to the infringement of the rights of girls and the violence associated with child marriage, child marriage is associated with a greater risk of being pregnant with more than one baby, and with negative health impacts, lower educational attainment, reduced opportunities and the perpetuation of poverty and inequality. Recent estimates suggest large costs associated with child marriage, and hence large benefits associated with the reduction of child marriage.
Country response to child marriage
Over the last three decades, the Nigerian government has acknowledged the harm of discrimination and violence against women and children. In response, it has adopted a range of international measures, as well as domestic policies and legislation, to eliminate discrimination and gender-based violence and some of its specific manifestations.
While the 1999 Constitution directed the state to protect children against exploitation and neglect, it did not explicitly outlaw child marriage or female genital mutilation. Such prohibition had to await the Child Rights Act of 2003 (child marriage) and the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act of 2015 (sexual harassment and female genital mutilation). These laws, however, have not been adopted by all the Nigerian states and in some cases, they have been adopted with significant variation which, together with the constitutional provision of Sharia law jurisdiction applying to Islamic marriages, allows for continuing ‘legality’ of some child marriages.
Beyond legislation, a number of programmes relevant to ending child marriage (ECM) have been adopted. In 2016, the government adopted the
Recent estimates suggest large costs associated with child marriage, and hence large benefits associated with the reduction of child marriage.
National Strategy to End Child Marriage in Nigeria (2016–2021), which was developed by the Ministry of Women Affairs in cooperation with a range of other ministries. The strategy identified 38 broad strategies directed at six objectives.
Four objectives relate to setting in place a delivery framework (promoting policy and legislation, integrating sector mechanisms, coordination and monitoring, and research capacity and knowledge-building) and two objectives to services to reduce vulnerability and create opportunity (changing negative socioeconomic and cultural norms and increasing access to quality all-round education).
Plans for ECM remained at a high, or strategic, level and while there was sensitization to the National Strategy in some states, and coordinating capacity was established in the Ministry of Women Affairs, there was apparently no further development of implementation plans and costing, little purposeful, explicit implementation of the strategy, and no monitoring of implementation. As far as could be ascertained, the strategy never featured in framework plans for the budget or in budget documentation. In spite of the apparent lack of impact of the strategy itself on budgets, many projects and programmes that are funded from budgets are covered in the strategy and have relevance for ECM. In particular, there has been increasing focus on the need for delivering improved access to and quality of health, education, social protection and economic empowerment in Nigeria, which will impact on the main drivers of child marriage.
Methodology, approach and limitations
This Nigeria study is one of six country studies on the integration of ECM strategies into countries’ national and sectoral plans and budgets. The six studies, intended to inform a regional synthesis report, were conducted in Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. The purpose of the study is to enhance the capacities of UNICEF staff and government and civil society partners to advocate for, influence and develop regional, national and subnational programmatic actions and budgets to end child marriage, by providing new data and analysis.
All the country studies aimed to provide new data and analysis of the link between ECM policies and budgets. To this end, the country teams first undertook policy analysis, assessing the countries’ ECM legal frameworks, strategies and other relevant plans and policies against the incidence of child marriage. Second, the teams undertook budget analysis, to the extent that the granularity of public budget documentation and reports allowed assessment of expenditure on ECM interventions. Third, the teams undertook a review of the countries’ budget and expenditure management systems to analyse how systems are enabling or hindering the integration of ECM into public budgets. The studies used a common analytical framework of typical ECM interventions, aligned to the 2019 United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)–UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage Phase II theory of change strategies, against which ECM policies and expenditure were analysed.
In Nigeria, published budget data cover the economic classification of expenditure by ministry, as well as listing many capital and other projects in the development budget. Budgets are not organized by objectives or programmes and subprogrammes. This makes it difficult to identify budget lines relevant to ECM and assess the links between plans and budget, especially in the recurrent budget.
The approach to estimating ECM budgets was therefore to identify capital and other projects that were relevant to National Strategy objectives and actions, as well as to the generic ECM intervention categories listed in the study taxonomy, in the published 2020 budgets. Budget items thus identified comprise what are referred to in this report as ECM-relevant budgets . Because ECMrelevant budgets could also cover objectives other than ECM and mostly cover a broader demographic than girls and young women, a proportion of the ECM-relevant spending is designated as National ECM Strategy budgets based on the extent of relevance and likelihood of impacting directly on child marriage. From the National ECM Strategy budgets, the classification of services between ECM-relevant and ECMspecific services (see Table 20, page 50) is used to identify ECM-specific expenditure
Estimates were discussed with officials from the relevant ministries and adjusted where necessary in the light of information provided.
As capital and other project expenditure excludes personnel and overhead spending related to these projects and also excludes the bulk of expenditure (operational expenditure or personnel and goods and services budgets), the estimate of ECM spending provided is an underestimate.
This is especially so if only looking at the federal level because large ECM-relevant operational expenditure (specifically in the social service ministries of education, health and social protection) takes place at the state and local level. The ECM budgets estimated are therefore indicative and not comprehensive and exact because they focus only on what is sometimes called the developmental budget and not the operational budget.
Furthermore, estimates were made for only six ECM priority federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) and five MDAs in Kano State because of limitations of resources available for the study. While it is believed that these ministries cover the bulk of activities envisioned in the National ECM Strategy, there will also be some relevant expenditure in other ministries. The estimates of ECM spending therefore give an idea of some budgeting for ECM but cannot be seen as comprehensive and definitive.
Budgets and expenditure
Using the methodology above, ECM-specific budgets were found to be negligible but there are a range of capital and project expenditure items which overlap closely with 38 strategies in the National Strategy. In the six federal ministries in 2020, the National ECM Strategy budget is estimated at 24 billion naira (₦) and in the five Kano State ministries at ₦143 million. The National ECM Strategy budget therefore amounts to just under 1 per cent of the federal capital and project (or developmental) budget in 2021 and 0.02 per cent of Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020. ECM-specific expenditure is much lower, at 0.002 per cent of federal capital and project
expenditure and 0.24 per cent of Kano State capital and other project spending.
The bulk of the federal National ECM Strategy budget comes from the Ministry of Education, primarily budgets of the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) for school-building and learner materials, and from the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development for social protection and economic empowerment measures.
Almost 90 per cent of the estimated ECM expenditure at federal level is directed towards addressing the socioeconomic drivers of child marriage and vulnerability, the bulk going to economic and social support and education services, with health and child protection not featuring very strongly. Spending to influence social and gender norms absorbs about 9 per cent of budgeted expenditure for ECM and spending on establishing an enabling environment, which includes aspects of birth and marriage registration (but once again not operational expenditure), 1.5 per cent.
In Kano State, just over 50 per cent of estimated National ECM Strategy budget is contributed by the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, spanning social protection, economic empowerment and some coordination, with the Ministry of Health and Child Development and the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development each adding around 20 per cent of budgeted ECM expenditure. The Kano State Ministry of Education adds a further 8.3 per cent. (For more detail on expenditure by ministry, for both the federal government and Kano State, see Annex 3, page <?>.)
Conclusions and recommendations
Given the extent of the challenge of child marriage and gender-based violence in Nigeria, the weak integration of the National ECM Strategy into the federal and Kano State budgets is disappointing. Not only is there little evidence of links between the National Strategy and budgets, but there has also not been much explicit implementation of the National Strategy. ECM-specific budgets are very small, while National ECM Strategy budgets are difficult to benchmark.
A continued focus is necessary on strengthening financing for community-level activities to shift norms and values about gender and marriage.
There are a number of obstacles to stronger integration of ECM into budgets that relate to cultural and customary values, making it difficult in some areas to raise and confront the issues of child marriage, including a very restrictive economic environment and fiscal framework (low tax revenues to GDP) and an insufficient prioritization of services that are key to ECM in budgets. In addition, there are limitations with regard to gender and ECM planning, specifically a proliferation of plans with what appears to be limited buy-in from crucial stakeholders. The overall vision and coherence of the strategy could also be strengthened. The difficulty of estimating comprehensive ECM budgets also points to the need for advancing further with budget reform and introducing and refining the tools that can lead to stronger links between plans and budgets, namely programme budgeting, medium-term costing and budgeting, and aspects of gender budgeting. Limited reporting and lack of availability of expenditure and service delivery data are obstacles to accountability and better planning. Going forward, activities to strengthen ECM budgets in line with plans will therefore have to deal with this range of constraints. A continued focus is necessary on strengthening financing for community-level activities to shift norms and values about gender and marriage. Supporting and networking existing organizations focusing on women and children will also help achieve this.
Activism is required in the economic and fiscal sphere to expand the fiscal space available for ECM through focusing not only on the need to increase the expenditure-to-GDP ratio but also on the desirability of diversifying revenues and giving higher priority to social and gender expenditure. It is also important to highlight the strategic economic importance of women’s participation in the economy for growth and development.
The National ECM Strategy has come to the end of its lifetime, and its revision provides the opportunity to, on the one hand, align the range of gender-related plans better and link
them to broader national strategies, and, on the other hand, to move beyond the strategic level to implementation planning and costing and supporting such planning at the ministerial, state and local levels. Greater clarification of the key levers of the National ECM Strategy (empowerment and mobilization; services for protection and opportunities; and legal and implementation framework) and appropriate balancing of the strategy between the levers will make it possible to take strategies more strongly into higher-level planning and budget processes.
A new strategy should build on the key elements already being funded and implemented in the key MDAs of Education (access to and quality of schooling for girls), Health (adolescentfriendly health services) and Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development (social protection and economic empowerment) and should build more synergies between these large programmes, but it should also put more emphasis on the currently neglected empowerment and mobilization strategies. Furthermore, it should strengthen a comprehensive implementation network consisting of harmonized legislation, vital registration, research, coordination and monitoring and evaluation (M&E).
The ECM research agenda should be spelt out more explicitly but must aim to improve the availability of expenditure and delivery data and more regularly analyse key trends (also with regard to gender norms). There is a need for more impact analysis and learning from the large number of currently funded projects about what works most effectively.
A final area of focus is the ongoing process of budget reform, including civil society organizations working in the area of public finance management reform, both to accelerate the introduction of instruments for strengthening strategy and budget links (programme classification, mediumterm budgeting and gender budgeting) and to increase reporting and availability of spending and delivery data.
Child marriage in Nigeria: At a glance
Population in 2020: 206 million
Country context states 36
774 local government areas
2019 GDP: US$448.1 billion
250 ethnic groups 500 languages
Child marriage in 2021*
Girls aged 15–19 years
12.2% are married or in union.
57% of those with primary education only are married.
Girls living in rural areas are nearly 5 times more likely to be married.
Girls from the poorest quintile are 10 times more likely to be married.
Child marriage rates
* NBS and UNICEF, 2022 ** UNICEF, 2023
Women aged 20–24 years
12.3% are married by age 15 years.
30.3% are married by age 18 years.
Child marriage decline rate over last 10 years**
National End Child Marriage Strategy budget -0.5%
1 Introduction
UNICEF, under the auspices of ‘Africa Region: The Spotlight Initiative to eliminate violence against women and girls’, commissioned Mokoro Limited to assess the level of integration of national and sectoral policies and plans on ending child marriage into national and local budgets in six African countries, namely Ethiopia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Chad, Mali and Nigeria.
Child marriage is any formal marriage or informal union of a boy or girl where at least one of the parties is under the age of 18. 1 Child marriage is considered a form of forced marriage, given that one or both parties have not expressed full, free and informed consent, because child marriages take place before the age of consent. Even where consent is given by the child, the intense pressure that may be exerted by family and community members to adhere to social norms around marriage is considered to render such consent meaningless.
The study aims to establish the link between ECM planning and budgeting through a gender lens and to estimate how much governments are spending on programmes in various sectors (health, education, social welfare and protection, etc.) that contribute to ending child marriage. The study also assesses budget practices in the six countries, to identify what supports or hampers commitments in national policies from being funded, and reviews existing budget advocacy efforts on ECM.
The study will produce a comparative regional synthesis report. To date, no systematic cross-country analysis has been conducted
to investigate how and in what ways policy and budgetary responses have contributed to ending child marriage, apart from isolated child protection budget analyses in a few country and programme evaluations.
1.1 Objectives and scope
The purpose of the study is to enhance the capacities of UNICEF staff, government and civil society partners to advocate for, influence and develop regional, national and subnational programmatic actions and budgets to end child marriage in line with international human rights standards by providing new data and analysis. The specific objectives of the assignment are to:
• conduct mapping of ECM policies, strategies and plans;
• assess the integration or inclusion of plan activities into budgets;
• conduct an analysis of national and local government and development partner budgets and spending against ECM policies, strategies and plans; and
• do a light review of countries’ resource management systems around budgets relevant to ECM to identify good practices, assess budget advocacy approaches on child marriage and help explain what goes wrong when plan activities are not integrated and available budgets are not used well.
Child marriage is considered a form of forced marriage, given that one or both parties have not expressed full, free and informed consent, because child marriages take place before the age of consent.
1 UNICEF’s definition of child marriage, see UNICEF, 2021.
1.2 Methodology
The policy–budget link is a crucial building block in how countries can meet their development aspirations. Whereas legal framework shifts, policies, strategies and plans frame how countries want to achieve strategic development objectives (such as the Sustainable Development Goals, including ECM), whether these intentions translate into action is determined by whether the actions needed are prioritized in country budgets, and by development partners in countries where official development assistance is still significant. This study assesses the strength of the policy–budget link for implementing actions related to ECM in and across six countries in Africa.
The study aimed to track both ECM-specific and ECM-relevant interventions and services, as prioritized in the ECM strategy, through to the budgets and expenditure of key ECM ministries and institutions. ECM-specific interventions are interventions where the targeting of the activity is explicitly and exclusively for ECM. ECM-relevant interventions are those where ECM is an additional objective of the intervention or service, as other economic outcomes are also (and sometimes primarily) targeted by the intervention.
The study developed a taxonomy of ECM interventions to aid systematic analysis of ECM policies and expenditure. The framework lists 45 common ECM interventions and services and classifies them into 10 categories aligned to the 2019 UNFPA–UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage Phase II theory of change strategies. A final aggregation was into three main intervention types, addressing social norms; addressing the socioeconomic drivers and consequences of child marriage; and establishing an enabling environment for ECM. The 45 services were also classified as ECM-relevant and ECMspecific. The framework is provided in Table 20 in Annex 1, page 50.
The country study teams used a three-step methodology to track country strategy ECM
interventions through to country budgets. Teams first undertook policy analysis, assessing the country ECM legal frameworks, strategies and other relevant plans and policies against the incidence, drivers and consequences of child marriage. Second, the teams undertook budget analysis, identifying ECM-relevant spending and analysing it against the study taxonomy of ECM interventions. Third, the teams undertook a review of the countries’ budget and expenditure management systems to analyse how systems are enabling or hindering the integration of ECM into public budgets. The approach to each of the steps differed between the countries, and was guided by the extent and detail of public information on country policies and results frameworks, and of public budgets and expenditure reports. Subnational case studies were also done in four study countries (Chad, Nigeria, Mali and Zimbabwe) on the financing of ECM activities at this level.
1.3 Nigeria study methodology and limitations
A first step in the Nigerian case was to link the 38 strategies in the National ECM Strategy to specific federal ministries. Strategies were then assigned a score for both the importance of the service for ECM and the likely relative cost. Scores for each ministry were aggregated, and those with the highest scores were identified as priority ECM ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs). The priority MDAs at the federal level in Nigeria are the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Women Affairs 2 and the National Population Commission (NPC).
For each of the prioritized MDAs, the budget lines most likely to fund identified ECM activities were ascertained. This linking of activities to budget lines in Nigeria is not straightforward because the Nigerian federal and state governments do not publish budget programmes (budgets systematically organized by objective or
2 The name of the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development changed to the Ministry of Women Affairs in 2019, when the social development portfolio moved to the newly established Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development. The study therefore refers mostly to the federal Ministry of Women Affairs, except in Section 2.3, page 20, where the National ECM Strategy, developed in 2016, is introduced.
function of spending) and there is little systematic information available on the internal organization of MDAs or the operational planning and activities of government agencies.
