Summit Sub-themes
NES #32 adopts a performance-driven lens to dissect Nigeria's development priorities across five actionable policy dialogue tracks.
Building a job-rich economy and strengthening labour absorption
Nigeria's economic trajectory must transition from jobless growth to a model that aggressively absorbs its expanding workforce. With population growth estimated at 2.5-2.7% annually, the country adds an estimated 3.5 million new entrants to the labour force each year.
Key Focus Areas
- Expanding labour-intensive sectors to absorb Nigeria's growing workforce
- Enhancing youth workforce readiness through demand-aligned skills development
- Strengthening labour market systems and formalisation pathways
- Improving MSME competitiveness and creating pathways for scale-up
- Bridging the gap between education outputs and industry demand
Driving productivity, investment, industrialisation, and value creation
To achieve sustainable growth, Nigeria must address the structural inefficiencies that hamper its productive base while unlocking investments that drive economic expansion. Building a competitive economy requires deep industrial linkages, strategic capital deployment, and the modernisation of production systems.
Key Focus Areas
- Optimising sectoral productivity through innovation and digital adoption
- Promoting investment in manufacturing, agro-processing, and energy
- Developing robust value chains across agriculture, manufacturing, and services
- Strengthening the national production backbone and industrial infrastructure
- Leveraging anchor investments to build industrial ecosystems
Delivering investment, shared prosperity, welfare, and social protection
Nigeria's growth ambitions cannot be realised without significantly increasing investment in both the economy and its people. Beyond mobilising capital into productive sectors, the country must also invest in human capital systems that improve health, education, skills, and social protection outcomes. NES #32 will focus on unlocking private and public investment across infrastructure, industry, innovation, and strategic sectors while strengthening the social foundations necessary for inclusive growth. The summit will prioritise investment frameworks that crowd in private capital, improve investor confidence, expand access to finance, and strengthen welfare systems that protect vulnerable populations. Sustainable growth must not only generate wealth, but also expand opportunity, resilience, and shared prosperity for all Nigerians.
Key Focus Areas
- Unlocking private and public investment across infrastructure, industry, and innovation
- Crowding in private capital and improving investor confidence
- Expanding access to finance for businesses and individuals
- Investing in human capital systems — health, education, skills, and social protection
- Strengthening welfare systems that protect vulnerable populations
Restoring safety, stability, and confidence for economic activity
Security is the primary enabler of economic enterprise. Insecurity has become a binding constraint on economic participation in Nigeria, with direct effects on production, investment, and labour mobility. Persistent threats have reduced access to farmland, disrupted trade corridors, and increased business costs.
Key Focus Areas
- Protecting essential national assets including power and telecom infrastructure
- Targeted reduction in attacks on critical economic infrastructure
- Expanding safe access to farmlands and stabilising production corridors
- Addressing the security-economic exclusion nexus
- Rebuilding confidence for sustained and secure economic activity
Expanding growth across states, sectors, and communities
For growth to be truly inclusive, it must be geographically distributed across Nigeria's subnational entities. Economic activity, investment, and fiscal capacity are heavily concentrated in a few urban centres, leaving many states weakly integrated into national growth dynamics.
Key Focus Areas
- Strengthening subnational economies and fostering regional value chains
- Enhancing inter-state connectivity and market integration
- Promoting local investment coordination and public-private partnerships
- Developing infrastructure for distributed growth across states
- Leveraging each region's unique comparative advantages
Three Core Pillars
Productivity
The Supply Side
“How do we make it cheaper and more efficient to produce in Nigeria?”
Human Capital
The Labour Market
“How do we ensure every Nigerian has the skills and the job to earn a living?”
Resilience
The Safety Net
“How do we protect our growth from shocks and ensure it reaches everyone?”
Be Part of the Conversation
Join leaders from government, business, academia, and civil society as we shape Nigeria's economic future at the 32nd Nigerian Economic Summit.
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