The Social Development Department is one of the eleven Departments of the Ministry. The Department has the mandate to coordinate Social sector, Environment sector, as well as Food and Nutrition sector.

It was created on the 21st of February, 2011 . The Department is currently staffed by 28 officers comprising of 4 Directorate cadre officers, 21 Senior officers,2 Junior Officers and is headed by a Director.

Vision

The Vision of the Social Development Department is to bring about a social development order that will improve social cohesion and accelerate national development.

Mission

The Mission of the Department is to contribute effectively in coordinating social development programmes and projects to ensure effective delivery of the Ministry’s mandate.

Mandate/Functions

The mandate of the department involves plan and policy coordination of the 3-tiers of government in the social sector of the economy which include:
i. Coordinate sectoral priorities and goals in the Social, Environment and Food and Nutrition sectors;
ii. Undertaking periodic review and appraisal of the sectors relevant to the Social Development Department;
iii. Liaise with other departments to formulate long and medium-term National Development Plans relating to the three Sectors coordinated by the Department;
iv. Coordination of all the three sectors in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to be able to deliver on their various mandates;
v. Interface with Monitoring & Evaluation department on monitoring of capital project of key MDAs in the Social, Environment and Regional Development and Food and Nutrition sectors; and
vi. Participating in various seminars, inter-ministerial meetings and workshops.
Provide policy advice to the President on matters relating to social services sector regarding education; health; environment and regional development; population; labour and productivity; women affairs; social security; Federal Capital Territory; Niger Delta; youth development; sports; housing and urban development; and the MDGs.
Preparation of sectoral plans relating to social services sector on education; health; environment and regional development; population; information; labour and productivity; women affairs; social security; Federal Capital Territory; Niger Delta; youth development; sports; housing and urban development; and the MDGs.
Participation at conferences / meetings and workshops of the line Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) under the purview of the Department;
Monitoring and Evaluation of projects and programmes relating to plan implementation on sectoral matters relating to the department
Assist in setting national priorities and goals on social development matters;
Collaboration with MDAs on Social development to carry out relevant research studies on Education; Health; Labour and Productivity; Youth Development; Environment, Housing and Regional development; and
Participation in national and international conferences on social sector matters

Structure of the Department

In order to ensure that the Department takes the lead role in coordinating multi-sectoral policy, the department has three Divisions namely Human Capital; Environment & Regional Development; and Food & Nutrition. The key responsibilities and current thrusts of the Divisions are highlighted below:

Human Capital Development

The Human Capital Division has two Sections namely: (i) Population and Development; (ii) and Social Sector.

The Population and Development Section coordinates MDAs that are dealing with Population activities, including Demographic Dividends project; Immigration and Migration issues; Women Affairs including Gender and Ageing issues; Information, Social Statistics (NBS), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),and Labour & Employment while Social Sector Section coordinates all Social Sector MDAs which include Federal Ministry of Education; Health; Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development; Human Right Commission; Disability Commission Youth & Sport Development and NAPTIP among others.

Specifically, to coordinate all Social Sector by tracking:
i) Policy implementation in Social sector including but not limited to Health; Education; Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development; Human Right Commission; Youth & Sport Development; NAPTIP; Labour and Employment etc;
ii. Implementation of the nexus between Population and Development working closely with the National Population Commission; and
iii. Data availability for Social Sector development by liaising with National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and National Population Commission (NPoPC).
iv) The Human Capital Division coordinates the implementation of multisectoral/multi-Agency/multi-donor programmes in the two sections that constitute Human Capital Division. Some of the key programmes are:
a) Social Protection - Review the National Social Protection Policy and Coordination of the implementation as well as Monitoring & Evaluation of the Implementation Plan for the Social Protection Policy across all key sectors involved in Social Protection Programmes; and
b) Demographic Dividends – Coordination of all relevant sectors on implementation of programmes or activities that will be catalytic to harnessing demographic dividend in Nigeria. The sectors cut across population and development as well as Social Sectors including Ministries of Labour, Youth, Health, Education, Humanitarian affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, National Population Commission, National Bureau of Statistics, etc.