In Nigeria, the published budget data provide three types of classification (or budget lines). These are:
• classification by agency (headquarters and ministerial delivery agencies);
• economic or line-item classification (statutory expenditure, personnel, overheads and capital expenditure); and
• capital and other projects, which often include ‘constituency projects’ or ‘zonal intervention projects’. 3
While in exceptional cases the spending objective and thus ECM relevance could be inferred from the agency name (such as, in Kano State, the Youth Empowerment Directorate), relevance to ECM in Nigerian budgets could mostly only be inferred from the titles and names of capital and other projects. Therefore, the approach was to tag projects with relevant names and designate these as ECM-relevant projects. The study teams searched the project lists of the focus MDAs using a list of search terms, and then tagged the associated capital budget project as ECM-relevant. Typical search or tag terms included ‘marriage’, ‘women’, ‘girl’, ‘gender’, ‘adolescent’, ‘youth’, ‘young’, ‘empower’, ‘support’, ‘assist’, ‘deprived’, ‘IDP’ (internally displaced person), ‘vulnerable’, ‘poor’, and also more ministry-specific terms. These ECM-relevant projects were then further assessed and discussed with MDA informants to decide on the proportion of the budget line or project that could be seen as spending related to the National ECM Strategy. Annex 1 provides a brief overview of the methods used to generate the ECM budget share estimates. These proportions were calculated and aggregated as the ‘National ECM Strategy expenditure budgets’ for each ministry.
Hence, this study refers to three types or classifications of ECM expenditure budgets:
• ECM-relevant expenditure budgets: ECM is an additional objective of the intervention or service, as other economic outcomes are also (and sometimes primarily) targeted by the intervention.
• National ECM Strategy expenditure budgets: A portion of ECM-relevant expenditure budgets that can be expected to impact fairly directly on ECM and/or is explicitly aimed at girls and contributes to their opportunities. One example is spending on school-building and learning materials. This activity is specifically listed in the National ECM Strategy as a component of the strategy. All the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) spending on schoolbuilding in the states is therefore classified as ECM-relevant spending. However, because this expenditure also supports boys and has other social and economic objectives, only 40 per cent of the expenditure budget is included as National ECM Strategy expenditure.
• ECM-specific expenditure budgets : Targeting of the activity is explicitly and exclusively for ECM, as identified in Annex 1, Table 20, page 50.
Capital and other project expenditure lines in Nigeria federal and Kano State budgets do not include related personnel and overhead expenditure that supports the planning and implementation of infrastructure projects. Estimating ECM spending based on project lines (only capital or project expenditure) therefore excludes recurrent or operational costs and does not reflect the full cost of the activity. There is, however, no clear basis for apportioning personnel and overhead spending to capital and other projects to arrive at total costs. In addition, purely recurrent costs in many ministries, such as the salary and goods and services outlays towards ongoing education, health, social protection and vital registration services relevant to ECM, are
3 “Zonal intervention projects (ZIPs) came into being during the administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999; they are fully supported with intervention funds that are designated for the execution of the projects in all the constituencies across the country in every budget cycle. Members of the two legislative chambers of the National Assembly (the Senate and the House of Representatives) nominate projects to be sited in their constituencies to the tune of the sum allocated to them under ZIP in the approved budget” (Olujimi, 2020).
While the budget estimates give an indication of budget lines that contribute to ECM, they cannot be seen as exhaustive or complete, but as estimates of the prioritization of ECM in the capital (or development) budget.
also not assessed. This expenditure contributes to enhancing opportunities for girls and reducing economic and other pressures on households, but in the absence of programme budget information, recurrent costs cannot be allocated to specific functions or activities without extensive engagement with the right public budget and implementing officials, whom the team did not have access to.
This inability to assess operating or recurrent expenditure is therefore a serious limitation. While the budget estimates give an indication of budget lines that contribute to ECM, they cannot be seen as exhaustive or complete, but as estimates of the prioritization of ECM in the capital (or development) budget. 4
As a stopgap measure to factor in personnel and overheads at least for implementing the relevant capital projects, ECM capital spending and other ECM project spending were calculated as a proportion of the total budgets for capital and projects. The resulting proportion was then applied to personnel and overhead expenditure. This in effect assumes that projects absorb equal proportions of capital, personnel and overheads, which will often not be the case. For example, in an education department, only a small proportion of personnel and overheads may be involved in capital projects, with the bulk of personnel and overheads actually being spent on teaching and administration, although the capital expenditure itself is a fairly large proportion of expenditure. (In other words, while capital expenditure may be relatively large in an education ministry, say 15 per cent, the infrastructure unit may be relatively small in terms of personnel and overheads, say 2 per cent.)
Further discussion is necessary on apportioning personnel and overheads and on whether more organizational and activity information is available from government departments to improve estimates.
It was initially envisaged that data would be collected for two years, namely 2017 and 2020, in order to be able to identify trends over time. However, in the end this was not possible in the Nigerian case because there are very big changes between years in the different project lines and there was not enough time to work through all the project lines for two years and try to reconcile shifts.
The subnational location selected, in agreement with the UNICEF country office, was Kano State. While Kano, like many other states in the northern region, has relatively high levels of child marriage, the team realized that the great differences between the 36 states of Nigeria mean that no one state can be representative of all states. The focus on only one subnational unit was, however, dictated by the project resources available. The analysis of Kano expenditure therefore does not provide generalizable findings on spending levels in states but does explore the methodology in a state context. Adjustment in the MDAs selected in Kano State was necessary because of the absence of a ministry of humanitarian affairs and because in the state, the social development portfolio still resides with the Ministry of Women Affairs. The MDAs selected for the budget analysis in Kano are the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Youth and Sports Development.
4 See also Section 3.1, page 26, which points to the expenditure mandates of the federal and state governments, with the bulk of responsibility for the actual delivery of education, health and social protection located with state and local government.
2Country context regarding child marriage and policy response to ECM
2.1 Country context
With a 2020 population of 206 million and 2019 GDP of US$448.1 billion, Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and biggest economy. It also possesses abundant natural resources, having the largest natural gas reserves on the continent and being the biggest oil exporter. Nigeria’s population is growing at a rate of 2.6 per cent per year, with a large youth population (52 per cent of the population are under the age of 19) and is rapidly urbanizing. The urban population grew from 37 per cent of the total population in 2010 to 43 per cent in 2020 and is now growing by more than 4 per cent per year. Adding to this dynamism is a federal polity with 36 autonomous states, the Federal
Capital Territory, 774 local government areas and a rich cultural history and diversity, with 250 ethnic groups speaking 500 different languages (see Table 1, page 17).
In recent years, the faltering oil price and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic, have seen the economy weaken. In 2021, GDP per capita was expected to continue to decline (with economic growth of 1.8 per cent projected) and the country was likely to only reach its 2010 level of GDP in 2021 (World Bank, 2021). These economic pressures coexist with a limited role of the state in the economy and inadequate state investment in its people. While literacy among young females is 86 per cent in the cities, it is only 54 per cent in rural areas. Primary school enrolment is still relatively low, and secondary school enrolment
Zone
States
North East Gombe, Bauchi, Yobe, Borno, Adamawa and Taraba
North Central Niger, Benue, Nassarawa, Plateau, Kogi and Klara
North West Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Kebbi, Zamfara and Sokoto
Ethnic/cultural
groups
Fulani, Fulfulde, Babur, Kanuri, Tangalawaja, Balewa, Tiv and Mumuye
Kanuri, Hausa-Fulani, Maguzawa, Zara, Baju, Gbagyi, Zuru and Jabba
South East Abia, Imo, Ebonyi, Enugu and Anambara Igbo
South Akwa-Ibom, Cross-River, Bayelsa, Rivers, Delta and Edo
Ejagham, Annang, Efik, Ibibio, Ikwere, Ogoni, Itsekiri, Urhobo, Essan, Bini and Ijaw
South West Ekiti, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Ogun and Lagos Yoruba
(gross) was 42 per cent in 2018. Life expectancy at birth is 54.
There has been a failure to address unemployment, underemployment and high levels of poverty. Poverty has increased as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic effects, and more than 40 per cent of the country’s population (nearly 83 million people) are living on less than US$1.90 per day. This is in spite of efforts from government to adjust public expenditure to reduce the shock. The economic situation is leading to growing numbers of frustrated young people and coexists with a range of security challenges impacting the humanitarian situation in the country: terrorist attacks in the North East zone, an insurgency in the Delta region and perennial intercommunal violence across the middle belt are leading to many displaced people (UNICEF, 2018) and more recently renewed agitation in the South East zone.
Conflict and insurgency by Boko Haram terrorists and criminal elements in northern Nigeria have presented a new dimension to violence and instability, with specific implications for genderbased violence and child marriage. Female students have been abducted in large numbers from their schools by terrorists who forcibly marry them and use them for domestic activities in the camps. There were reports that some of the girls who were released came back pregnant. The case of the Chibok schoolgirls attracted global attention, and after seven years, a large number of the girls remain in captivity. Recent reports also reveal that Leah Sharibu, the only girl who was not released by Boko Haram terrorists out of over
100 schoolgirls kidnapped in February 2018 from a secondary school in Dapchi, Yobe State, has given birth to a second baby in captivity. The living conditions in camps for internally displaced people in north-east Nigeria also make underage girls more vulnerable to child marriage.
2.2 Drivers, incidence and consequences of child marriage
2.2.1 Incidence and drivers
In 2016/17, the most recent year for which data are available, 22.2 per cent of Nigerian girls aged 15–19 were married, according to a National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (NBS, 2018). Against this average, which approaches one quarter, the rate of marriage differed substantially with level of education, location or place of residence, and socioeconomic position. For girls aged 15–19 with only primary education, the marriage rate was nearly 57 per cent, for rural girls in this age group, 32 per cent, and for the poorest quintile of girls, approaching nearly 44 per cent. Rural girls aged 15–19 are nearly five times more likely to be married as urban girls, and girls from the poorest quintile more than 10 times more likely to be married than girls from the richest quintile (see Table 2, page 18).
Incidence also differed substantially between the 36 states in Nigeria and between broad regions of the country. The highest rates prevail in the North West zone (39 per cent in 2016/17) and the lowest in the South West (4.1 per cent) but rates are at less than 5 per cent in all three of the
Table 1: Geopolitical zones and states in Nigeria
Note: n.a. = not available
Source: National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) 2007, 2013 and 2018
southern zones. The commercial capital, Lagos, had one of the lowest rates of child marriage, at 2.1 per cent, with much higher rates in northern states such as Sokoto, at 55 per cent (NBS, 2018).
Among women who were aged 20–49 in 2016/17 in Nigeria, 20.5 per cent were married by the age of 15 and 44.1 per cent by the age of 18 (see Table 3). The levels in 2016/17 are also somewhat higher than those measured in 2007 and 2011. Save the Children found that between 2008 and 2019 the “chance of experiencing child marriage [had] increased” in Nigeria and that the rate went up most for girls in the poorest quintiles (Save the Children, 2021a). Hence, they conclude that “trends over time suggest a lack of inclusive progress between groups on child marriage” and on the basis of their projections, they “expect no group [in Nigeria] to reach the global SDG [Sustainable Development Goal] targets” (Save the Children, 2021b).
UNICEF (2014) projected that in 2050 Nigeria would “have the largest absolute number of child brides” in Africa. While the country “has seen a decline in child marriage of about 1 per cent per
Source: NBS 2007, 2013 and 2018
year” over the three decades to 2015, “[at] this pace, the total number of child brides is expected to double by 2050”.
The differentials by level of education, location or place of residence, and socioeconomic position remain evident among women aged 20–49 (see Table 3).
Child marriage rates differ according to the ethnicity of the household head, with much higher rates for the Hausa than the Yoruba and Igbo (NBS, 2018; Mobolaji, et al., 2020). The worsening humanitarian situation in the country, especially in the north, as a result of terrorism and insurgency further undermines the economic and social situation and makes girls vulnerable to violence and abuse, including sexual abuse and child marriage.
From a comparative perspective, child marriage is therefore high in Nigeria, although not the highest in the west African and African context. In a recent review, it was found that the proportion of women aged 20–24 who were married by the age of 15 ranged from 9 per cent in Malawi to 30 per cent in Chad, with the figure for Nigeria being 18 per cent.
Table 2: Percentage of Nigerian girls and women aged 15–19 currently married
Table 3: Percentage of Nigerian women aged 20–49 married before 18
For the proportion of women aged 20–24 who were married before the age of 18, rates include 37 per cent in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and 76 per cent in Niger, compared to 44 per cent in Nigeria (Efevbera, et al., 2020).
Evidence from Yaya, et al. (2019) shows Nigeria at 64 per cent in terms of “prevalence of child marriage” (women in the population who married before the age of 18), which is the fifth highest in Africa and compares with the lowest in Rwanda at 16.5 per cent, and the highest in Niger at 81.7 per cent.
2.2.2 Consequences of child marriage and risks associated with it
Researchers examine a range of impact pathways from child marriage to the lives of women married as children, including the impact on the women’s health, especially their reproductive and maternal health, psychological development, human rights and economic survival. In a recent survey, Malhotra and Elkanib (2021) point to a growing focus in research on consequences not only for married girls but also for the children of adolescent or young married girls, and on the consequences of child marriage for nations and societies.
On the health consequences for girls, Efevbera, et al. (2019) concluded:
Girl child marriage, defined as a female in a formal union before age 18, violates rights guaranteed in international and regional human rights instruments and has been associated with adverse health behaviours and outcomes. Girl child marriage has been associated with increased fertility and reduced modern family planning, reduced antenatal care, and less safe delivery. Literature has also documented significant associations between girl child marriage and mental health disorder diagnoses, suicide attempt and ideation, and
For
items in measures of post-traumatic stress disorder, social reactions, abuse attributions, and self-esteem.
They say that “much less is known regarding empirical associations between girl child marriage and undernutrition” but that “while results suggest that women who married before age 18 had substantially increased risk of early and multiple childbearing, lower educational attainment, and living in poverty, [the authors’] analyses revealed that girl child marriage was associated with a slightly reduced risk of being underweight, with variation by country” (Efevbera, et al., 2019).
Wodon, et al. (2017) carried out an economic impact analysis based on an impact pathway running from child marriage through fertility and population growth; health, nutrition and violence; educational attainment and learning; labour force participation and type of work; and participation, decision-making and investments. These channels affect earnings, productivity and consumption; household and government spending on education and health; and nonmonetary social costs, impacting developmental outcomes and the perpetuation of poverty and inequality. They suggest that there are large costs associated with child marriage, and hence large benefits associated with its reduction. As Malhotra and Elkantra (2021) summarize, “Wodon and colleagues estimated the economic savings globally associated with potential improvements in key well-being outcomes if child marriage were ended, from 9 billion dollars in savings from reduced under-five stunting to 44 billion dollars in savings from reduced under-five mortality.”
Save The Children (2020) conclude that “although child marriage is not the only problem faced by female children in Nigeria, it is an intersecting problem. It accounts for some of the worst and [most] lopsided outcomes for health, nutrition, education and poverty among females.”
the proportion of women aged 20–24 who were married before the age of 18, rates include 37 per cent in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and 76 per cent in Niger, compared to 44 per cent in Nigeria (Efevbera, et al., 2020).
In 2018 the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in a study called ‘Gender inequality in Nigeria: Macroeconomic costs and future opportunities’, concluded as follows:
Gender-responsive policies can help narrow gender gaps in health and education that would, in turn, decrease fertility rates. Genderresponsive health policies, boosting education levels for girls, providing broader coverage of women by legal rights, and protecting them from violence will improve women’s health outcomes, and empower them economically and increase their productivity. Economic empowerment, in addition to fully meeting the demand for contraception and increasing the age of first childbearing by introducing and enforcing a national minimum age of marriage, can help decrease fertility rates. These policies could open up a virtuous cycle, since lower fertility rates, in turn, have been associated with higher education levels for girls, increased female labour force participation, and higher savings.
2.3 Country response
2.3.1 National strategies, plans and policies
Efforts to end child marriage can be seen as a subcomponent of enhancing child protection, with child marriage as a form of harmful cultural practice that leads to decisions that harm girls. More broadly, however, ECM is also assisted by the development process, with widening opportunities, changing norms and increasing incomes reducing the prevalence of child marriage. Policy responses to child marriage therefore include both narrower child protection strategies, such as legislation against child marriage and strategies for the empowerment of girls and the mobilization of communities, and broader social and economic policies that support households, including wider access to education, improved health information
and services and better provision of social support and economic opportunities.
