World NGO Day: Strengthening government and donor support for Nigeria’s NGO sector

• By Judith-Ann Walker, PhD

For the first time, in 2025, the contribution of local NGOs to the Nigerian economy was captured in the Other Services Sector line of the 2024 rebased Nigerian economy. Upon completion of the rebasing exercise, the Other Services Sector line, which included Nigerian NGOs’ contribution to GDP, increased by 6.2%.

As the world marks World NGO Day on 27th February, rebasing the Nigerian economy to include NGOs is a progressive move that aligns well with the UN’s recognition and value of non-profits. In Nigeria, the 2026 World NGO Day is being marked at a time of USAID’s unceremonious aid exit and closure of the Mission’s NGO localisation program, which targeted and aimed to strengthen Nigerian NGOs in development and humanitarian spaces. 

The year 2026 is also one of significant funding reductions from bilateral development partners as they repurpose resources for new national priorities. This has led to a weakening of the Nigerian NGO sector with thousands of local groups not being able pay staff and volunteers and with multiple program and office closures.

Since June 2025, the development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC), a local NGO, launched the NGO Support Initiative (NSI) to redress the weakened Nigerian NGO sector. The NSI mobilised and re-granted sums of N5m per NGO to registered groups that were forced to close out USAID-funded projects as primes or subs.

With pilot funding from a Ford Foundation BUILD grant, 17 NGOs from 11 states were awarded N5m each in grant funds to implement education, health, GBV prevention and women’s rights, humanitarian assistance, and livelihood projects. As part of the NSI, the participating NGOs also completed a 5-module training program on NGO sustainability and resilience. The capacity building component of the NSI was run by 8 NGO Master Trainers who graduated from the dRPC’s Gates Foundation-funded PAS project.

The shortlist from which the 17 pilot NGOs were selected was rather long. The short-list was made up of 225 of the best high-performing Nigerian NGOs, selected from among 660 groups that responded to the dRPC’s public call for applications on multiple platforms. All 225 of these NGOs had great proposals and committed teams with a strong resolve to continue providing services at the grassroots level. For this, Nigerian NGOs must be commended.

When the Nigerian NGO sector weakens, the Other Services Sector of Nigeria’s newly rebased economy is at risk of weakening. While the Nigerian government must be commended for taking the futuristic step of quantifying the contribution of the country’s non-profits to the economy, the government must be nudged to continue supporting the local NGO sector. 

For the Other Services Sector to grow, the government may well consider promoting an enabling environment for development partners, especially bilaterals, to follow the lead of Global Affairs, JICA, the Hungarian Embassy, and Irish Aid by awarding small grants to local NGOs. This can be done by fast-tracking the finalization and launch of two critical draft policies that have been languishing for years: the National Localisation Policy and the National ODA Policy.

The government should also be encouraged to proactively mobilise new forms of domestic resources for local groups within new community development programs such as the Renewed Hope Ward Development Programme (RHWDP). Finally, the government may wish to incentivize private sector philanthropists such as the Dangote Foundation to work through intermediary NGOs such as the dRPC to mitigate the high transactional cost of engaging local groups as they expand development assistance to local NGOs.

Another action the government can and must consider is to work with World Bank Nigeria programs to convene Procurement process orientation meetings targeted at NGOs for the inclusion of new partners. The Bureau of Public Procurement is currently convening national-level consultations across the country to learn about, respond to, and support NGO needs in the public procurement process. The Bureau of Public Procurement is to be commended for this innovative program and for its confidence in the Nigerian NGO sector.

NGOs are partners in development; they are not competitors. Through coordination and alignment with government policies and programmes, NGOs can and do contribute to socio-economic development.  Happy World NGO Day.

·  Dr. Walker is a member of the Presidential-High Level Council on Women and Girls (P-HiLAC), Nigeria, and the Executive Director of the dRPC. [email protected].