Environment & Regional Development Division

Environment and Regional Development Division is responsible for coordination of Environment Sector. This includes activities relating to the protection of the nation’s environment, biodiversity, conservation, including measures to combat desertification, deforestation, climate change and also, the development of the geo-political zones. As a result, it works and collaborates with Federal Ministry of Environment, its Parastatals and Agencies which includes: Great Green Wall; National Park, Environmental Health and Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORECON); Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria (FRIN); National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA); National Environmental Standards Regulatory and Enforcement Agency (NESREA); Ministry of Niger Delta; National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA); Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC); Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA); National Boundary Commission; Federal Ministry of Housing; Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Office and Federal Ministry of Water Resources.

Current Thrusts of the Environment and Regional Division

To coordinate and provide policy advice to relevant Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) on matters relating to Environment & Regional Development including:

Tracking policy implementation in Environment and Regional Development sectors and its parastatals;
Preparation of sectoral plans documents on Environment & Regional Development with relevant MDAs
Development of a National Plan for the Implementation of the Paris Agreement on Nationally Determine Contributions: The project is designed to guide in developing a Monitoring, Reporting and verification (MRV) system of national plan or framework for the implementation of Nigeria’s NDC under the Paris Agreement for a climate resilient green growth development that will add to the sustainability of the achievements of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan of the Government and presently the National Development Plan (2021-2025). The next line of action to be carried out by the division is for all the stakeholders to meet and review the draft report;
National Digital Economic Atlas: To provide an “online spatial framework for capturing, querying and communicating the concentration and distribution of investment opportunities and stimulate the transition of Nigerian economy into a global investment destination”. The Department is in the process of reviewing and updating the National Digital Economic Atlas portal;
Mainstreaming of Environmental Concerns & SDGs into National and Sub-National Policy and Plans in Nigeria: The Ministry has sensitized Planning Research and Statistics department (PRS) and Budget Officers towards the achievement of the targets proposed by Mainstreaming Climate Change issues into their regional development plans. The Department has started the process of review and continue to promote awareness on the NDC and the role expected of each entity to play in working towards accomplishment of the NDC targets. There has been an ongoing Geo-Political Zone consultative meetings/advocacy in this regard;
Quarterly Coordination Meeting of Environment and Regional Development Sector Stakeholders.

Food & Nutrition Division

The Division serves as the national focal point for the coordination and harmonization of all food and nutrition related policies and programmes being implemented by the various Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs), and development partners. The Division also work to ensure that such food and nutrition programmes are consistent with the goals and aspirations as outlined in the National Food and Nutrition Policy. The Ministry is the Secretariat of the National Council on Nutrition (NCN) chaired by His Excellency (HE), the Vice President (VP), Federal Republic of Nigeria. Membership of the Council includes all the Honourable Ministers and Heads of the MDAs who are members of the NCFN, some development partners, the Private Sector and professional bodies.

The technical arm of the NCN, is the National Committee on Food and Nutrition (NCFN) chaired by the Permanent Secretary, BNP as outlined in the National Policy on Food and Nutrition. The NCN is expected to meet bi-annually while the NCFN meets on quarterly basis. The Division interfaces with the State Committee on Food on Nutrition (SCFN) to ensure that they adopt the National Policy on Food and Nutrition at the state level and also develop costed plan of action on food and nutrition and as well as every other role as performed by NCFN at the federal level.