Over the last three decades in Nigeria, there have been many steps to both strengthen child protection and expand social and economic service delivery to citizens (see Table 4). The adoption of the National ECD Strategy was therefore preceded by, and must be seen in the context of, gradually growing child protection measures, as well as increasing social service delivery and a focus on building the human capital of Nigeria. Rather than introducing totally new
Date Event
1985 Nigeria ratifies Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, 1979)
1991 Nigeria signs Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989)
1999 Nigeria signs the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC, 1990) Nigeria Constitution adopted, Act No. 4 of 1999
2000 Nigeria National Women Policy
2003 Child Rights Act, Act No. 26 of 2003
2004 Universal Basic Education Act of 2004
2006 National Gender Policy
2008 National Gender Policy Strategic Implementation Framework
2014 National Health Act
2015 Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act
2015 Presidential Year of Action to End Violence Against Children
2016 National Strategy to End Child Marriage in Nigeria (2016–2021)
2017 Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) programme
2017 Nigeria Women Empowerment Project
2018 Spotlight Initiative to Eliminate Violence Against Women and Girls – Country Programme Nigeria
2019 Nigeria Digital Identification for Development Project
2020 Nigeria Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment
Efforts to end child marriage can be seen as a subcomponent of enhancing child protection, with child marriage as a form of harmful cultural practice that leads to decisions that harm girls.
Table 4: Timeline of policy and programme development
measures, the strategy therefore highlights key state efforts relevant to ECM and proposes a range of steps to increase coordination and improve policymaking and programmes.
During the last decades of the 1900s, Nigeria was a signatory to a range of international agreements and conventions aimed at strengthening human rights and especially the rights of women and children. The country ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, 1979) in 1985 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989) in 1991. (28TooMany, 2018, provides an extensive list of international and regional treaties entered into.)
In 1999, Nigeria signed the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (adopted by the African Union in 1990), ratifying it in 2001. The charter commits state parties to “take all appropriate measures to eliminate harmful social and cultural practices” and stipulates that “child marriage and the betrothal of girls and boys shall be prohibited and effective action, including legislation, shall be taken to specify the minimum age of marriage to be eighteen years and make registration of all marriages in an official registry compulsory”.
Also in 1999, the Nigerian Constitution outlawed discrimination on the grounds of gender (S15(2)) and directed the state to ensure that “children, young persons and the elderly are protected against any exploitation whatsoever, and against moral and material neglect” (S17(3)(f )). The Constitution also states that “the sanctity of the human person shall be recognized, and human dignity shall be maintained and enhanced” (S17(2) ( b )) and that “every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of [their] person and, accordingly … no person shall be subject to torture, or to inhuman or degrading treatment” (S34(1)( a )).
The Constitution, however, failed to explicitly outlaw child marriage and female genital mutilation
and to clearly define childhood. In addition, through giving the Sharia Court of Appeal jurisdiction with regard to “Islamic personal law regarding a marriage”, the Constitution acknowledges the “tri-partite legal system composed of civil, customary and religious law”, which results in conflicts between customary and statutory law and creates instances where customary law can prevail to allow child marriages.
During the first decade of the 2000s, the accession to treaties and the passing of the Constitution were followed by a range of domestic strategies and policies relevant to children and ECM, as well as by key pieces of legislation.
The decade opened with the first National Women Policy in 2000, followed by a National Reproductive Health Policy and Strategy in 2001, a National Gender Policy in 2006, a National Policy on Health and Development of Adolescents and Young People in Nigeria (2007) and a National Gender Policy Strategic Implementation Plan (2008).
Two key pieces of legislation of this decade are the Child Rights Act (2003) and the Compulsory, Free Universal Basic Education Act of 2004. The Child Rights Act guarantees the rights of all children in Nigeria, irrespective of gender or socioeconomic, cultural and religious background. Part III of the Act, at paragraphs 21–23, prohibits child marriage 5 and child betrothal, 6 and prescribes punishment 7 for offenders. A child is clearly defined as “a person under the age of 18”. The applicability of this law is, however, constrained by its limited jurisdiction when in conflict with religious law, as well as by the fact that state legislatures must separately pass the legislation before it becomes applicable. Save the Children (2021c) reported that by 2021, only 26 of the 36 states of Nigeria had adopted the Child Rights Act as a state law, while 12 states were yet to adopt/domesticate the law. In addition, in some of the states which domesticated the law, the
5 Prohibition of child marriage: “No person under the age of 18 years is capable of contracting a valid marriage, and accordingly a marriage so contracted is null and void and of no effect whatsoever.”
6 Prohibition of child betrothal: “(1) No parent, guardian or any other person shall betroth a child to any person. (2) A betrothal in contravention of subsection (1) of this section is null and void.”
7 Punishment for child marriage and betrothal: “A person (a) who marries a child; or (b) to whom a child is betrothed; or (c) who promotes the marriage of a child; or (d) who betroths a child, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine of ₦500,000; or imprisonment for a term of five years or to both such fine and imprisonment.”
definition of the child was amended, thereby removing legal certainty and allowing the marriage of a child of the Islamic faith.
The Compulsory, Free Universal Basic Education Act of 2004 establishes the right to compulsory, free education. “Every government in Nigeria” is placed under the obligation to provide “free, compulsory and universal basic education for every child of primary and junior secondary school age”. “Parents” are obligated to ensure that their children “attend and complete” primary and junior secondary school.
The decade 2010–2020 saw further legislative action, a range of campaigns and several programmes and projects with relevance to ECM. The National Health Act, part of efforts to increase access to high-quality and affordable services, was passed in 2014. In 2015, the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act identified physical violence, rape and other sexual harassment as offences. Female genital mutilation is also prohibited, and maximum sentences prescribed.
A range of strategies and campaigns included the National Policy and Plan of Action for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation in Nigeria (2013–2017), the Presidential Year of Action to End Violence Against Children (2015) and the Presidential Campaign to End Violence Against Children by 2030 (2016). The National Standards and Minimum Service Package for Adolescent and Youth-Friendly Health Services were adopted in 2018.
The year 2017 saw Nigeria becoming one of seven ‘pathfinding countries’ in the international campaign, Ending Violence Against Children. This was followed by UNICEF supporting the Nigerian government to conduct its first baseline assessment of child protection expenditure and the Child Protection Financial Benchmark (UNICEF, 2018). In 2017, the government also began analysing the costs and budgets of child protection services.
Towards the end of the 2010s, the country embarked on a number of relevant projects with multilateral organizations. These included Better Education Service Delivery for All (World Bank, 2017a; US$611 million), the Nigeria for Women Project (World Bank, 2017b; US$100 million), the Nigeria Country Programme of the Spotlight
Initiative to Eliminate Violence Against Women and Girls (United Nations, 2018) and the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (World Bank, 2020; US$500 million). These programmes, typically implemented at federal level and for a few states, range across all the areas of ECM strategy, namely, empowerment of girls and mobilization of communities; service delivery to support alternative opportunities and child protection; and establishing a legal and implementation framework.
Terrorism in the north of Nigeria has also led to programmes and interventions by government and donor agencies to address the humanitarian issues which often impact on child marriage. The establishment of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development in 2019 gives recognition to the interrelationship between natural and humanitarian disasters and social protection in the context of Nigeria.
The National Strategy to End Child Marriage in Nigeria (2016–2021) (also referred to in this document as ‘the National Strategy’ and ‘the National ECM Strategy’), developed by the federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, therefore entered a complex policy and delivery environment and encounters conflicting legal systems and the challenges of multilevel governance, as well as customary and religious views about gender that have led to child marriage being described as “for some, a taboo unable to be discussed in public” and not only a “legal matter” but “a family and community practice” (Save the Children, 2021c).
The National Strategy allocates substantial space to conceptual approaches to child marriage and a situation analysis, before spelling out strategic objectives and interventions and the implementation M&E plan. It also includes a section on funding for the strategic plan. Child marriage is seen as a major social, economic and health problem driving the need for strategies and structures and for institutionalizing reforms at a legal, social and education system level. A national strategy is justified by the fact that child marriage is a “harmful practice impacting the personal development and future opportunities of children” and results in “high maternal mortality and
Policy/Institutions
• Inadequate laws on age of consent; child marriage as gender based violence
• Weak accountability mechanisms for perpetrators
• No or weak child marriage response systems
Community
• Social norms
• Discriminatory practices
• Environmental and other shocks
• No or weak prevention and response systems
• No recognition of child marriage by gatekeepers
Family
• Gender attitudes
• Power hierarchies
• Lack of knowledge and skills to respond
• Food insecurity and poverty
Individual
• Lack of power or voice
• Gender attitudes
• Predisposition due to family/community factors
morbidity, illiteracy, lack of skills, unemployment, low income and widespread misery among the women victims”.
The National ECM Strategy proposes an ecological model (Figure 1) for framing the drivers and challenges of child marriage. The model points to several levels (the individual level, the level of relationships, community level and societal level) at which the issue needs to be addressed, and highlights the interrelationship between these levels. It also looks at alternative understandings of the deep-rooted nature of child marriage in societies, elaborating on child marriage as a
form of gift exchange which maintains social and economic relationships, and discussing the factors driving polygamy in societies.
The National Strategy identifies the overall goal of the campaign to end child marriage in Nigeria as “to reduce the proportion of girls who are married before attaining full maturity (usually 18) in Nigeria by 2021”. In order to attain this overall goal, the National Strategy identifies six broad objectives and 38 strategies or activities for attaining these objectives (Figure 2). Given the range of policies and programmes already in place with relevance for ECM, the strategy rightly gives significant
Figure 1: Ecological model of child marriage
Source: MWA&SD, 2016
Figure 2: Overview, National Strategy to End Child Marriage in Nigeria (2016–2020)
Strategies and activities (38)
1
Integrate mechanisms and strengthen child protection (including community structures); build capacity and partnerships.
2
3
Generate data, carry out research (also on impact) and disseminate evidence.
Harmonize policies (including law and customary practices) and promote the national policy on adolescent health, the girls’ education strategy, and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) rights.
Objectives
1
2
4
Provide parent access to alternative economic opportunities and poverty reduction measures and implement communication and advocacy strategy and partnerships.
5
Improve access to all-round education (including water, sanitation and hygiene, adolescent-friendly SRH services, gender and rights education, vocational training, life-skills and agency), establish safe spaces and improve civil registrations.
6
Establish coordination unit in the Ministry of Women A airs, strengthen links with civil society organizations and establish information management and monitoring and evaluation systems.
Source: MWA&SD, 2016. See Annex 2, page 52, for a more detailed summary of the strategies.
attention to establishing government structures for the integration of diverse strategies and to build capacity for implementation (Objective 1) and coordination, implementation and monitoring (Objective 6). Among the stakeholders, the Ministry of Women Affairs is the main coordinating ministry, providing leadership coordination, monitoring and evaluation. Objective 1, which is concerned with organization and capacity, also gives significant attention to child protection structures and their capacity. (See Annex 2, page 52, for a full list of the six objectives and 38 strategies).
The National Strategy also highlights the need for extra capacity for research and to gather the evidence required to refine the strategy and, in this regard, raises the importance of generating data and research (analysis), as well as disseminating them (Objective 2). The strategy gives attention to reviewing existing policies and the need to clarify responsibilities and harmonize the existing
(6)
Integrate and strengthen all sectoral mechanisms.
Build capacity for research and knowledge-sharing.
3 Promote policy and legislation to protect from child marriage.
4 Change socioeconomic and cultural norms.
5
Increase access to quality all-round education and children’s services.
6
Strengthen coordination, implementation and monitoring and evaluation structures.
Overall vision and goal
Vision: End child marriage by 2030. Children protected from harmful cultural practices and achieving fulfilled childhoods.
Goal: Reduce the percentage of girls who are married before attaining full maturity (usually 18) in Nigeria by 2021.
legal and policy framework (putting in place the appropriate legal framework) (Objective 3).
Objectives 4 and 5 move away from frameworks, coordination and research and talk about key services aimed at reducing vulnerabilities and enhancing opportunities for girls and their families. Objective 4 (focusing on socioeconomic conditions and cultural norms) addresses the need to increase the economic opportunities of families and children. It also introduces mechanisms to alleviate poverty (including social protection) and find ways to shift the views and prejudices of society and elected representatives. Objective 5 focuses on education as broadly defined, not only access to school and further education (including vocational training) for girls, and their retention in the school system, but also gender and rights education, life skills and reproductive and adolescent health information. This objective also includes strategies to assist implementation
In interviews with the Ministry of Women Affairs, it was communicated that the strategy had generated some positive outcomes.
and specifically the need for the strengthening of the civil registration system in Nigeria and the provision of safe spaces for young people, with access to counselling.
The strategy also proposes 2021 targets for some of the interventions, as well as performance indicators and means of verification of attainment. These variables, as is the case for the whole strategy, stay at a fairly high and abstract level without providing much detail about planned interventions or giving specific quantitative targets. A large number of the indicators are of a process nature.
The strategy, as summarized in Figure 2, page 24, covers all the strategy areas of the UNICEF Global Plan to End Child Marriage (empowerment of girls; mobilizing parents; economic and social support; access to services; establishing an enabling environment) but within a somewhat different structure. Most of the drivers are therefore covered, although empowerment of girls is not discussed separately but as part of “access to quality all-round education”. The strategy mentions in terms of stakeholders that “local government will offer the primary structures for the implementation of the strategy” and refers to the role of development partners in providing financial, material, technical and monitoring support and of civil society organization operational partners for implementation.
To date, there is, however, little evidence that the strategy is being implemented. An operational/action plan, properly costed, as mentioned as being necessary in Section 7 of the strategy (Funding for the Strategic Plan), could
not be located, and there is very little evidence of implementation of the strategy.
In interviews with the Ministry of Women Affairs, it was communicated that the strategy had generated some positive outcomes. An ECM coordination unit, headed by an assistant director, was established in the Department of Child Development within the Ministry of Women Affairs. Sensitization and awareness sessions were held in 18 states to lay the foundations for the adoption of the strategy in the states. There were also meetings with stakeholders to raise awareness and, in particular, a partnership with filmmakers to support the making of films dealing with certain aspects of child marriage and the need to discourage the practice. Budget and cost information about these activities was, however, not available.
Respondents in the ministry felt that a failure to develop a costed implementation plan hampered implementation and was also part of the explanation for the absence of specific budget allocations. There was also too little coordination and cooperation between ministries, perhaps partly explained by the fact that the technical working group established in 2015 had become moribund, leading to siloed approaches. Therefore, while a number of activities relevant to ECM are being implemented, they were mostly not driven by the National ECM Strategy.
It was noted by the Ministry of Women Affairs that the strategy is coming to the end of its life and that an initial workshop was held during July 2021 to review it, with participation by the ministry, Plan International and a coalition of civil society organizations.
3 ECM expenditure
3.1 Overall ECM spending and prioritization of ECM spending in ministries
Table 5, page 27, shows the federal-level estimate of ECM spending in 2020, focusing only on capital and other project expenditure. The exclusion of recurrent expenditure is a significant omission, as explained in Section 1.3, page 15.
Of federal capital and other project expenditure of ₦2,488.5 billion, ₦86.7 billion is identified as ECM-relevant capital and recurrent expenditure in the six priority ministries. This is nearly 3.5 per cent of federal capital and project expenditure.
Of the ECM-relevant amount of ₦86.7 billion, ₦24 billion is estimated as National ECM Strategy expenditure. ECM-specific expenditure is estimated at only ₦0.3 billion. (Definitions of different ECM expenditure types are given in Section 1.3, page 13.)
National ECM Strategy expenditure therefore amounts to just under 1 per cent of federal capital
expenditure and ECM-specific expenditure less than one-hundredth of a per cent of capital and project expenditure.
Several considerations should be kept in mind when these figures are assessed.
The estimates were made for only six ECM priority MDAs out of a total of 37. These ministries are listed in Table 7, page 28, and Section 1.3, page 13, explains how they were selected. While these ministries are likely to carry the bulk of ECM expenditure, there are a range of programmes in other ministries which also deal with empowering families and women and with the provision of services and support that enhance the economic and social choices open to young women. Examples are agricultural support to smallholder farmers provided by the Ministry of Agriculture, and similar programmes in other departments focusing on the economy and livelihoods.
The initial estimates include only spending on capital and other projects. They thus exclude
National ECM Strategy expenditure amounts to just under 1 per cent of federal capital expenditure and ECM-specific expenditure less than one-hundredth of a per cent of capital and project expenditure.
* Central Bank of Nigeria
** Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020
Source: Own calculations based on Central Bank of Nigeria and Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020
Table 6: Estimated federal National ECM Strategy spending (including personnel and overhead costs) in Nigeria, 2020
ECM expenditure budget (personnel, overheads and capital/ other projects)
* Central Bank of Nigeria
** Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020
Source: Own calculations based on Central Bank of Nigeria and Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020
personnel and overhead expenditure impacting ECM. As explained in Section 1.3, page 13, the structure of the operational budget does not facilitate subministry analysis of spending on specific policy objectives. There is also no clear way of linking personnel and overhead expenditure to capital expenditure. If we assume that ECM absorbs the same proportion of personnel and overhead expenditure as of capital expenditure, which may be unrealistic, ECM expenditure amounts to nearly ₦160 billion or nearly seven times the estimate for capital and other projects.
