NEEDS and Sustainable Poverty Reduction in Nigeria

A number of economic reforms had existed before the democratic government took over office in Nigeria in 1999. These reforms were bedeviled with huge challenges such as misappropriation,low participation of stakeholders and the civil society amongst others. The National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy was initiated in 2004 to correct the inadequacies of the past reforms. Nevertheless,the literature is scanty on the appraisal of the NEEDS programme. In what way was NEEDS different from past reforms? This book filled the gap in the literature by appraising the performance of the programme on the education sector by examining to what extent its stated goals were achieved. Findings from the study revealed that although modest success was recorded during the programme,it was an improvement over past reforms.