Working Toward SDGs

Interviewees for this report shared examples of philanthropy and investment within Nigeria that aim to overcome critical development challenges in health care, education, gender equality, and economic growth.

SDG 3 / Good Health and Well-Being: Nigeria’s health care system faces numerous challenges, including a lack and inefficient deployment of resources, significant data gaps, insufficient financing, and a fragmented health service that struggles to deliver high-quality care to a large and growing population. Maternal mortality has declined significantly—there were 993 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023, down from 1,168 in 2015—but remains high. Infant mortality has similarly dropped—from 70 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2015 to 60 in 2023—but remains five times higher than the goal set in the SDGs. High out-of-pocket medical costs, a lack of access due to conflict, and the brain drain of health care workers are additional obstacles to Nigeria’s good health and well-being.

My focus when starting the Nigerian Nurses Association was to help improve the health of Nigerians. Preventable diseases were very prevalent in our community and, having knowledge of public health, [I was able to] bring together nurses with the same knowledge and ideas. . . so we could have a voice in the community on health promotion and disease prevention. In 2004, we started medical missions back to Nigeria . . . and would spend two weeks doing health screening and then providing health education. We saw that that [approach] was not cost-effective .. . . so we came up with a program of nurses ‘adopting’ the primary health center in their community. We started with four in 2019. . . . Fast-forward to 2025, and we now have about 30 ‘adopted’ primary health centers. Nurses . . . look at the primary health center in their community and work with the community [to improve its quality] and to get their buy-in.    

—Dr. Grace Ogiehor-Enoma, founder of the Nigerian Nurses Association of USA and co-founder of the National Association of Nigerian Nurses in North America

SDG 4 / Quality Education: The Nigerian education system suffers from poor quality, high dropout rates, and low literacy. The World Bank and UNESCO estimate that 89 percent of ten-year-olds suffer from poor literacy, while just 59 percent of boys and 51 percent of girls in 2020 had completed a primary education—despite it being free and compulsory. Nigeria also faces geographical inequities: In the north, attendance rates are lower, particularly for girls, and around one-third of children attend institutions that do not teach basic literacy and numeracy. Conflict in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa states also prevents school attendance, with more than 800 schools currently closed due to violence and damage.

A few of us here in the USA [started a] scholarship scheme. We raise funds and that goes to a scholarship scheme. So we go to the village and we find very intelligent young people that don’t have the means, and we pay for three or four of them per year to go to school. … We have a local group that is Umuode Developmental Association that runs this process and kids apply for the scholarship [through the association].

—Paul Nwulu, strategic communicator and storyteller

SDG 5 / Gender Equality: While Nigeria adopted a National Gender Policy in 2006 and has worked to improve its gender equality—particularly as relates to violence against women and girls—significant challenges remain. Cultural barriers remain significant: In 2022, Afrobarometer found that only 53 percent of respondents to its survey believed that women should have the same rights as men to hold paid work, and only 51 percent said that women should have the same land rights. Additionally, girls still face significant barriers to accessing and completing education, and child marriage remains high, with 30 percent of girls married before the age of 18, and 12 percent by the age of 15.

[The Visiola Foundation’s] mission is to empower African girls and young women from underserved communities. We focus on technical skills, because there is a dearth of technical skills globally in the STEM fields—science, tech, engineering, and math—and it’s even more pronounced in Africa. And those are the fields that pay more. But we also have a gender imbalance in [terms of enrollment in these subjects] in colleges across Africa and especially in Nigeria. And so it’s a way to empower girls and women economically by ensuring that they have the skills that make them employable or even high-earning entrepreneurs, and also contribute to national, regional, and global development. Since 2014, we have directly impacted over 22,000 African girls and young women from twenty different countries.”  

—Ladé Araba, president of the Visiola Foundation

SDG 8 / Decent Work and Economic Growth: In October 2025, the World Bank described Nigeria’s economic outlook as “positively optimistic,” noting progress on stabilizing the economy and increased economic growth compared with 2024. However, significant challenges remain, particularly in translating macroeconomic gains into an improved quality of life for Nigeria’s citizens. Poor households spend up to 70 percent of their income on food, the cost of which has increased fivefold since 2019. Additionally, youth unemployment remains among the highest in the world, with a reported 23 percent of young people seeking work and an additional 32 percent completely out of employment.

I believe in not only giving back but also enabling the next generation—especially of founders and creatives who can build new systems, create jobs, and help us create sustainable change. So I invest as a VC investor and as an angel investor, and I also give my time. I’ve mentored founders, [and] I’ve made intros that have led to further investment for founders. . . . I have an investment in changing the narrative of Nigeria, presenting something new. For example, I’m endeavoring to start a VC firm that reimagines venture capital [in a way] that centers Africa and her diaspora. And so, amplifying that, sharing why that’s important, sharing the stories of the founders, and putting that idea of Nigeria and Africa out in the world has ripple effects. That is also an investment into changing the narrative. And once you change a narrative of a people of a country, that has positive, tangible outcomes as well.”

—Chi Achebe, founding and managing partner of Achebe Capital