While National ECM Strategy spending and ECM-specific spending as a proportion of GDP and federal expenditure are low, this should not
only be seen as merely reflecting low prioritization of ECM; rather, it highlights two central aspects of the Nigerian fiscal framework. First, in Nigeria, federal government revenue and expenditure as a proportion of GDP are exceptionally low, pointing to a very small government sector (about 7 per cent of GDP in the above estimates). Second, at the federal level, social spending, which is likely to provide the biggest proportion of ECM expenditure, is also very low in comparative terms, with ECM priority MDAs absorbing only 13.4 per cent of the budget, even though they include the big three social departments: education, health and welfare. This is also because the expenditure competency for the delivery of social services in
Table 5: Estimated federal ECM spending (excluding personnel and overhead costs) in Nigeria, 2020
Source: Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning; Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020; and authors’ own calculations
education (and health and social protection) is at the state level, and the federal level is responsible mostly for policy and regulatory activities and for earmarked funding supporting key policies.
ECM spending therefore can be said to be low also because government expenditure in general, and government social expenditure in particular, and at a federal level, are very low in comparative perspective. This implies that the strategy to enhance ECM activities and spending must be part of a broader focus to grow the role of government in the Nigerian economy and society, as well as to balance the budget appropriately with regard to distribution by function, which should prioritize human capital investment, given its importance for growth and development.
Turning to the prioritization of ECM within ministries, only three of the six ministries have ECMspecific capital expenditure. As shown in Table 7, these are Education; Health and Child Development; and Women Affairs. ECM-specific expenditure, as can be expected, given its central role in coordinating the National Strategy, is highest as a proportion of ministry expenditure in the Ministry of Women Affairs. Proportions of specific expenditure are very low (below 1 per cent) in the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health and Child Development.
The Ministry of Women Affairs also has the highest proportion of National ECM Strategy (capital) expenditure in its budget, namely 35.5 per cent. It is followed by the Ministry of Humanitarian
Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, which has 17.7 per cent of its budget classified as National ECM Strategy expenditure, and the Ministry of Education with 14.5 per cent.
A very large proportion of the capital and project budget of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development –88.5 per cent – is classified as ECM-relevant, given its focus of social and economic empowerment of households and of supporting vulnerable groups, especially vulnerable women. They are followed by the Ministry of Women Affairs (71 per cent of spending ECM-relevant) and the Ministry of Education (36.2 per cent), given the critical role of access to and quality of education in broadening the alternatives for girls.
3.2 Composition of spending by ministry, National Strategy objectives and service categories
Table 8, page 29, provides a perspective on the composition of ECM expenditure by priority ministry. Nearly 90 per cent of expenditure is in two ministries: Education (44.9 per cent) and Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development (43.4 per cent). Far behind these, in third position, is the Ministry of Women Affairs, with nearly 10 per cent of expenditure, followed by the Ministry of Health and Child Development and National Population Commission (both with less than 0.5 per cent) and the Ministry of Justice with 0.1 per cent.
Table 7: Prioritization of ECM spending by ministry (including only capital and other project expenditure), 2020
* Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020
As can be seen from the discussions with the different ministries, the results of which are recorded in Annex 3, the relatively large expenditure on education is driven by the apportionment of a significant proportion of infrastructure spending for schools by the UBEC to National ECM Strategy expenditure on the basis of its key role in ensuring access to highquality education for girls. National ECM Strategy expenditure by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development consists largely of projects supporting alternative economic opportunities for households and citizens.
While the health sector is critical to ECM, its role at the federal level is small because
most implementation takes place at the state and local levels and there is no infrastructure programme like the one belonging to the Ministry of Education. Ministerial advice was that relevant budget lines also include a range of other objectives so that only a small proportion of relevant expenditure was identified as National ECM Strategy spending.
The ranking of ministries remains the same when allowance is made for personnel and overheads, but, given the large proportion of personnel spend in the Ministry of Education, its relative importance increases (to more than 55 per cent of expenditure), with the share of other ministries reducing (see Table 9).
Table 8: Composition by ministry of estimated federal National
Table 9: Composition by ministry of estimated federal National ECM Strategy spending (including personnel and overhead costs), 2020
Source:
Table 11: Composition by study taxonomy of ECM services of estimated federal National ECM Strategy spending (including personnel and overhead costs), 2020
Table 10 allocates expenditure according to the main objectives in the National Strategy. From this perspective, nearly 98 per cent of all expenditure goes to two categories, namely changing negative socioeconomic and cultural norms and increasing access to quality all-round education. This large percentage is partly due to the very wide definitions of the objectives. Objective 4, “to change negative socioeconomic and cultural norms”, goes beyond advocacy and communication to also include economic empowerment and social protection measures (“increase parental access to alternative economic opportunities” and “create links with relevant poverty reduction institutions”). Objective 5 on education is also very broadly defined. In addition to access to school and vocational education the objective also includes aspects such as “chang(ing) the expectations, attitudes and practices in regard to child marriage” and “strengthen[ing] the civil registration system. Future iterations of a National ECM Strategy may want to refine the classification of activities to provide more logical coherence and appropriate differentiation of activities.
As stated earlier, the team also developed a taxonomy of services related to ECM, based on the Phase II Programme Document of the UNFPA–UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage. This features a list of main service categories, each of which has a number of subcategories (see Annex 1, Table 20, page 48). Classification of budgeted ECM expenditure by the main and subcategories of services in this list confirms that the bulk of ECM budgets are for social and economic support and for strengthening the access of girls to education, leading to spending on addressing socioeconomic drivers of ECM totalling just under 90 per cent of the ECM budget (see Table 11). Within this category, however, spending on health services and on child protection is very low. Activities related to girl empowerment absorb nearly 10 per cent of the ECM budget, while, on the current estimate, the mobilization of parents and communities is a relatively neglected activity at the federal level. Similarly, the research, policy and implementation machineries do not attract
budgetary attention.
Source: Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning; Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020; and own calculations
While it is not possible to list all projects, Figure 3, page 31, provides some of the projects in
Table 10: Composition by objective of estimated federal National ECM Strategy spending (including personnel and overhead costs), 2020
Selected projects
• Community engagement for maternal and child health/family planning commodities (Ministry of Health)
• School infrastructure and instructional materials
• National enrolment drive and campaign on out-of-school children (Ministry of Education/UBEC)
• Grants and conditional cash transfer
• Relief material to internally displaced persons
• Home-grown school feeding; rural public works (Ministry of Humanitarian A airs, Disaster Management and Social Development)
• Expansion of registration centres; registration of births and deaths (National Population Commission)
• Establishment of legal aid centres in local government areas (Ministry of Justice/Legal Aid Council)
Service categories
1
Addressing social and gender norms
2 Addressing socioeconomic drivers of ECM
3
Establishing an enabling environment
Overall vision and goal
Vision:
End child marriage by 2030. Children protected from harmful cultural practices and achieving fulfilled childhoods.
Goal:
Reduce the percentage of girls who are married before attaining full maturity (usually 18) in Nigeria by 2021.
Source: Extracts from the National Strategy to End Child Marriage in Nigeria (2016–2021) (MWA&SD, 2016) and capital and project budgets; the service categories come from the study taxonomy, which is based on the theory of change of phase II of the global programme to end child marriage.
various ministries in the different service categories. For example, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development has a range of projects providing grants and conditional cash transfers to families and children, providing relief material to internally displaced people and also funding for a school-feeding programme and rural public works. These address poverty and vulnerability and so enable families not to employ negative coping strategies such as child marriage. Because these activities have a range of objectives and are not only focused on preventing child marriage, only a proportion of the spending (43.8 per cent for the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development) was included in National ECM Strategy spending, as set out in Table 8, page 29.
Figure 4, page 32, lists some of the activities of the Ministry of Women Affairs organized in terms of the main service categories. The activities of the ministry range across all three service categories.
3.3 ECM budget execution
Using budget information as indications of expenditure or prioritization of areas may
be misleading because of weak budget implementation or execution. Appropriated funds may not actually flow to the relevant ministries (low disbursements or disbursements that are not timeous) and/or funds that are transferred to ministries may not be spent or may not be spent on the activities they were appropriated for. Spending, when it actually takes place, may also not be efficient, driving a further wedge between what was budgeted for and what was really spent.
One way of assessing budget execution is to compare budgeted expenditure to spending outturns. However, actual expenditure (outturn) is seldom reported in the same detail as budgets, so it is difficult to get a comparison of budgeted and actual expenditure for detailed activities relevant to ECM in Nigeria. In such cases, a comparison of high-level outturns with budgets can give some indication of budget execution and provide an estimate of what could be expected to be the case for more specific outcomes.
In 2020, an exceptional year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was overall underspending of 7.34 per cent, while budgets for MDA personnel and overheads were fully spent (Budget Office of the Federation, 2021). MDA
Figure 3: Selected projects organized by service categories (relevant ministry in brackets)
Selected projects: Ministry of Women Affairs
• Empowerment materials for women in states
• Advocacy and sensitization – livelihoods for women and community mobilization
• Women’s and girls’ summit
• Adult literacy and girl-child education
• Chibok girls specialized education project
• Women’s and children’s skills acquisition centres and vocational skills programmes
• Domestication of provisions of Child Rights Act
• Domestication of United Nations conventions on the rights of women and children
Service categories
1
2
3
Addressing social and gender norms
Addressing socioeconomic drivers of ECM
Establishing an enabling environment
Overall vision and goal
Vision: End child marriage by 2030. Children protected from harmful cultural practices and achieving fulfilled childhoods.
Goal:
Reduce the percentage of girls who are married before attaining full maturity (usually 18) in Nigeria by 2021.
Source: Extracts from National Strategy to End Child Marriage in Nigeria (2016–2021) (MWA&SD, 2016) and capital and project budgets; the service categories come from the study taxonomy, which is based on the theory of change of phase II of the global programme to end child marriage.
12: Budget outturns 2020, total revised budget and selected expenditure line
Source: Budget Office of the Federation
capital budgets were, however, underspent by nearly 36 per cent (see Table 12).
In the 2019 Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) report for Nigeria (Federal Government of Nigeria, 2019) it is indicated that budgets in previous years have seldom been approved before the start of the financial year and while that does not necessarily affect current expenditure (spending of up to 50 per cent of the previous year’s budget is authorized by the financial rules), it does impact more significantly on capital expenditure, which has to await budget approval. For the three years 2015–2017 it is reported that only between 38 and 69 per cent of the budgeted capital resources was released.
In 2019, Nigeria scored a C for budget reliability based on the fact that “aggregate
expenditure outturn was 105.1%, 80.5%, and 87.4% of the original approved budget in the fiscal years 2015, 2016, and 2017, respectively”. On expenditure composition outturn, the country scored a D, focusing on both expenditure outturn by function and by economic classification. This derives from very limited data on which to base an assessment in the case of the functional outturns and significant variations in the case of economic classification.
There is therefore no rigorously calculated base on which to estimate actual expenditure for those estimates of budgeted ECM expenditure. Actual expenditure could, however, deviate significantly, specifically for the estimates based on capital and other projects where implementation historically has been variable, driven, it is believed,
Figure 4: Selected projects organized by service categories (Ministry of Women Affairs)
Table
by government revenue being below budget projections as a result of oil price fluctuations and production shocks.
3.4 Conclusion
Given the range of drivers of and strategies impacting on child marriage, as well as the paucity of information about the organization and programmes of government (with budget data reflecting projects and an economic classification of expenditure, and limited government activity and output information), it is difficult to estimate National ECM Strategy and ECM-specific expenditure for Nigeria with any precision.
Identifying capital and other projects in priority ECM ministries is likely to impact child marriage and estimating a relevant proportion of the cost (given that the projects also serve other objectives and other population groups, not only young women) leads to an estimate of ₦24 billion (0.2 per cent of federal expenditure and 0.02 per cent of GDP) as National ECM Strategy expenditure or expenditure likely to impact on the extent of child marriage. Overall ECM-specific expenditure is negligible and only significant in the Ministry of Women Affairs. This estimate excludes personnel and overhead expenditure and is therefore an underestimate. Because of the paucity of programme and activity information, it is difficult to apportion personnel and overhead expenditure. A very rudimentary methodology suggests that adding personnel and overhead expenditure could increase the estimate to potentially ₦158.9 billion or 1.5 per cent of government expenditure. In addition, the bulk of education and health expenditure relevant to ECM is the responsibility of state governments.
The bulk of the estimated federal ECM expenditure lies in two ministries. The Ministry of Education, mostly through the UBEC’s expenditure on infrastructure and materials for schools, driving access, quality and retention, contributes 45 per cent of National ECM Strategy spending. The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development contributes a further 44 per cent of the National ECM Strategy expenditure, mostly through economic empowerment projects – ranging from work schemes and the provision of agricultural
and other inputs and equipment, to training and skills acquisition in a variety of areas. They also encompass areas of the National Social Investment Programme, including support to the Home Grown School-Feeding Programme, the N-Power scheme to address youth unemployment and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme, which supplies interest-free loans ranging from ₦10,000 to ₦300,000 to small and medium enterprises.
Social-protection-type projects cover a broad range of activities, from setting up appropriate systems for identifying and servicing beneficiaries (‘developing a unified social register’, ‘strategic roadmap’ and ‘victims tracking matrix’) to actual support (‘supply of relief material’, ‘grants to youth and women’ and ‘support to people’).
Nearly 10 per cent of ECM expenditure is contributed by the Ministry of Women Affairs and, as set out in more detail in Annex 3, page 54, it spans all relevant areas (including the critical areas of research, coordination and policy/legal work), but the bulk lies in access to education and services (literacy, counselling, education), social empowerment and advocacy (‘public enlightenment’) and ‘provision of empowerment materials’.
In terms of the National Strategy, nearly all expenditure falls into two categories, namely ‘changing negative socioeconomic and cultural norms’ and ‘increasing access to all-round education, including reproductive health education and services to all children’. These two categories, however, encompass a very wide range of services.
In terms of the study categorization or taxonomy of services, about 90 per cent of National ECM Strategy expenditure is on addressing socioeconomic drivers and vulnerability (dominated by social and economic support and education services and very little on health services and child protection), 9 per cent on social and gender norms and less than 2 per cent on policy and implementation (the enabling environment). This distribution implies a preponderance of focus on prevention rather than responsive or curative expenditure, with substantial focus on the drivers, but less on helping young women already in marriages.
4 Subnational spending on ECM – Kano State
4.1 Overall ECM spending and composition and relative prioritization by ministry
Table 13, page 35, provides an estimate of ECM spending in Kano State in 2020, also focusing on capital and other project expenditure. Because states hold the principal mandate for the delivery of education and health services, there is large operational (personnel and overhead) expenditure.
In 2020, ministries with priority in the fight against child marriage had budgets of ₦77.3 billion, which was 55.9 per cent of the overall state budget of just over ₦138 billion. The capital and other project budgets of these departments equalled ₦22.3 billion or 37 per cent of state capital and project budgets.
Of Kano State capital and other project expenditure of ₦22.3 billion, ₦851 million is identified as ECM-relevant capital and recurrent expenditure in the six priority ministries. This is equal to 1.4 per cent of Kano State capital and project expenditure.
Of the ECM-relevant amount of ₦851 million, ₦143 million is estimated as National ECM Strategy expenditure. ECM-specific expenditure is estimated at only ₦8 million. (Definitions of different ECM expenditure types are given in Section 1.3, page 15.)
National ECM Strategy expenditure therefore amounts to 0.24 per cent of state capital expenditure and ECM-specific expenditure to one-tenth of 1 per cent of capital and project
Mokoro
* Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020
Source: Own calculations based on Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020
National ECM Strategy expenditure budgets in ECM priority ministries (personnel, overheads and capital/other projects)
* Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020
Source: Own calculations based on Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020
expenditure. If a rough estimate is made of related personnel and overhead expenditure, the state National ECM Strategy budget rises from ₦143 million to ₦246 million (see Table 14).