Key Achievements

i. Prioritization of nutrition in the Nation’s Development Agenda. Food and Nutrition constitutes one of the key pillars of the (NDP 2021-2025) and Nigeria Agenda 2050.
ii. Approval of National Multi-sectoral Plan of Action for Food and Nutrition (NMPFAN) 2021-2025 by Federal Executive Council (FEC) on the 8th of September, 2021 which is the implementation plan of the revised National Policy on Food and Nutrition.
iii. The President Approval for the creation of Nutrition Department in relevant MDAs by President Muhammadu Buhari in March, 2022. The Ministry has communicated the Directive to all relevant MDAs and the 36 State Ministry of Economic Planning and the FCT Secretariat. However, since the Directive was issued only the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and NAFDAC has compiled. Reports from the states also showed that only Zamfara States Primary Health Care Development Agency and three Ministries of Health, Agriculture and Natural Resource and the Ministry of Information and National Orientation have created Nutrition Department in Ebonyi State. A Manual detailing the modalities for the creation of Nutrition Department has been developed by the Ministry in collaboration with other stakeholders and with support from the World Bank.
iv. Successful conduct of the National Food Consumption and Micronutrient Survey. The survey was jointly coordinated by MFBNP, FMARD and Federal Ministry of Health. MFBNP is the chair of the Steering Committee (SC) while the Technical Advisory Committee is co- chaired by FMARD and FMoH. The draft report of this survey is receiving the final editing.
v. Participated and coordinated Nigeria’s participation at the United Nations Food Systems +2 Stock Taking Moment held in Rome from 24th - 26th July, 2023. The Nigeria delegation was led by the Vice President, Federal Republic of Nigeria and Chair of National Council on Nutrition (NCN), HE Kashim Shettima, along with the Permanent Secretaries of the Budget and National Planning, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and Women Affairs, programme Officers of MDAs and Development partners and the private sector. The outing provided opportunity for Nigeria to share her experiences in the implementation of the Food Systems Transformation agenda, learn good practices from other countries and to also mobilize financial and technical support for improving the food and nutrition situation in the country.

CURRENT ONGOING ACTIVITIES

World Bank-Assisted Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) Project which is linked to MTNDP 2021-2025.

ANRiN Project is a 5-year support to large scale nutrition programmes aimed to increase utilization of quality, cost-effective nutrition services for pregnant and lactation women, adolescent girls and children under five year of age. The project is fully results based and leverages performance-based contracts with non-state actors for service delivery, performance-based financing of public health facilities, and disbursement linked indicators for strengthening the stewardship role of federal and state governments to plan, budget, implement, monitor, and learn from large-scale nutrition programs.

Component 1. Multi-sectoral coordination and planning for accountability to achieve nutrition results

In the ANRiN project, the Budget and National Planning arm of the Ministry is responsible for Disbursement Linked Indicator 2 (DLI 2). The project incentivizes through DLI 2, the creation of a process for multi-sectoral coordination and planning for accountability to achieve nutrition results across five federal implementing Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) which include; Health, Agriculture & Rural Development, Women Affairs, Education and National Social Safety-Nets Programme under the Office of the Vice President now Ministry of Humanitarian, Disaster Management and Social Development. Activities of FMBNP in this regards bothers on Coordination, capacity building and learning through organizing Annual Nutrition Conference, advocacy, monitoring and supervision, Policy and Guidelines development, publication of state of Annual Nutrition and development of a web-based nutrition Dash Board. Report and regular review of activities of all FIEs and Gombe state. The activities of the four Federal Implementing entities are concentrated in three Local Government Areas of Balanga, Yematu Deba and Nafada in Gombe state where a proof of concept is going on. In these three LGAs in Gombe, all the four FIEs are converging/co-locating to provide nutrition sensitive intervention to the target beneficiaries to complement nutrition specific services they receive from the health facilities.

The ANRIN project became active in 2019, however, implementation commenced in 2020 among all Federal Implementing Entities with the exception of the Federal Ministry of Education that started implementation in 2021. Under the ANRIN project, there is a Steering Committee that is chaired by the Honourable Minister, Federal Ministry of Health that ratifies all implementation plans of all sectors after the World Bank’s endorsement. There is also a Project Implementation Unit (PMU) at the FMoH that coordinates activities of the 12 states of Abia, Akwa Ibom, Gombe, Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, Oyo and Plateau.

Component 2 of the ANRIN project is the Financial Management

In support of the implementation of the NMPFAN and broader nutrition agenda, the World Bank is providing technical assistance to the Federal Government and selected states to design a budget tagging system for identifying, tracking, and evaluating nutrition allocations, releases, and expenditures. GoN would be incentivized for the establishment of the tagging system and its use across nutrition-related MDAs. All stakeholders envisage a tagging system that will enhance transparency and accountability around nutrition budgets, allocations, and releases; facilitate resource mobilization and prioritization of nutrition, mainstream nutrition in MDAs’ budgets, and enhance resource tracking and expenditure review. The design and implementation of the system will be overseen by the Nutrition Financing Technical Committee (NFTC). NFTC has be inaugurated and membership include officials of Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, Budget Office, the Planning Arm, Office of the Vice President, World Bank and the Nigeria Governors Forum. The key deliverables of this committee include the development of Nutrition Budgeting and Expenditure Methodology, Nutrition Budget Tagging Manual and the Roadmap for the Budget Tagging pilot implementation. MDAs have been sensitized on the budget tagging processes however a lot of work will need to be done with the budget office before the commencement of the preparation of the 2024 budget.

