GS 2026: "Turn Poverty Relief into Lasting Economic Opportunity," Stakeholders Tell African Leaders
- Patrick Achi, former Prime Minister and President of Côte d’Ivoire’s National Assembly, warns African governments against relying on grants and cash transfers as a long-term poverty alleviation model
- Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, and Olufolake AbdulRazaq, First Lady of Kwara State and Chairperson of Nigeria Governors’ Wives Forum, call for greater investment in women and productive opportunities
- Olaniyi Yusuf, Chairman of the NESG, and Osasuyi Dirisu, Executive Director of PIC, urge stakeholders to turn policy commitments into measurable impact for underserved communities
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For millions of people living on the margins of the economy, a cash transfer can mean the difference between eating and going hungry, keeping a child in school and dropping out, or surviving another difficult month.
But while such interventions can provide a lifeline in times of hardship, they raise a bigger question: what happens when the money stops?
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That question took centre stage at the 2026 Gender and Inclusion Summit in Abuja, where former Prime Minister and President of the National Assembly of Côte d’Ivoire, Patrick Achi, cautioned African governments against allowing poverty alleviation programmes to become permanent substitutes for economic opportunity.
Achi warns against ‘poverty-alleviation industry’
Achi acknowledged that social protection, targeted cash transfers, development assistance and philanthropy remained important, particularly when economic growth was insufficient or its benefits were narrowly distributed.
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He, however, warned that such interventions should not become the foundation of African economies.
“We must be careful not to create what I would call a poverty-alleviation industry — a system that becomes very good at managing poverty without building the mechanism that ends it.
“Cash transfers and grants can be essential bridges. They can save lives and protect dignity. But if the bridge never leads to productive income, we remain vulnerable to the day the grant stops.”
Achi said the most sustainable pathway out of poverty was to make people economically productive, stressing that growth must create wealth, jobs and opportunities at scale.
“We must therefore be careful not to build a system that becomes better at managing poverty than at ending it. The lasting answer is productive employment and income.
“The State must create the conditions for investment, enterprise and job creation at scale, while ensuring that the opportunities and benefits of growth reach a much broader share of the population.”
Olufolake AbdulRazaq seeks more women in leadership
While Achi focused on the broader economic structure needed to reduce poverty, First Lady of Kwara State and Chairperson of the Nigeria Governors’ Wives Forum, Ambassador Professor Olufolake AbdulRazaq, drew attention to the gender dimension of inclusion.
AbdulRazaq called for more women to occupy decision-making positions, saying gender inequality remained a major obstacle to sustainable development despite interventions in education, healthcare, economic empowerment and political participation.
She said women’s economic empowerment should go beyond income generation to include access to opportunities, leadership, healthcare, education and platforms where policies affecting their lives are shaped.
Yusuf: Policies must reach the last mile
For Chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), Mr Olaniyi Yusuf, the challenge was no longer the absence of policies but ensuring that commitments reached the people for whom they were designed.
Yusuf said the summit was established to help bridge the gap between policy commitments and lived realities, particularly for women, girls, youths, persons with disabilities and underserved communities.
“Nothing happens by chance. Opportunity only becomes meaningful when it reaches the last mile,” he said.
Yusuf stressed the need for stakeholders to move from discussions to implementation.
“We do not gather merely to celebrate. We gather to design. We gather to deliver.”
Sulaiman-Ibrahim: Put women at centre of development
The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, also stressed the importance of placing women at the centre of Nigeria’s last-mile development strategy.
Speaking during her ministerial keynote address, themed “From Agenda to Action: Making Innovations Count for the Last Mile”, Sulaiman-Ibrahim said sustainable inclusion required moving women from beneficiaries of interventions to owners of productive assets.
“So let me state my central message plainly: we will not reach the last mile unless women stand at the centre of how we get there,” she said.
The minister said the Federal Government was implementing initiatives under President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda to expand women’s access to energy, finance, productive assets, agriculture, digital opportunities and enterprise development.
