The share of minimum wage needed to afford a healthy diet fell from 124.1% in June to 54.2% in July 2024, when the minimum wage was increased from ₦30,000 to ₦70,000.
Before July, the cost of a healthy diet for a month exceeded 100% of [the] minimum wage, making it unaffordable for minimum-wage earners.
The sharpest burden was recorded in June 2024, when households needed their full salary plus 24% extra to eat healthily.
Between July and December, affordability worsened slightly from 54.2% to 64.1%, indicating that food prices continued to rise despite the wage boost.
The implementation of the ₦70,000 minimum wage in 2024 provided significant relief to Nigerian households struggling with the high cost of eating healthily.
Among the 113 countries measured in the 2022 Global Food Security Index, Nigeria is ranked 107th overall, putting it deep in the bottom ten globally.
Nigeria has the lowest affordability score globally in the GFSI 2022, scoring only 25.0 in that pillar.
The country performs marginally better in other pillars: its score in “Quality and Safety” is relatively higher (55.6), and “Sustainability and Adaptation” is 53.7. But other pillars like “Availability” (39.5) remain weak.
Globally, a group of countries, including Nigeria, DR Congo, Sudan, Venezuela, Burundi, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Yemen, Haiti, and Syria, all cluster at low overall GFSI scores (below ~45), reflecting severe challenges.
India tops the list of the global number of people unable to afford a decent meal with a value of 792.80 million causing unaffordability to prevail in the country by 55.6%.
China emerged as the second country in this global list with 208.10 million people falling in this category and unaffordability prevalence of 14.6%.
Nigeria claimed 6.2% of the global total with 175.6M, making it the 3rd country with the highest number of healthy diet unaffordability.
High number of people that could not afford a healthy diet does not outrightly equal high percentage of healthy diet unaffordability.
The Western Pacific Region is projected to lead globally in nursing personnel by 2030, with an estimated 9.7 million nurses — more than Africa and Southeast Asia combined.
The Americas (8.9M) and Europe (8.2M) are expected to follow, maintaining high nurse-to-population ratios.
Africa (2.1M) and the Eastern Mediterranean (1.5M) are projected to remain lowest, despite growing health needs.
South-East Asia (5.5M) shows steady growth but still lags behind the top three regions.
The global nursing workforce is projected to reach 35.9 million by 2030, up 73% from 2013 — but growth remains uneven.
Only four African countries, Seychelles, South Africa, Namibia, and Ghana, meet or exceed the WHO’s recommended minimum of 44.5 nursing and midwifery personnel per 10,000 people.
Seychelles leads the continent with 73 personnel per 10,000, followed by South Africa (64), Namibia (54), and Ghana (45).
The lowest number within the top 20 is 16, shared by Nigeria, Comoros, and Mauritania.
The dataset includes 47 African countries, and no country outside the top 20 has more than 16 nursing and midwifery personnel per 10,000 people.