Table 15, page 36, provides information on the prioritization of ECM budgets within state ministries. Only one of the five ministries has ECM-specific capital expenditure, namely Women Affairs and Social Development, and this ECM-specific expenditure is only 1.1 per cent of the 2020 budget of the ministry. The Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development also has the highest proportion of National ECM Strategy capital expenditure relative to its capital budget, namely 11 per cent. It is followed by the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development, which has 11 per cent of its budget classified as National ECM Strategy budget. The other three ministries all have less than 1 per cent of their capital budgets allocated as National
ECM Strategy expenditure. For the ministries of Education and Health and Child Development, this is greatly influenced by the fact that only project expenditure is included, as a significant proportion of recurrent expenditure in these ministries relate to strengthening opportunities for girls and for reproductive health care. Both these expenditure areas are central to the National ECM Strategy.
Nearly half the capital and project budget of the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development is classified as ECM-relevant. This follows from the relatively large budgets for women’s empowerment, cash transfers and support of the needy. Nearly 36 per cent of the budget of the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development is classified as ECM-relevant and reflects a third of the spending of its Youth Empowerment Directorate.
Table 13: Estimated National ECM Strategy budget (excluding personnel and overhead costs) in Kano State, 2020
Table 14: Estimated National ECM Strategy spending (including personnel and overhead costs) in Kano State, 2020 Kano State estimated ECM expenditure budget
* Except for Youth and Sport Development, which includes current expenditure, as a relevant programme could be identified Source: Kano State Ministry of Finance, Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020 and own calculations
* Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020
Source: Own calculations based on Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020
4.2 Composition of spending by ministry and type of activity
If we exclude personnel and overhead expenditure, the biggest ECM spender in Kano State is the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development (52.4 per cent of the total) followed by Health and Child Development (20.2 per cent) and Youth and Sport Development (19.1 per cent) (see Table 16). In the case of Youth and Sport Development, 30 per cent of the budget of the Youth Empowerment Directorate was added as ECM-specific expenditure.
When the adjustment is made for personnel and overhead expenditure, the biggest proportion of spending is still from the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development (39 per cent) but the shares of Health and Child Development (26.3 per cent)
and Education (23 per cent) rise and the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development drops back to 11.1 per cent. There is negligible spending on ECM in the Ministry of Justice (see Table 17, page 37).
The contrast between the federal composition (where the Ministry of Women Affairs contributes around 10 per cent of project ECM spending) and Kano State (where the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development contributes 52.4 per cent of project ECM spending) derives from the fact that the state ministry still combines women’s affairs and social development (and thus social protection spend), while at the federal level social development moved to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development in 2019. Thus, the Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development included a number of social protection and
Table 16: Composition by ministry of estimated National ECM Strategy budget (excluding personnel and overhead costs) in Kano State, 2020
Table 15: Prioritization of ECM spending (including only capital and other project expenditure) by ministry in Kano State, 2020
* Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020
Source: Own calculations based on the Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020
Source: Kano State Ministry of Planning and Budgets, Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020 and own calculations
economic empowerment projects (for example, ‘State Cash Transfer Initiative’, ‘Support for the Needy’, ‘Vocational training’ and ‘Rehabilitation of Cottage Industries’). It was also indicated that for 2022 there were proposals to allocate ₦100 million to child protection services (interview, Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development). In contrast to the federal Ministry of Women Affairs, however, there seems to be less, or almost no, activity related to research or integration of sectoral mechanisms in the state ministry.
Just over 60 per cent of estimated ECMspecific spending in Kano State goes towards the objective of increasing access to quality all-round education, with a third allocated to changing negative socioeconomic and cultural norms. At the federal level, these categories also accounted for
more than 90 per cent of estimated expenditure (see Table 18).
In Kano State, four broad categories of activity account for most of the spending under the objective to increase access to quality all-round education, namely support to scientific and technology education, sexual and reproductive health services, other training activities and youth empowerment.
The estimated budget for Objective 4, to change negative socioeconomic and cultural norms, consists of 20 per cent of spending by the Ministry of Women Affairs on women’s
measures.
Table 17: Composition by ministry of estimated National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and overhead costs) in Kano State, 2020
Table 18: Composition by ECM objective of estimated National ECM Strategy budget (excluding personnel and overhead expenditure) in Kano State, 2020
Budgets are more or less equally distributed between social and economic support, education services and health services, with no spending on child protection identified.
spending on strengthening the policy and legal framework and strengthening coordination was very limited.
Using the study categorization/taxonomy of services to analyse spending on services in Kano State (see Table 19) shows that a third of expenditure goes towards tackling social and gender norms, somewhat less than two thirds on addressing socioeconomic drivers and about 5 per cent on creating an enabling environment. As far as addressing socioeconomic drivers and vulnerability is concerned, budgets are more or less equally distributed between social and economic support, education services and health services, with no spending on child protection identified.
Source: Kano State Ministry of Planning and Budgets, Revised Post-COVID Appropriation Act, 2020 and own calculations
Table 19: Composition by ECM service category of estimated National ECM Strategy budget (excluding personnel and overhead costs) in Kano State, 2020
5 Challenges and opportunities in integrating ECM strategies into budgets
5.1 Overall assessment of the public financial management system
The 2019 PEFA performance assessment report for Nigeria concluded that while there was strong focus on public financial management reform and while there had been some progress in improvement of systems in Nigeria in recent years, significant constraints remained in the areas of budget formulation and budget execution.
In terms of budget formulation, the 2019 PEFA report states that “central financial and economic planning authorities fail to link policy, planning and budgeting leading to a failure of strategic resource allocation which plays a role in poor budgetary outcomes”.
Appropriate budget and service-delivery information is not available, although budget formulation processes are formally in place. However, processes are less than rigorous and do not really allow ministries to make strong cases and get access to additional funds.
Related to the public financial management system are the fiscal relations between the different levels of government, where there is significant overlap of functions. Activities are being duplicated by different levels of government, resulting in inefficiency and wastage.
In terms of budget execution, budget credibility remains a problem, with one of the symptoms being low predictability of releases. Late and incomplete releases have an impact on the efficiency of delivery and ability to deliver.
5.2 Feedback from ministries
Interviews with staff from the relevant ministries could not explore issues of budget formulation, execution and accountability in much detail, partly because of time constraints and partly because it was difficult to get access to the right mix of experts on budgeting and implementation/ delivery. While respondents from most ministries acknowledged the existence of an orderly budget process and opportunities for inputs, there were concerns about budget ceilings, which are too restrictive, making it impossible to bring pressing and new priorities into the process. The Ministry of Health, for example, argues that spending on health in the country is significantly below appropriate international benchmarks, and this is a point supported by a range of commentators, as well as by the evidence.
While some ministries argued that they had adequate strategic documents to guide planning and budgeting, others, especially at the state level, acknowledged the weakness of ministry planning documents, which led to budget formulation being ‘cut and pasted’ from the previous year.
A common refrain about budget execution in most of the 11 implementing ministries interviewed (six at the federal level and five in Kano State) was the untimely and delayed release of funding (especially capital and project spending) which has an impact on delivery and leads to budget outturns below allocated funds.
Activities are being duplicated by different levels of government, resulting in inefficiency and wastage.
5.3 Further challenges to integration and advocacy
In addition to issues related to the public financial management system, three other areas make for a difficult environment for advancing the strategy for ECM. These relate to (i) gender norms and encompassing social and economic norms, especially in the context of economic slowdown and stagnation; (ii) factors related to the current fiscal framework and prioritization evident in federal budgets; and (iii) factors related to policy and planning, including for ECM specifically.
Child marriage remains well established in large parts of the country, where this custom developed in an economic context where women were very much restricted to certain roles, which then became internalized as part of a system of culture and values. In these contexts, despite the manifest violence and negative effects of child marriage, it is in some places contentious to even raise the matter in public or in public policy. A respondent in Kano State said that identifying empowerment of girl children as a strategic focus would not be acceptable to many in the state. Hence, while national policies and laws may be in place in many states, it will remain difficult to have a strong drive towards ECM in others.
In addition to the sensitivity of child marriage, the current economic situation is placing households under increasing pressure and will see them resort to negative coping strategies such as child marriage. Slow economic growth will limit the availability of fiscal resources for investing in women and the economy.
Current pressures on families and the fiscus come in a context where a very restricted fiscal framework is in place and where debt-servicing absorbs a large part of the budget. The Nigerian government revenue-to-GDP ratio is low in comparative perspective and cannot accommodate a significant expansion of service delivery.
In addition, a comparatively low proportion of expenditure is allocated to social services, namely school and further education, health and social protection, which are critical for ECM. Integrating ECM more strongly into budgets will therefore require expanding the role of government in the economy (and hence government revenue as a
proportion of GDP) and giving a higher priority to the social services, to empower citizens. This will be difficult in the current – constrained –fiscal framework.
While broader social and economic structures and the fiscal and public financial management system therefore present several obstacles to the strong integration of expanded ECM services into federal and state budgets, there are also constraints on the planning and programme development side.
There has been a proliferation over the last three decades of strategies and approaches in the areas of gender policy more generally and genderbased violence more specifically. The existence of so many strategies without sufficient attempts to position programmes relative to each other will strain capacity and lead to ‘policy fatigue’, especially in a context where resources are limited, but priorities proliferate.
The National Strategy is at quite a high or strategic level and was not followed up by more detailed implementation planning and costing at the level of the different ministries. The strategy also may not have taken stock well enough of what programmes were already in existence in ministries and of the need to build on these as well as establishing links or synergies between them.
While focusing on rights is important, it is also important to show how women’s empowerment fits into a broader vision of social and economic development and how it is supportive of the growth and human development agenda, and a precondition for more rapid growth.
Most key high-level strategic documents providing the basis for federal budgets (see the 2017 Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, 2020 Economic Sustainability Plan, Citizen’s Guide to the Budget, 2020, and 2022–2024 Fiscal Strategy Paper) identify human capital formation as critical, and hence advocate increased investment in education, health and social protection. Such investments will also assist in reducing child marriage. The strategy documents in most cases mention the need for an end to gender discrimination but do not go to any extent into key challenges associated with gender-based and child violence and the non-inclusion of women and care work in economic and fiscal strategies.
Strategies are not spelled out in any detail. It may therefore be that the rationale for and nuanced strategies to deal with gender, children and the economy are not developed well enough and therefore insufficiently integrated in policy and strategy documents that drive resource allocation.
As a 2018 IMF report argued, gender inequality, including child marriage of girls, in Nigeria is “high and wide-spread” and is a constraint on growth. Child marriage is one of a set of interlocking factors (Save the Children, 2021a) that limits women’s participation and opportunities through limited legal rights and low access to health care, education and financial services (IMF, 2018).
A more rapid reduction of child marriage can therefore start unlocking these constraints and setting on course a virtuous cycle, enabling Nigeria to benefit from its significant population growth and reap the demographic dividend. ECM and related gender empowerment and child protection measures therefore need a higher profile in Nigerian development frameworks and budget strategies, and a more significant allocation of resources.
5.4 Opportunities
While there should be disappointment with the extent of implementation of the National ECM Strategy, future iterations of the strategy have a base to build on.
The outline of the country response has shown the range of policies, laws and programmes that have been developed in recent decades and which have put child and women’s rights strongly on the agenda. In addition, some key policies are in place, although not always adopted in all states. Some coordinating capacity has also been established in the federal Ministry of Women Affairs.
The United Nations (2018) also highlighted that there were many civil society organizations working on women’s and children’s issues and that they had registered some successes, such as the enactment of the Violence Against Persons (Prevention) Act. Earlier, Morel-Seytoux, et al. (2014) referred to a significant number of community and non-governmental organizations pushing for change around legal and
administrative structures and “a growing number of gender champions” and numerous “programme structures”, giving the example of 774 women’s centres (providing training to rural women) and 3,000 agricultural credit cooperatives supported by the Ministry of Women Affairs. These foundations provide support to further scale up and extend links between organizations to strengthen their impact.
In addition to the existence of a developing policy framework and evolving capacity, the core ministries relevant to an ECM strategy all have in place relevant programmes that can be expanded and where quality can be improved:
• In the education sector, child marriage is widely acknowledged as limiting educational and development efforts and there is a strong drive to expand and boost the quality of education services to girls.
• In the health sector, strategies around sexual and reproductive health are in place, as are national standards and a minimum service package for adolescent- and youth-friendly health services (Ministry of Health, 2018), as well as the Adolescent and Young People’s Health and Development Implementation Plan 2021–2025 (Ministry of Health, 2021).
• There is ongoing work on strengthening the social protection system, partly through the National Social Investment Office (Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, 2021).
• A strategy is in place to improve civil registrations (NPC, 2017) and the system of digital identification (National Identity Management Commission, 2017).
In addition to federal policies and some of the core programmes being in place, a range of projects supported by development partners are exploring ways of strengthening delivery in these areas. Examples are projects from the joint organizations of the United Nations (for example, the Spotlight Initiative to Eliminate Violence Against Women and Girls) and the World Bank (the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment, the Nigeria Digital Identification for Development Project and the Nigeria Women Empowerment Project).
6
Conclusions and recommendations
6.1 Conclusions
6.1.1 Integration of ECM into budgets
The review of literature and published budgets indicates that there has been little explicit and purposeful implementation of the National Strategy. The strategy remained at a high level and there is no evidence of further, more detailed implementation planning and costing by ministries, states and local governments. Only in the Ministry of Women Affairs was there evidence of some capacity being created, of efforts at coordination and publicizing the National Strategy. The federal coordinating committee between ministries became inactive.
Furthermore, child marriage is not explicitly mentioned in any capital or project budgets, and development frameworks and budget documentation do not refer explicitly to child marriage. Gender and women do not feature prominently in medium-term framework documents or any other documents from the Ministry of Finance, Budget and Planning which accompany budget data.
The analysis of published budget documents, both at federal level and for Kano State, also show that ECM-specific spending, defined as expenditure explicitly and exclusively for ECM, is negligible and mostly limited to the ministries focused on women’s affairs. This would imply very little focused attention on or capacity for the issue
Gender and women do not feature prominently in medium-term framework documents or any other documents from the Ministry of Finance, Budget and Planning which accompany budget data.
of child marriage itself in ministries outside the women affairs ministries.
Nonetheless, and even though it was not possible to assess the objectives of personnel and overhead (or recurrent) spending in terms of their relevance for ECM, there were budget allocations to projects which cover key areas in the National Strategy (what are referred to as ‘National ECM Strategy budgets’) and to projects that can be seen as ECM-relevant in that they contribute to one of the three key elements of a coherent ECM strategy as set out in the study taxonomy (Table 20, page 48): addressing social and gender norms, addressing socioeconomic drivers of ECM and establishing an enabling environment. The existence of substantial ECM-relevant expenditure, even in the absence of analysis of recurrent expenditure, is especially applicable to the ministries dealing with education, humanitarian affairs, social development and vital registration.
While ECM-specific expenditure at the federal level was estimated at ₦0.3 billion (0.01 per cent of state capital and project budgets), National ECM Strategy budgets amounted to ₦24 billion (1 per cent) and ECM-relevant budgets to ₦86.7 billion (3.5 per cent). In Kano State, ECM-specific expenditure was estimated at ₦8 million (0.01 per cent of state capital and project budgets), National ECM Strategy budgets amounted to ₦143 million (0.24 per cent) and ECM-relevant budgets to ₦851 million (3.5 per cent).
In terms of the composition of ECM spending at the federal level, it is dominated by two sets of interventions. First, 40 per cent of the UBEC expenditure on school-building and refurbishment and learning materials was included as National ECM Strategy budget (₦10.9 billion). Second, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development had a budget of about ₦53 billion for projects focusing on poverty alleviation through social protection, and on economic empowerment through the provision of assets/inputs, loans and training. Twenty per cent of the value of these projects (₦10.51 billion) was included as ECM expenditure. The Ministry of Women Affairs, providing a range of services to women, as well as policy coordination services, contributes the third-highest proportion of federal expenditure on ECM (9.9 per cent or ₦2.4 billion).
In Kano State, the bulk of expenditure is from the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, reflecting not only coordination activities but also social protection and economic empowerment projects. The Ministry of Health and Child Development contributes spending on integrated maternal, newborn and child health and reproductive health and community health programmes, which are included as ECM-specific.
At the federal level, 8.9 per cent of estimated ECM expenditure is intended to address social and gender norms, 89.6 per cent to address socioeconomic drivers and vulnerability and 15 per cent is for policy coordination and implementation (or the enabling framework), including civil registrations. In Kano State, social and gender norms absorb 33.2 per cent of ECM expenditure, addressing socioeconomic drivers 61.4 per cent and the enabling environment 5.4 per cent. At neither federal nor state level did there seem to be any projects focused on child protection, and expenditure on the enabling environment was low. At the federal level, relevant health expenditure was much lower than for the other two major social areas, namely education and social protection.