She listed PowerHer774, the Renewed Hope Women Agro-Value Expansion Programme, the Women in Nigeria’s Gas Sector Empowerment Project, Women on Wheels, EmpowerHer774, DigitHer774 and HerSafeHaven among initiatives designed to address barriers confronting women at the community level.
“We are no longer only handing women things that finish in a few months; we are now also handing them assets they own,” Sulaiman-Ibrahim said.
She identified the Nigeria for Women Programme Scale-Up, co-financed by the World Bank and state governments, as an example of taking economic opportunities directly to women in their communities.
The programme targets at least five million women across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
According to the minister, its first phase enrolled more than 560,000 women into over 26,000 savings and enterprise groups, which collectively saved nearly N5 billion.
She added that the ongoing scale-up had mobilised N2.7 billion in savings and provided more than N2.2 billion in loans.
Sulaiman-Ibrahim said the figures demonstrated that women could become significant economic actors when provided with appropriate financial and institutional support.
Innovation must produce lasting results
Sulaiman-Ibrahim also disclosed that 38 national instruments had been developed, reviewed and validated to strengthen implementation in areas including childcare, social protection, gender equality, menstrual health, disability services and protection of survivors of violence.
She said innovation should be judged by its ability to deliver sustainable results rather than simply by the novelty of an intervention.
“An intervention is innovative when it solves a real problem better, when it improves access, reduces cost, increases efficiency, strengthens dignity, or produces better outcomes and when those gains can be sustained and taken to scale,” she said.
Sulaiman-Ibrahim urged stakeholders to move innovations beyond the pilot stage through financing, institutional adoption, measurement and scaling.
She also called for broad stakeholder participation in the development of the National Gender Policy 2027–2032, stressing that implementation must receive equal attention as policy formulation.
“We will carry its recommendations from the page into policy, and from policy into the lives of the people we are privileged to serve,” she added.
Dirisu: Bring grassroots voices into policy
Earlier, Executive Director of the Policy Innovation Centre, Dr Osasuyi Dirisu, explained the focus of the summit and the need to ensure that policy innovations reached the people who needed them most.
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The 2026 summit, themed “From Agenda to Action: Making Innovations Count for the Last Mile”, focused on practical solutions, partnerships and implementation for underserved and marginalised communities.
Dirisu said the “last mile” should not be understood only in geographical terms, as people could also be excluded because of limited access to resources, financing, education, literacy and healthcare.
“The last mile for us means ensuring that the end user that needs the solutions we’re developing the most is reached. It is sometimes a location, but it is sometimes a condition.”
She said PIC had deliberately brought grassroots voices into high-level policy conversations, including beneficiaries of the Nigeria for Women Project and a farmer who shared their experiences and challenges.
“We may not be able to go to the last mile to have these conversations, but we are bringing the last mile right into the conversations here at GS26,” Dirisu said.
PIC deepens youth participation
Dirisu also highlighted efforts to deepen youth participation, including the co-creation of a Youth Charter aimed at giving young Nigerians a stronger voice in policies affecting their future.
She said GS26 was providing a platform for young Nigerians to discuss their challenges and participate in conversations about the future they want.
On implementation, Dirisu said PIC could not compel government to adopt recommendations from the summit but could create an environment for collaboration and advocacy.
“You cannot enforce the government to do anything. But what you do is you create an enabling environment for collaboration to happen,” she said.
Ufot urges stakeholders to move from words to action
In his welcome remarks, the Group Managing Director, Udeme Ufot, said the summit provided an important platform for stakeholders to confront the gap between gender inclusion commitments and actual outcomes.
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He urged government, the private sector, civil society, development partners and other stakeholders to strengthen collaboration and ensure that policies and innovations reached those most excluded from economic and social opportunities.
Ufot said the focus on the “last mile” was particularly important because the success of development interventions should ultimately be measured by their impact on ordinary citizens, especially women, youths and vulnerable communities.
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