COVID-19: Ramifications for progress towards the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in Nigeria

This paper examines whether the impact of COVID-19 at the household level is an obstacle to achieving the sustainable development goals of no poverty (SDG1), zero hunger (SDG2), good health and wellbeing (SDG3) and decent work and economic growth (SDG8). We limit our investigation to farm households given their precarious situation. We analyse data from the World Bank National Longitudinal Phone Survey (COVID-19 NLPS) and the 2018/2019 General Household Survey (GHS). An exact McNemar’s test determined that there was a statistically significant difference in the proportion of households that skipped a meal (p =.002), ran out of food (p =.036) or went a whole day without food (p <.001) pre- and during- COVID-19. Approximately 81% perceived COVID-19 as a substantial threat to their income. This was buttressed by the finding that 75% reported a decrease in their total income since the outbreak of COVID-19. Overall, the findings in this paper suggest that COVID-19 posed a substantial threat to the attainment of SDGs 1, 2, 3 and 8. In the long term, government would need to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 through targeted social protection programs and policies to ensure that the country is on track to achieve the SDGs