6.1.2 Obstacles to integration of the National Strategy into budgets and advocacy for ECM
Four broad sets of obstacles to better integration of ECM strategies into budgets could be identified: those related to gender norms and attitudes, especially in the context of economic slowdown and stagnation; those related to the current fiscal framework and prioritization, evident in federal budgets; those related to the public financial management system; and those related to the broader policy and planning environment and approaches.
Child marriage remains acceptable in large parts of the country, where this custom developed in an economic context where women were very much restricted to certain roles, which then became internalized as part of a system of culture and values. In these contexts, despite the manifest violence and negative effects of child marriage, it is in some spaces contentious to even raise the matter in public or in public policy. In Kano State it was raised in a discussion that empowerment
of girl children as a strategic focus would not be acceptable to many in the state. Hence, while national policies and laws may be in place in a significant number of states, it will remain difficult to have a strong drive for ECM in others.
In addition to a cultural environment not conducive to expanding opportunities for women, the current economic situation will place households under increasing pressure and lead them to resort to negative coping strategies such as child marriage; and slow economic growth will limit the availability of fiscal resources for investing in alternative economic opportunities for women.
These current pressures on families and the fiscus come in a context where a very restricted fiscal framework is already in place and where debt servicing absorbs a large part of the budget. The Nigerian government revenue-toGDP ratio is low in comparative perspective and cannot accommodate significant expansion of service delivery. In addition, a comparatively low proportion of expenditure goes to social services that are critical for ECM: school and further education, health and social protection. Integrating ECM more strongly into budgets will therefore require an expansion of the role of government (and hence government revenue as a proportion of GDP) and a change in current priorities, with higher priority given to the social services, to empower citizens. This will be difficult in the current, constrained fiscal framework.
Shifting the fiscal framework, especially the prioritization and resource-allocation processes, will also be difficult in a situation where the appropriate budget and service-delivery information is not available and where budget formulation processes may be formally in place but where processes are less than rigorous and do not really allow for ministries to make strong cases and be accommodated. Further issues to confront are budget execution and monitoring, in a context where outturns remain below allocation and budget releases are not in line with projections. Related to this is the duplication of functions by different levels of government, resulting in inefficiency and wastage.
While broader social and economic structures and the fiscal and public financial management system therefore present several obstacles to
the strong integration of expanded ECM services into federal and state budgets, there are also constraints on the planning and programme development side. Policies and programmes have proliferated in recent decades, perhaps without a strong enough overarching vision and sense of how implementation can be phased, given the fiscal situation. Plans and strategies are also at a high level, with, as in the case of ECM, more detailed, costed strategies not being available and planning at state and local level not well supported. While fighting for rightsbased priorities is important, it is also important to show how they fit into a broader vision of social and economic development and how they are, at worst, not incompatible with a growth and human development agenda and will boost economic growth.
6.1.3 Successes and opportunities
As Section 5.4, page 41, indicated, there are some foundations in place that could help strengthen ECM: a developing legal and implementation framework, a growing network of civil society and women’s organizations and relevant programming and service delivery.
6.2 Recommendations
In a context of continued gender inequality and a weak economy and constrained fiscal situation, it will be necessary to focus on several ways of strengthening the integration of ECM plans into budgets and strengthening budgets to enable implementation. Recommendations therefore relate to four areas, broadly aligned to the constraints identified in the previous section. The four areas can be summarized as follows:
1 Expanding the space for policy advocacy and discussion by ensuring bottom-up or communitybased engagement with norms and values on the rights and position of women
2 Ensuring engagement with the broader economic and fiscal strategy
3 Building stronger ECM and gender plans
4 Supporting further planning and budgeting reform.
6.2.1 Creating policy space and bottom-up pressure
Taking policies forward into budget processes requires creation of space for policy advocacy and discussion. Therefore, increased financial support is necessary for civil society organizations and non-governmental organizations already promoting gender equality, an end to violence against women and more specific demands such as ECM. There is substantial existing capacity, and further strengthening will allow for bottomup pressure to consider policies and take them into budgets.
Awareness, empowerment and mobilization strategies aimed at women, children and communities are not extensive enough and are not financed well and consistently. It will be critical to strengthen this leg of a comprehensive strategy, which must include community measures (empowerment and mobilization), service delivery and the building of a legal and implementation framework.
In areas where there is strong cultural or religious resistance against the empowerment of women and girls, attention could focus on building a more indirect approach to fighting child marriage. Such an approach could look towards strategic or development gains more than issues of rights and morality. It could focus on changing the environment for households (especially agricultural households) and increasing the opportunities for women in a modernizing economy, which could support households more effectively than child marriage.
6.2.2
Expanding economic and fiscal space
In the constrained economic and fiscal space in Nigeria, issues of gender and social reproduction will tend to be deprioritized in favour of strengthening what is called the productive sector. It is therefore important to strongly develop in
plans and advocacy the argument about the economic importance of removing discrimination against women and the fetters that hold them back from a stronger contribution to society and the economy. This means building a strong argument around the economic benefits of increased female labour force participation and the need to support this trend, including through provision of appropriate child-care facilities. Freeing up women’s productive capacity must therefore be integrated strongly into development strategies and budget frameworks as an essential element of growth.
In addition to providing motivation for the central role of gender strategy in development strategy, there is a need in Nigeria to open more fiscal space by supporting the push to diversify revenue sources and by escaping the dependence on the oil and gas sector. Current revenue ratios cannot support adequate investment in human development, especially investment in empowering women and opening alternative economic opportunities. Gender activists will therefore also have to engage with the issue of the fiscal framework.
Beyond making the case for bigger government, the weak prioritization of the social services within the Nigerian budget means there is also a need to advocate for an adjustment of resource allocation. Such rebalancing will require a shift towards social services and areas currently underfunded in the National ECM Strategy (child protection and health) and, arguably, towards more gender-related and ECM-specific spending to establish capacity for coordination and implementation.
6.2.3 Strengthening gender and ECM planning, including data and research
Together with the required revision of the National Strategy (which has started), there is also room for strengthening and deepening the planning over
There is substantial existing capacity, and further strengthening will allow for bottom-up pressure to consider policies and take them into budgets.
the life of the next strategy. This would entail a greater integration and alignment of relevant plans, greater clarity around key levers, the appropriate prioritization of levers, clearer identification of gaps and targets, and a move to costing and implementation at ministry, state and local levels.
A range of plans and strategies exist that are relevant to gender equality and empowerment, and there is a National Gender Policy and Implementation Framework that is now somewhat dated (MWA&SD, 2006 and 2008). The Ministry of Women Affairs and its partners should work towards a set or hierarchy of plans that can be embedded into an overall gender plan which can then be taken into national development plans and budget (prioritization) frameworks. Currently there seem to be few synergies between the different plans and little line of sight towards national plans. Updated plans could clarify the key levers of the National ECM Strategy, potentially using the UNICEF-derived framework (see Table 20, page 48), and develop a more explicit balance of priorities among these different levers, as well as phasing, given the extent of activities required. Where such prioritization and phasing are not outlined in planning documents, budget allocations are often at the whim of finance departments.
With ECM planning, there is also a need to move beyond the strategic level towards costing and implementation planning and to support planning at the ministry, state and local levels. Given the differing nature and extent of child marriage in different states, there will have to be support for alternative approaches. Such support should go beyond providing the framework for or approach to planning and should ensure the availability of data on demand for the required service, budget and service delivery (supply). Planning requires improved data on demand, costs and service delivery but also research or analysis to understand such data and key dynamics. It also often requires the support of modelling. The National Strategy prioritized research but there was no detailed plan of priority areas for data collection, analysis and modelling.
The next iteration of the strategy should therefore be more explicit about the research agenda.
The research agenda should include impact analysis of the programmes and projects relevant to gender equality and empowerment that are currently being pursued, to identify over time the most effective ones. Many different approaches are taken in different Nigerian ministries regarding economic empowerment and training programmes and projects.
6.2.4 Budget (or public finance management) reform and tools for integrating plans and budgets
Improved gender planning and carrying these plans into the policy space will require stable budget processes and tools for integrating plans into budgets. Gender activists will therefore have to support and monitor continued budget reform. Stronger alliances could be created between women’s organizations and the Ministry of Women Affairs, with relevant civil society organizations working towards budget reform and transparency in Nigeria. Such organizations include BudgIT, the International Budget Partnership Nigeria (IBP Nigeria), the Centre for the Study of the Economies of Africa and the Nigerian Institute for Social and Economic Research. Some of these organizations already work in gender-related areas, for example IBP Nigeria, which is working with smallholder women farmers in Nigeria, including on engaging with budget processes to secure funding for critical inputs.
A key part of the task for organizations supporting ECM is advocacy for the introduction of key tools for linking plans and budgets, namely budget programmes, medium-term budgets and increased publication of data on spending and delivery. However, for these tools to be used meaningfully, ministries and civil society require capacity and sectoral data. The Ministry of Women Affairs and its partners should therefore work proactively to further develop gender data related to their activities and should also increase analysis of the data already available.
Annexes
Annex 1: Methodology
The methodology is discussed in considerable detail in Section 1.2, page 13, in the main paper. This annex provides supplementary information, including the analytical framework against which identified ECM interventions and ECMrelevant projects were analysed across the six country studies, and a brief explanation of the methodology used to estimate the share of identified budget lines that could be considered ECM-relevant.
Taxonomy of ECM interventions
The study developed a taxonomy of ECM interventions, to aid systematic analysis of ECM policies and expenditure. The framework lists 45 common ECM interventions and services and classifies them into 10 categories aligned to the 2019 UNFPA–UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage Phase II theory of change strategies. A final aggregation was into three main intervention types: (i) addressing social norms; (ii) addressing the socioeconomic drivers and consequences of child marriage; and (iii) establishing an enabling environment for ECM. The
share
45 services were also classified as ECM-relevant or ECM-specific. Table 20, page 48, provides the taxonomy.
Methodology to estimate ECM-relevant budget shares ECM services are multisectoral and for the most part not identified in countries’ budget nomenclature as spending on ECM. The aim of the methodology was to establish an estimate of national public expenditure on services and actions to end child marriage, including both operational and development expenditure.
The Nigeria study did not secure meetings with the right officials in the study research period to work through the targeted ministries’ aggregated administrative line-item operational budgets, to isolate expenditure on ECM-relevant activities. Because the capital project budget is in a different format – listing all projects with descriptive names –the team could identify potentially relevant projects to assess using the objective-based methodology of the study to estimate the relevant budget shares, for validation with officials. The box provides a summary explanation of the methodology.
Across countries, the study used a rapid qualitative methodology to score and weight identified budget lines to derive an estimate of ECM expenditure. The methodology estimates ECM-relevant expenditure by weighting the total spending in the line, with an estimate of the degree to which the line finances the identified service in percentage terms. The country teams were given two options to estimate what the weighting percentage should be.
1 Asking officials to estimate using already existing costing or understanding of the share: In this option, teams asked officials to estimate the spending share for the ECM service at 10 per cent, 20 per cent, 40 per cent, 60 per cent, 80 per cent or 100 per cent of the ministry’s budget line (or a more precise percentage if they had the information) and a reason for the percentage they selected.
2 Deriving the percentage weight by investigating the objectives financed by the budget line: This approach entailed assessing the importance of ECM as an objective for the expenditure relative to all other social, economic and environmental objectives by scoring the line on an ordinal scale (ECM is an only, principle, significant, minor or negligible objective) and then weighting the full spending in the line with fixed percentages associated with each rank.
Box: Objective-based methodology to determine ECM spending
Table 20: Common ECM taxonomy and exclusive list of services
Main categories
Addressing social and gender norms
Alignment with UNICEF–UNFPA theory of change outcomes Subcategories Services
Intensive support for the most marginalized girls
Empowerment of girls
Comprehensive sexual education
Life skills training
Support networks for girls
Efforts to raise awareness and train girls on women’s and children’s rights
Family and community environment
Educating and mobilizing parents and community members
Recognition and prevention of gender-based violence
Gender transformative programmes aimed at communities, men and boys
Community dialogue and sensitization on alternatives to child marriage, the rights of adolescent girls and gender equality
Support to women’s organizations and youth-led organizations and events that mobilize the voices of women and girls to challenge harmful social practices
Programmes to raise awareness on the importance of girls’ education amongst parents and in communities
Community capacity-building to monitor and prevent ECM, and generate and use ECM data
ECM-specific/ relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-specific
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-specific
Addressing socioeconomic drivers of ECM Poverty drivers Enhancing social and economic support and livelihoods
Income support/grants for families (social protection)
Job opportunities for adolescents at risk
Girl child insurance
Skills training programmes targeted at vulnerable households
Capital injection (e.g., chickens and livestock)
Targeted rural and agricultural development
Small business support targeted at vulnerable households
Strengthening of systems
Enhancing access to and quality of education and training services
Enhancing access to and quality of health services
Gender-responsive education programmes
Bursaries and school fees (payment and exemption)
Other programmes to keep girls in school
Other girls’ education programmes
Informal, complementary, community education programmes
Skills training programmes targeted at teenagers or girls
Efforts to increase access to and improve the quality of targeted sexual and reproductive health services
Efforts to increase access to and improve the quality of health and psychosocial support to child victims of gender-based violence
Efforts to increase access of adolescents to other health services
ECM-relevant
EMC-specific
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
Main categories
Addressing socioeconomic drivers of ECM (cont.)
Alignment with UNICEF–UNFPA theory of change outcomes Subcategories Services
Strengthening of systems (cont.)
Enhancing access to and quality of child protection and welfare services
Establishing an enabling environment Laws and policies
Strengthening civil registration systems for birth and marriage
Enhancing the legal framework, including the capacity of government to strengthen and implement national and subnational laws
Interventions to prevent child trafficking
Child welfare services
Child protection case management systems
Efforts to protect children who come in contact with the law
Protocols and efforts to detect early warning signs of gender-based violence and risk of child marriage in social welfare, justice, education and health services
Birth registration services and programmes to increase birth registration
Marriage and divorce registration and programmes to increase marriage registration
Development of legal framework that sets 18 as minimum age for marriage and protects women’s and children’s rights
Efforts to align global, regional, national and subnational law and regulatory frameworks on human rights, child rights and the minimum age of marriage
Efforts to enforce compliance with minimum age of marriage laws
Efforts to take legal action against perpetrators of gender-based violence
Enhancing ECM policies and coordination
Data and evidence
Strengthening research and evidence systems
ECM strategy, policy and planning
Multisector coordination of ECM policies and programmes
Capacity-building of and training programmes for government, civil society and media actors on ECM
Monitoring and evaluation of ECM policies and programmes
Research on ECM efforts to generate new data and evidence on ECM
Administrative and statistical data collection on ECM
Inter-institutional and country learning on ECM
Capacity-building of government, civil society and academic actors to use ECM data
ECM-specific/ relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-specific
ECM-relevant
ECM-relevant
ECM-specific
ECM-specific
ECM-specific
ECM-relevant
ECM-specific
ECM-specific
ECM-specific
ECM-specific
ECM-specific
ECM-specific
ECM-specific
ECM-specific
Note: All ECM-specific and ECM-relevant designations are default designations. If an ECM-relevant service is specifically and exclusively, in its conditions or recipient targeting, to prevent child marriage, it can be upgraded to ECM-specific.