FOOD SYSTEM

The United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres called on World leaders to convene National Food Systems dialogues to articulate how to make the food systems to be more resilient, sustainable and inclusive. The Permanent Secretary, Budget and National Planning was appointed the National Convenor for the Nigeria’s Food Systems Dialogue in November, 2020. Activities kicked started with the setting up the Food Systems Core Group. This group was made up of experts and senior technical officers from Ministries, Department and Agencies, the UN Donor Group, development partners, civil societies and the private sectors.

The series of dialogues held in Nigeria commenced with the Inception Dialogue which was held on the 23^rd of February, 2021 in Abuja. This was followed with about forty (40) Exploratory Dialogues which were organized across the six geopolitical zones, in some selected States and targeted communities. The dialogues which was organized with the spirit of leaving no one behind saw the active participation of relevant groups such as women, youth, indigenous people, Non-Government Organization as well as the private sector. The purpose of having the series of dialogues was to gather ideas, and come up with recommendations/ solutions to addressing the enormous challenges in our food system along the food value chain.

• The Seventy eight (78) recommendations drawn from the various dialogues were further synthesized into short, medium and long term priority actions for a sustainable food systems in Nigeria and was presented to the United Nation by the Head of State, His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari in September, 2021. Activities for implementation within the short term are considered as low hanging fruits for which implementation has commenced since January of this year, 2022.
• These short term priorities have been printed and disseminated with clear roles and responsibilities for all stakeholders at (federal, state and Local Government) levels. To ensure seamless implementation of food system Transformation Pathways, an implementation Task Team made up of key stakeholders including key MDAs, Academia, Private sector, CSO, NGO, Development Partners etc was constituted to develop an Implementation Plan for the quick win programmes for 2022 and 2023. We therefore have 10 activities for 2022 & 2023 out of the 78 priority recommendations of the Food Systems Transformation Pathways for Nigeria.
• The plan for the implementation of the selected quick win programmes have been developed and approved by the Chair of National on Council on Nutrition (NCN) and Vice President Federal Republic of Nigeria and setting up of Coordinating Unit for the Food Systems. With the support of stakeholders the strategy for implementing the 78 recommendations has been developed.
• The Permanent Secretaries of all MDAs have been sensitized on their roles in the implementation of these quick win. Subsequently a Technical Working Group made up of Directorate level technical officers of each MDA has also been inaugurated to ensure that every MDA focuses on its roles and responsibility as elucidated in the Food Systems: Call for Action.
• Zonal sensitization workshops were held on the implementation of the Food Systems Transformation Pathways in six geopolitical zones of the country.
• The former Minister of State, Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, inaugurated the Steering Committee for the Implementation of Food Systems Transformation Pathways in Nigeria. Members of the Committee include: The Chairman, Permanent Secretary, Budget and National Planning, Co-Chair by the Country Directors, IFAD and FAO. Members also include Permanent Secretaries from the six zonal coordinating States.
• The Ministry has conducted a mapping of Farm Estates, School Gardens and domestication of weather information in all the six geopolitical zones with reports produced for the Stock Taking in Rome from 24-26 July, 2023

The Division also received support for its work from partners such as UNICEF, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Civil Society Scaling – Up Nutrition of Nigeria, the World Bank, Food and Agricultural Organization and International Fund for Agricultural Development.

DOWNLOADS

Click to download the results of studies carried out by UNICEF in collaboration with the Ministry.

DEPARTMENTAL CONTACT:

The Department can be reached for further information and comments via the contact person:

Dr. Sanjo Faniran
Director, Social Development Department,
Plot C31010 Adekunle Fajuyi street,
Central Business District Area, Abuja.
E-mail: info@nationalplanning.gov.ng