Annex 2: National ECM Strategy objectives and strategies
Table 21: National Strategy to End Child Marriage in Nigeria (2016–2021)
Objectives
1. Integrate and strengthen all sectoral mechanisms
Strategies
Mechanisms to integrate stakeholders’ programmes on ECM with National Strategy
Promote/support the establishment of community child protection structures for awareness-raising and counselling
Strengthen existing and new child protection institutions and mechanisms for awareness-raising and victim referral
Strengthen capacity of existing coordination mechanisms to address vulnerabilities to early marriage at all levels of government
Organize annual state and local government joint sector review meetings
Establish strategic partnerships to share best practices
Generate evidence on benefits of delayed marriage and school retention for adolescent girls
2. Build capacity for research and sharing of knowledge
Strengthen research related to child marriage
Conduct gender-disaggregated research on the impact of child marriage
Disseminate evidence
Review government policies and stipulate roles and responsibilities
3. Promote policy and legislation to protect from child marriage
4. Change negative socioeconomic and cultural norms
Promote/implement revised National Policy on Adolescent Health and Development and girls’ education strategy
Sensitize communities about the law and policy on girls’ education, sexual and reproductive health rights and gender equality
Harmonize existing policies and legislation on child marriage
Increase parental access to alternative economic opportunities
Create links with relevant poverty reduction institutions
Develop and implement a communication and advocacy strategy on ending child marriage
Develop information, education and communication and edutainment materials on child marriage
Launch countrywide ECM campaigns through media and dissemination of information, education and communication materials
Establish and promote partnerships with elected representatives at national and subnational levels for community engagement and advocacy
Promote and highlight positive deviance among parents, girls, boys, law enforcement officers, and leaders using community dialogue and role models
5. Increase access to quality all-round education
Build the capacity of families to address and change the expectations, attitudes and practices in regard to child marriage
Promote access to and retention of girls in primary and secondary education through refurbishment of facilities (e.g., washrooms for girls, separate toilets for boys and girls)
Capacity-building of school administrators (parent–teacher associations, school management committees), teachers and other staff to create protective and safe environments for girls
Integrate gender and rights education (with a focus on child marriage) in the primary and secondary school curriculum
Facilitate access of adolescents at risk of child marriage and girls (especially outof-school young mothers) to vocational training institutions
Strengthen civil registration systems in Nigeria as a means to protect boys and girls from sexual and physical violence that lead to or arise from child marriage
Capacity-building of school administrators (parent–teacher association, school management committees) teachers and other staff to create protective and safe environments for girls
Improve menstruation and hygiene management for girls in school through dissemination of the menstruation management readers in print, audio and video
Build girls’ and boys’ capacities in life skills and agency including self-esteem, selfdefence and confidence to end child marriage
Facilitate and support the establishment of adolescents’ groups which offer safe spaces for girls and boys to talk about sensitive issues
Build capacities of senior women and male teachers in schools
Provide both in- and out-of-school girls and boys with accurate reproductive health information to enable them to manage their growth and development
Equip health workers with adolescent counselling skills to promote adolescentfriendly health services and rights in health facilities
Facilitate access of girls and married adolescents to adolescent-friendly health services
Establish and support a coordination unit within the federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, Child Development Unit, to coordinate and monitor the implementation of the National Strategy to End Child Marriage
6. Strengthen coordination, implementation and M&E structures
Strengthen government’s relationship with civil society organizations to facilitate optimum coordination of activities relating to ending child marriage in the country
Develop and operationalize an information management system that is capable of capturing child marriage and other child protection data of all children
Develop and implement an M&E system (including information management system and M&E plan)
Annex 3: Spending estimates by ministry
Spending estimates by federal ministries
Federal Ministry of Education
The National Strategy to End Child Marriage in Nigeria (2016–2021) includes two areas of ECM services that relate particularly to the Ministry of Education, namely (i) increasing access to all-round education and (ii) promote policy for and legislation to protect from child marriage. The seven services under these two headings and relating to the education sector are set out in Table 22, page 53.
Several projects in the ministry budget relate to these seven service areas. While the projects may not be centrally and exclusively focused on ECM, they relate to aspects of it, such as promoting female participation and safety in schools, and point to channels through which ECM could be impacted and prioritized more pointedly. The service areas point to delivery avenues which could be further optimized to impact ECM. What is striking is not only the large number of projects broadly aiming to enhance access to and the quality of schooling, especially for girls, but also the absence of a stronger coordinating focus.
Relating to capacity development of teachers, a group of projects worth ₦35.2 million in 2020 includes sensitization and advocacy workshops for school-based management at federal unity colleges, as well as rights clubs for learners at these schools.
Closely related to these, and with relevance to parent–teacher associations and creating a safe environment for children in schools, is a set of projects worth ₦42.8 million, including activities such as developing policy on safety and security in schools, a human capital development programme for teachers related to emergency preparedness, and promotion of the importance of education.
Other projects, all under a billion naira, relate to strengthening and facilitating access to vocational training (₦100 million for a joint project with development partners) and campaigns and drives for increasing school enrolment (₦11 million on a national campaign, ₦33 million for enrolment drives in all states and ₦26 million for bursaries and sustainability of girls’ education).
The largest programme related to the federal Ministry of Education with relevance for access of girls to schools, and hence for ECM, is the UBEC school-building and materials provision project. In its 2018 Annual Report, the UBEC reports continuing “to work in line with the federal government’s commitment to rebuild areas in the north east ravaged by insurgency” and “special intervention projects of construction, renovation and supply of furniture to schools at all levels of basic education”.
With regard to ongoing activities in 2018, UBEC reported 800 awards for instruction materials, 60 awards for North East zone intervention, the construction of 20 model schools and 800 awards under constituency and capital projects. These programmes are supported by development partners like the Korea International Cooperation Agency, the World Bank (State Education Programme Investment Project; Global Partnership for Education; Better Education Service Delivery for All; Programme for Results) and the MacArthur Foundation. The construction of 54 out of a planned 68 modern junior secondary girls’ schools in 32 states and the Federal Capital Territory was completed.
In the 2020 UBEC budget, nearly ₦27 billion, was set aside for school-building and provision of school materials.
Together the identified projects add up to ₦27.2 billion, which amounts to 4.5 per cent of the consolidated federal education budget (including UBEC). The federal education budget is dominated by personnel expenditure, absorbing ₦509 billion in 2020, or 84 per cent of federal education spending.
Because most of these projects do not focus exclusively on ECM and cover a much wider target group than vulnerable adolescent girls, the ₦27.2 billion cannot be seen as ECM-specific spending. After discussion with the Ministry of Education, it was thought that an overall 40 per cent of the identified projects (₦10.9 billion) could be seen as closely related to the National ECM Strategy, given their relevance to school access, school retention and improving quality to expand opportunities for girls and young women. The ₦10.9 billion only includes transfers to projects and does
not include an estimate for related personnel and overhead spending in the Ministry of Education and its agencies. If it is assumed that these ECM services absorb the same proportion of personnel and overhead expenses as capital expenditure, this will push up estimated ECM expenditure by the Ministry of Education to nearly ₦88 billion, or 14.5 per cent of the ministry budget, as outlined in Table 23.
Federal Ministry of Health and Child Development Health activities are included under two of the objectives in the National ECM Strategy, namely (i) promoting policy and legislation to protect from child marriage and (ii) increasing access to quality all-round education, including reproductive health
education and services to all children. Within these objectives, four sets of services are identified:
1 Promote and implement the Revised Policy on Adolescent Health and Development and the girls’ education strategy
2 Equip health workers with adolescent counselling skills to promote adolescent-friendly health services and rights in health facilities
3 Facilitate access of girls and married adolescents to adolescent-friendly health services
4 Provide accurate reproductive health information to young people to enable them to manage their growth and development.
In addition to these services that could be identified in capital and other projects, some projects impacting ECM, but not explicit in the National Strategy, were included (nonplan services).
ECM-relevant projects add up to ₦1.67 billion (see Table 24, page 54), which is 3.3 per cent of the ministry’s project budget and 0.4 per cent of the total ministry budget. Of this ₦1.67 billion, only ₦90 million is estimated to be related to the National ECM Strategy because the projects serve a range of other functions. This equates to only 0.2 per cent of capital and project budgets. The biggest proportion of National ECM Strategy spending is the ₦60 million that focuses on maternal, infant and young child feeding and
Table 22: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and other project expenditure), federal Ministry of Education, 2020
Table 23: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel costs and other recurrent expenditure), federal Ministry of Education, 2020
nutrition services, as well as the procurement of family planning commodities. These services also target young mothers and adolescents. The inclusion of only 5 per cent of the project spending of ₦1.22 billion may be conservative. Other projects of which only a very small portion was earmarked as National ECM Strategy budget are strengthening hygiene and health education and primary health system capacity, community health initiatives and building a health sector humanitarian response.
A project for building adolescent- and youthfriendly health services received ₦6 million. A project that is very relevant to the implementation of the health sector component of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act, and which focuses on gender mainstreaming and ending female genital mutilation, receives only ₦692,770.
If it is assumed that a similar proportion of personnel and overhead expenditure as for capital and other projects is allocated to ECM, the total ECM spend in the Ministry of Health and Child Development rises to ₦720 million.
Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development
The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development
(MHADM&SD), established in 2019, is relevant to the National ECM Strategy under the objective of changing negative socioeconomic and cultural norms. Under this objective it gets two mandates (services).
These are (i) to create links with relevant poverty reduction institutions and (ii) increasing parental access to alternative economic opportunities. These mandates span a large area, ranging from social protection and poverty alleviation to aspects of economic empowerment.
Of the ministry’s project expenditure of just under ₦60 billion, nearly ₦53 billion is relevant to ECM, strongly serving the objectives of poverty
Table 24: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and other project expenditure), federal Ministry of Health and Child Development, 2020
ECM Strategy: Health and Child Development plan services Health (capital and other projects)
Table 25: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and other recurrent costs), federal Ministry of Health and Child Development, 2020
reduction and providing support to households for their economic advancement.
Projects worth ₦4.5 billion in the ministry can be said to focus on social protection and hence the relief or prevention of poverty (see Table 26). These projects cover a broad range of activities, from setting up appropriate systems for identifying and servicing beneficiaries (developing a unified social register, strategic roadmap and victims tracking matrix) to actual support (supply of relief material, grants to youth and women, and support to people). Twenty per cent of the value of these projects (₦900 million) was earmarked as ECMspecific expenditure on the basis that “these are poverty reduction interventions which go a long way to empower the family to desist from child marriage due to poverty. They enable families to take care of their children and ensure they go to school” (interview, 12 October 2021).
Projects to the value of ₦48 billion relate broadly to the economic empowerment of families and adolescents. These span activities that include work schemes, providing agricultural and other inputs and equipment, and training and skills acquisition in a variety of areas. They also encompass areas of the National Social Investment Programme, 8 including support to the Home Grown SchoolFeeding Programme, which targets a range of objectives, from income-generation through food gardening, to household support though nutrition to children, and encouraging school attendance through school feeding. The bulk of the funding (₦34 billion), however, goes to two projects of the
National Social Investment Office: the N-Power scheme to address youth unemployment (in this specific project through “IT [information technology] hardware, tablets, education software, artisan tools [and] consumables, establishment of innovation hubs, vehicles, solar power”) and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme, which supplies interest-free loans ranging from ₦10,000 to ₦300,000. This budget is also “not specifically for ECM, but economic empowerment of families will help to end child marriage” (interview, 12 October 2021) and on this basis 20 per cent of the budget is seen as ECM-specific spending. Allocating 20 per cent of the ECM-relevant projects as ECM-specific brings capital and other project expenditure on ECM to ₦10.51 or 17.7 per cent of capital and other project expenditure (see Table 27). If a proportional share of personnel and overhead spending is included, this amount increases to ₦66.6 billion.
8 The programme has four components, namely N-Power, Conditional Cash Transfer, the Home Grown School-Feeding Programme and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme.
Table 26: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and other project expenditure), federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, 2020
Table 27: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including estimate of personnel and other recurrent costs), MHADM&SD
Many of the social protection and economic empowerment projects are relatively small and in specific states, presumably constituency projects. The effectiveness and impact of these projects do not seem to have been assessed systematically.
Federal Ministry of Justice
The National ECM Strategy identifies two services that fall within the mandate of the Ministry of Justice. These are (i) the harmonization of existing policies and legislation on child marriage and (ii) the review of government ECM policies and the stipulation of roles and responsibilities. In the revised 2020 federal budget, no projects could be identified that related to these two services (see Table 28).
In 2017, projects of the Ministry of Justice and other federal agencies in the justice sector included revision of the laws of the federation. This project, which had a budget of ₦13.7
million, was the responsibility of the Nigeria Law Reform Commission and could have included the harmonization of marriage laws. Two other 2017 projects of federal agencies in the justice sector were relevant to ECM. A Legal Aid Council project for ₦11.5 million dealt with the establishment of legal aid centres in local government areas, which were expected to help support young women under threat of or already victims of child marriage. A National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons project, for ₦40.6 million, dealt with the identification, rehabilitation and empowerment of trafficked persons (highly relevant to adolescent girls in the northern parts of Nigeria) and the rehabilitation of victims of child marriage.
Two 2020 justice cluster projects are relevant to ECM, but do not fall under National ECM Strategy plan services. Both are projects of the National Human Rights Commission, and they are worth ₦80 million and 40 million, respectively. The first deals with the economic empowerment of young people and women, including the supply of grinding equipment and sewing machines in a Jigawa district. The second relates to advocacy and awareness around social issues, including kidnapping and hostage-taking. Given the relevance of these projects, 30 per cent of their value was included as ECM-specific spending, as a significant proportion of the target population would be adolescent girls and their mothers.
Table 28: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and other recurrent costs), federal Ministry of Justice, 2020
Table 29: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and other project expenditure), federal Ministry of Justice, 2020
National Population Commission
Birth and marriage registration are central to fighting child marriage as they are essential for identification and regulation (and the legal system). Identification also plays a crucial role in service delivery, not only in regulating access of citizens to government services but also allowing government to have information about which citizens are using services. This provides information for improving delivery and also to prevent abuse and corruption. The “right to be registered and have a name” is listed in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
As with many other services in Nigeria, vital registration and identification seem to be fragmented between different agencies. The NPC has three main functions, the population and housing census, the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey and the civil registration system. The Compulsory Registration of Births and Deaths Act (Act No. 69 of 1992) gave the NPC the authority to register vital events and establish vital registration centres at a local level (NPC, 2017). In 2007, a National Identity Commission was set up to establish a national identity database and issue multipurpose identity cards.
While the NPC reported in 2017 having “3,620 operational registration centres in all 774 local government areas”, it also referred to “hordes of challenges” related to distance from centres, insufficient centres and weak data collection, storage and dissemination. Lack of capacity (financial and material resources) and public awareness of importance are also raised as issues. The Commission’s current website describes the state of vital registration coverage as “laughable and unacceptable”, with birth registration at 38 per cent and death registration at less than 10 per cent (NPC, n.d.). Data from the National Demographic and Health Survey for 2013 indicate that only 30 per cent of children aged 5 and under had their births
registered. Of these, only half were in possession of a birth certificate (NPC, 2017).
The only project in the 2020 budget of the NPC relating to vital registration is one named ‘expansion of registration centres and registration of births and deaths and ad hoc registration, etcetera’, worth ₦429 million. Given the crucial role of vital registration in child protection generally and ECM specifically, 25 per cent of the value of this project was included as ECM-specific expenditure in 2020 (see Table 30). Given the extensive network of registration centres and the human resource intensity of the activity, there would clearly be significant personnel and overhead costs, which are very difficult to estimate. The current figure must therefore be seen as an underestimate, although vital registration of course also serves many other objectives (see Table 31).
In addition to the full budget of ₦8 billion of the NPC in 2020, the National Identity Management Commission also had a budget of nearly ₦5 billion.
During 2019 and 2020, the World Bank’s Identification for Development Programme (ID4D), studied the “barriers to inclusion of women and marginalized groups in Nigeria’s national ID system” (ID4D, 2020). In 2019, the country also embarked on a US$430 million project with the
Table 30: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and other project expenditure), National Population Commission, 2020
Table 31: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and other recurrent costs), National Population Commission, 2020
World Bank aimed at increasing the number of persons with a national identity number built on an inclusive identification system (World Bank, 2019).
Federal Ministry of Women Affairs
The National Strategy to End Child Marriage in Nigeria (2016–2021) was developed by the Ministry of Women Affairs (at that stage still the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development), which is the main coordinating ministry for implementation. A number of tasks (or ‘strategies’) – 28 were mapped to the ministry – under each of the six objectives of the National ECM Strategy can be seen as the responsibility of the ministry, as they relate to broader coordinating and integrating functions.
Published budget information and interviews with the ministry point to the fact that there has been little purposeful implementation in terms of the National ECM Strategy, but a coordination unit in the Child Development Department of the ministry was established and is headed by an assistant director. A range of sensitization and awareness activities did take place, with both states and other stakeholders (for example, filmmakers). More detail of these activities, including capacity and resource information, was not shared.
The strategic plan of the Child Development Department in the ministry includes ‘girl child education and ending child marriage’ as one of 11 projects with the objectives of increasing “girl child enrolment, retention and completion in schools” and “reduc[ing] the rate of child marriage and other harmful practices”. Proposed activities fall into five categories, namely:
1 Promotion of girl child education (providing learner support material, sponsorships and scholarships and resuscitation of the National Task Force on Girl Child Education);
2 Coordination meetings with the Technical Working Group on Ending Child Marriage;
3 Advocacy (develop sensitization messages, a media forum, forums for boys and young men and advocacy to the 36 states);
4 Establishing a model community learning centre for girls; and
5 Review of the National ECM Strategy.
Another programme of the Child Development Department with relevance for ECM and more on the side of intervention than prevention is the establishing and equipping of the National Child Rescue Centre. Further budget information and more detailed plans were not available for the programme on girl child education and ECM.
None of the projects in the ministry’s published budget for 2020 specifically mention ECM as an objective. A large number of the projects, however, include girls and young women as part of the target population and are therefore highly relevant to ECM. Many of the projects include work that would support the National ECM Strategy. For this reason, it was decided to include about 50 per cent of the value of ECM-relevant projects as ECM-specific expenditure, given that girls and young women are such a large proportion of the total population of women and hence will be impacted by the projects (see Table 32, page 59).
Under the first objective of the National Strategy, namely ‘building capacity for research and knowledge-sharing’, the ministry has a number of projects, for example, the design and management of statistical data from the states, review of gender statistics publications, collection of gender disaggregated data and a study on discriminatory laws and their implications. The ministry planned to spend about ₦140 million on research capacity and evidence-building, of which half was classified as ECM-specific (see Table 33, page 59).
With regard to ‘changing negative socioeconomic and cultural norms’, the ministry also has a range of projects relevant to women and girls, generally spanning advocacy, sensitization and empowerment but also including the supply of assets (for example of information and communications technology).
The largest component of ECM-relevant and ECM-specific project budgets is classified under ‘increasing access to quality all-round education, including reproductive health and services to all children’ and includes skills acquisition and training, entrepreneurial support and asset supply, as well as counselling and psychosocial support. These types of projects totalled ₦3 billion, relative to the total ministry budget of ₦8.2 billion.
Spending estimates for Kano State ministries
Kano State Ministry of Education
In 2020, the Kano State Ministry of Education budget was ₦41 billion (compared to the federal education budget of ₦607 billion) and there were no projects specifically or explicitly aimed at ECM. However, a small percentage (5 per cent) of a range of projects was included as ECM spending to flag their importance for girls’ education and employment.
These relevant projects (see Table 35, page 60) relate to three services in the National ECM Strategy, namely (i) facilitating access to vocational training institutions; (ii) life skills and agencybuilding; and (iii) promoting access to schools and retention of girls through refurbishment of facilities. The projects come from a range of education MDAs, including:
• the State Universal Basic Education Board (school gardens with nutrition and attendance objectives and school construction)
• the Science and Technical Schools Board (ICT infrastructure rehabilitation and school construction)
• the Science, Technology and Innovation Agency (training of science and technical and vocational education and training teachers, youth empowerment projects and teaching materials).
While total spending on these projects came to nearly ₦238 million, after consultation with the Kano State Ministry of Education, only 5 per cent was identified as National ECM Strategy expenditure because the budget lines are not seen as directly targeting ECM (interview, Kano State Ministry of Education, 20 October 2021). Total National ECM Strategy expenditure as estimated therefore only amounts to ₦11.9 million (excluding personnel and overheads) and ₦56.8 million if an imputation is made for personnel and overheads (see Table 35, page 60).
The small amount of estimated ECM expenditure (less than 0.1 per cent of the budget) does not reflect the importance of state education spending in providing households and girls with economic opportunities that reduce the likelihood of child marriages. Education spending to increase access and quality therefore needs to be prioritized.
Table 32: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including capital and other project expenditure), federal Ministry of Women Affairs, 2020
Table 33: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and other recurrent costs), federal Ministry of Women Affairs, 2020
ECM Strategy: Kano State
Build capacities of senior women and male teachers in schools for ECM
Capacity-building of school administration (parent–teacher associations, school management committees), teachers and other staff; protective and safe environments for girls
The ministry also indicated that, while specific budget lines cannot be identified, more than 1,000 female teachers were recruited in the 2018/19 school year to promote female participation in education, and there is also a specific girls’ school transport initiative to increase attendance and get greater parity (interview, 21 October 2021). A girls’ education policy, which was drafted in 2016, needs revision and has not been formally approved. The ministry believes that programmes around access and retention are successful in improving gender parity in education.
other recurrent costs), Kano State Ministry of Education, 2020
Table 34: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and other project expenditure), Kano State Ministry of Education, 2020
Table 35: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and
Kano State Ministry of Health
Table 36: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and other project expenditure), Kano State Ministry of Health (2020)
Promote/implement revised National Policy on Adolescent Health and Development and girls’ education strategy
health workers with adolescent counselling skills to promote adolescentfriendly health services and rights in health facilities
Kano State Ministry of Justice
Table 38: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and
project expenditure), Kano State Ministry of Justice, 2020
Table 39: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and other recurrent costs), Kano State Ministry of Justice, 2020
Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development
Table 40: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget, capital and other project expenditure, Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, 2020
Table 41: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and other recurrent costs), Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, 2020
Kano State Ministry of Youth and Sports Development
Table 42: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (capital and other project expenditure), Kano State Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sport Development, 2020
Table 43: Estimate of National ECM Strategy budget (including personnel and other recurrent costs), Kano State Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sport Development, 2020
Annex 4: List of people consulted
Name F/M Position
Uzor Julie M Deputy Director, Educational Planning
Abuka Ajanigo F. F Deputy Director, Gender
Nnorom E. F Deputy Director, Gender
Dr. Anthony Adoghe M Head, M&E of Policies and Programmes, Department of Health Planning, Research and Statistics
Judith Ononoa F Deputy Director, Gender, Family Health Department
Abraham Sunday M Chief Nursing Officer, Family Health Department
Anyanwu Lawrence M Deputy Director, Family Planning, Family Health Department
Joseph Adaramoye M Director of Finance and Administration, National Social Investment Programme
Mfawa Usani F Chief Social Development Officer
Nuel Abel M Deputy Director, Social Welfare
Saai Saldi M Personal Assistant, National Social Investment Programme (NSIP)
Yewande Gbola-Awopetu F Head, SGBV Response Unit, and Gender Focal Person
Uwaifo Osasogie F SGBV Response Unit
Adaku Obodo F Chief Vital Registration Officer
Musa Aliyu M Assistant Director, Child Development Department
Lar K. Victoria F Women Development Department
Angeleen Nkwocha F Child Development Department
John Elijah A. M SWO I, Child Development
Adelayo O. F SWO II, Child Development
Obo Mercy F CDO II, Child Development
Iheakaram Queen F Child Development Department
Munzali M. Mustapha M Director, Planning, Research and Statistics (PRS) Department
Jibrin Habu M Director, Planning, Research and Statistics
Aliyu Idris M Senior Planning Officer
Mustapha Muhammed M Director, Planning, Research and statistics Department
Sadiq M. Sadiq M Principal Planning Officer
Sanusi S. Aliyu M Director, Citizens’ Rights
Zubair Abdumumin Zubair M Senior Social Welfare Officer
Yakubu Mohammed M Director, Planning, Research and Statistics
Salisu Babangida M Director, Planning Department
Kabiru T. Abubakar M DPE
Nura Rabiu M DDY
Abduldrahman Muhammed M DPRS
Ayuba Lawan M DAGS
Umar Muhammed Riji M DSD
Organization
Federal Ministry of Education
Federal Ministry of Education
Federal Ministry of Education
Federal Ministry of Health
Federal Ministry of Health
Federal Ministry of Health
Federal Ministry of Health
Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development
Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development
Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development
Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development
Federal Ministry of Justice
Federal Ministry of Justice
National Population Commission
Ministry of Women’s Affairs
Ministry of Women’s Affairs
Ministry of Women’s Affairs
Ministry of Women’s Affairs
Ministry of Women’s Affairs
Ministry of Women’s Affairs
Ministry of Women’s Affairs
Kano State Ministry of Education
Kano State Ministry of Health
Kano State Ministry of Planning and Budget
Kano State Ministry of Justice
Kano State Ministry of Planning and Budget
Kano State Ministry of Justice
Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development
Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development
Kano State Ministry of Youth and Sports Development
Kano State Ministry of Youth and Sports Development
Kano State Ministry of Youth and Sports Development
Kano State Ministry of Youth and Sports Development
Kano State Ministry of Youth and Sports Development
Kano State Ministry of Youth and Sports Development
Bibliography
28 Too Many (2018). Nigeria: The Law and FGM. Available at <https://www.28toomany.org/blog/the-law-and-fgm-innigeria/>. Accessed 22 November 2021. 28 Too Many.
Amzat, Jimoh, et al. (2020). ‘Coronavirus Outbreak in Nigeria: Burden and socio-medical response during the first 100 days’. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, vol. 98, pp. 218–224. Available at <https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ijid.2020.06.067>.
Budget Office of the Federation (2021). ‘2020 Fourth Quarter and Consolidated Budget Implementation Report’. Abuja: Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning.
Efevbera, Y., et al. (2019). ‘Girl Child Marriage, Socioeconomic Status and Undernutrition: Evidence from 35 countries in sub-Saharan Africa’, BMC Medicine, vol. 17, no. 1 (March), p. 55. Available at: <https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-019-1279-8>.
Efevbera, Y., et al. (2020). ‘Defining and Deconstructing Girl-Child Marriage and Applications to Global Public Health’, BMC Public Health, vol. 20, no. 1, p. 1547.
Elaigwu, J.I. (2007). ‘The Federal Republic of Nigeria’, Routledge Handbook of Regionalism and Federalism, J. Loughlin, J. Kincaid and W. Swenden, eds. London and New York: Routledge.
Federal Government of Nigeria (1999). ‘Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Act No. 24 of 1999’.
Federal Government of Nigeria (2007). ‘Fiscal Responsibility Act, Act No. 31 of 2007’.
Federal Government of Nigeria (2019). Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) Performance Assessment Report Based on PEFA Framework 2016: Baseline report. Abuja: Federal Government of Nigeria and development partners.
Federal Government of Nigeria (2020). ‘Appropriation Act, 2020 (Amendment) Bill’. Abuja.
Federal Government of Nigeria (2021). Education Sector Analysis of the Federal Republic of Nigeria: Assessing the status of education in the federation and OAK states. Dakar: World Bank, IIEP-UNESCO.
Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children (n.d.). ‘Country Progress Fact Sheet Nigeria’. Available at <https:// www.end-violence.org/sites/default/files/paragraphs/download/Country%20Progress%20Fact%20Sheet%20 Nigeria.pdf>.
Identification for Development (2020). 2020 Annual Report. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
Inter-Agency Humanitarian Evaluation (2020). Evaluation on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Girls – Case study: Nigeria. IAHE Steering Group/Konterra.
International Monetary Fund (2018). Nigeria: Selected economic issues. IMF Country Report no. 18/64. Malhotra, A. and S. Elkanib (2021). Evolution in the Evidence on Child Marriage 2000–2019. New York: UNFPA and UNICEF.
Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning (2021). ‘Revised Draft National Social Protection Policy’ (June). Abuja: Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning. Ministry of Health (2018). ‘Nigeria National Standards and Minimum Service Package for Adolescent and YouthFriendly Services’. Abuja: Federal Ministry of Health.
Ministry of Health (2021). ‘Adolescent and Young People’s Health and Development Implementation Plan, 2021–2025’. Abuja: Federal Ministry of Health.
Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development (2006). ‘National Gender Policy 2006’. Abuja: MWA&SD. Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development (2008). ‘National Gender Policy Strategic Framework (Implementation Plan) 2008–2013’. Abuja: MWA&SD.
Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development (2016). ‘National Strategy to End Child Marriage (2016–2021)’. Available at <https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/documents/633/Strategy-to-end-child-marriage_forprinting_08-03-2017.pdf>. Abuja: MWA&SD.
Mobolaji, J.W., A.O. Fatusi and S.A. Adedini (2020). ‘Ethnicity, Religious Affiliation and Girl-Child Marriage: A crosssectional study of nationally representative sample of female adolescents in Nigeria’, BMC Public Health, vol. 20, no. 583.
Morel-Seytoux, S., I. Ojosun and O. Olugbemi (2014). Gender Analysis for Strategic Planning. Washington, D.C.: USAID. National Bureau of Statistics (2007). Nigeria Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2007 Final Report. Abuja: NBS. National Bureau of Statistics (2013). Nigeria Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2011 Final Report. Abuja: NBS.
National Bureau of Statistics (2018). Nigeria Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2016/17 Final Report. Abuja: NBS.
National Bureau of Statistics and United Nations Children’s Fund (2022). Nigeria 2021 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) and National Immunization Coverage Survey (NICS): Survey findings report. Abuja: NBS and UNICEF.
National Identity Management Commission (2017). A Strategic Roadmap for Developing Digital Identification in Nigeria: Approved report. Abuja: NIMC.
National Population Commission (2014). ‘Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey 2013’. Abuja: NPC.
National Population Commission (2017). ‘National Strategic Action Plan on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems (2018–2022)’.
National Population Commission (n.d.) ‘Civil Registration and Vital Statistics’. Available at <http://www. nationalpopulation.gov.ng/civil-registration>.
Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (2010). ‘Revised Chart of Accounts with Explanatory Notes: Report of the ministerial committee on the review of the chart of accounts’. Abuja: FGN.
Olujimi, J. (2020). ‘Equitable and Grassroots Development Through Zonal Intervention Projects in Nigeria’, Conference Paper, Federal University of Technology, Akure. Rao, N., et al. (2009). Gender and Growth Assessment, Nigeria: National overview. Ibadan and Norwich: Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research and International Development, University of East Anglia.
Save the Children (2020). ‘Progress Towards Ending Child Marriage Over the Last Decade: A missed opportunity to deliver for the world’s most marginalised girls’, Technical Brief.
Save the Children (2021a). S ocial Norms Exploration Report in Gombe, Katsina and Zamfara Communities in Nigeria. Global Affairs Canada and Save the Children Nigeria.
Save the Children (2021b). ‘GRID: Child Inequality Tracker’. Country dashboard, Nigeria, Child Marriage. Available at <https://www.savethechildren.net/grid>. Accessed 3 June 2021.
Save the Children (2021c). State of the Nigerian Girl Report: An incisive diagnosis of child marriage in Nigeria. Save the Children International and Nigeria.
Suberu, R.T. (2013). ‘Nigeria – A Centralizing Federation’, Dialogues on Distribution of Powers and Responsibilities in Federal Countries, R. Blindenbacher and A. Pistien, eds. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
United Nations (2018). ‘Spotlight Initiative to Eliminate Violence Against Women and Girls – Country Programme Document Nigeria’. Abuja: Office of the Resident Coordinator.
United Nations Population Fund and United Nations Children’s Fund (2018). Putting it All Together: A case study from Nigeria – Phase II of the UNFPA–UNICEF Joint Programme on Female Genital Mutilation. New York: UNFPA and UNICEF.
United Nations Children’s Fund (2014.) Ending Child Marriage: Progress and Prospects. New York, UNICEF.
United Nations Children’s Fund (2018). A Financial Benchmark for Child Protection – Nigeria Study. Abuja: UNICEF.
United Nations Children’s Fund (2021). ‘Child Marriage’. Available at <https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/ child-marriage/>. Accessed 23 June 2021.
United Nations Children’s Fund (2022). ‘Child Marriage Country Profiles’. Available at <https://data.unicef.org/ resources/child-marriage-country-profiles/>.
United Nations Children’s Fund (2023). ‘Statistical profile on child marriage: Nigeria’. Available at <https://data.unicef. org/resources/child-marriage-country-profiles/>.
United States Department of State (2019). International Religious Freedom Report for 2019 – Nigeria. Washington, D.C.: Office of International Religious Freedom.
Wodon, Q., et al. (2017). Economic Impacts of Child Marriage: Global synthesis report. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. World Bank (2005). Nigeria Health, Nutrition, and Population: Country status report. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. World Bank (2017a). ‘Better Education Service Delivery for ALL Operation – Programme’. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. World Bank (2017b). ‘Nigeria Women Empowerment Project – Project Information Document’. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
World Bank (2019). ‘Nigeria Digital Identification for Development Project: Combined project information documents/ Integrated safeguards datasheet (PID/ISDS)’. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
World Bank (2020). ‘Nigeria Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment: Project information document’. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
World Bank (2021). Resilience Through Reforms: Nigeria Development Update, June 2021. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Yaya, S., E. Odusina, and G. Bishwajit. (2019). ‘Prevalence of Child Marriage and Its Impact on Fertility Outcomes in 34 Sub-Saharan African countries’. BMC International Health and Human Rights, vol. 19, no. 33.
