A thought I heard recently on a viral podcast has stayed with me: that the primary role of government is security and welfare. It struck me because, in public discourse, we tend to give far more oxygen to other big themes, politics, elections, inflation, GDP growth, unemployment, infrastructure, debt, reforms, the broader direction of the macro economy, and of course, insecurity, which is now a national crisis. These are all important, of course. But somewhere within all of that, the question of welfare often gets flattened, narrowed, or pushed into the background, as though it is separate from the “real” business of development.
It is not. It sits at the heart of it. And not just as a government concern, but as a public one, something that should matter to all of us because it speaks to how people actually live, cope, and navigate everyday uncertainty. This may not sound like the most obvious place to focus, but stay with me for a moment. Because once we begin to look more closely, it becomes harder to ignore the case for treating financial health and resilience as central to the kind of society and economy we say we want to build.
If welfare is to mean anything in real terms, it must show up in the everyday conditions under which people live. It must speak to whether people can cope with a sudden illness, survive the loss of income, manage rising prices, keep a small business afloat, or recover from an unexpected shock without slipping further into hardship. In that sense, welfare is not only about broad policy intent or formal support systems; it is also about the practical resilience people have in the face of everyday needs and uncertainty.
That is why financial health and resilience deserve more attention than they currently receive. They shape whether households are merely surviving from one disruption to the next, or have some real capacity to stay stable, adjust, and move forward.
By financial health, I mean the ability of individuals and households to manage everyday expenses, meet obligations, absorb shocks, and plan ahead with some confidence. Resilience, in turn, is the capacity to withstand disruption and recover without being pushed into deeper vulnerability. Together, they invite us to look beyond narrow measures of progress, whether that is access to financial services alone or the more familiar macroeconomic indicators like GDP growth, investment flows, or reform milestones. Important as those measures are, they do not always tell us how people are actually faring in their daily lives. They do not fully capture whether households feel more secure, whether they can cope with rising costs, or whether they have any real buffer against uncertainty. That is why financial health and resilience matter. They bring us closer to the lived experience of the economy, and to a more grounded understanding of what real inclusive growth, economic development, inclusion, and meaningful progress should look like – people-centred.
This is where the gap between national progress and household reality becomes difficult to dismiss. In 2023, while Nigeria’s real GDP grew by a modest 2.9%, EFInA’s A2F survey revealed a staggering decline in personal resilience: only 16% of Nigerian adults were financially healthy, a sharp drop from 28% in 2020, while 84% ran out of money at least once during the year. As the economy moved into 2024 and 2025, headline indicators showed even stronger upward movement, with real GDP growth accelerating to 4.07% by the final quarter of 2025. However, these figures appear to exist in a vacuum, with the share of Nigerians living below the poverty line rising from 56% in 2023 to 61% in 2024 (according to the World Bank), or that the mdoest GDP gains were effectively erased by hyper inflation, which peaked at 34.8% in December 2024, with the World bank noting in late 2025 that household incomes have not grown fast enough to offset the “cumulative impact of the 2024 inflation spikes.
This matters for development because inclusive growth is not only about how much an economy expands, but about how well people are able to live and cope within the context of that growth. Where households are financially fragile, even modest shocks can trigger deeper setbacks: livelihoods are disrupted, children’s education is affected, health choices are compromised, and small enterprises struggle to survive. Over time, this weakens productivity, reduces economic participation, and makes development gains less durable. Financial health and resilience therefore should be seen for what they are: not peripheral social concerns, but core development priorities. They shape whether growth translates into stability, whether opportunity can be sustained, and whether progress is truly shared.
The strength of an economy or a country is its people. If Nigeria is serious about its ambition of building a $1 trillion economy by 2030, as I hope the action holders are, while also pursuing 7% average annual GDP growth, lifting 100 million people out of poverty, generating over 50 million jobs, and advancing national priorities around poverty reduction, job creation, and social protection, then success cannot be measured by headline growth alone. It should also be measured by whether Nigerian homes and individuals are becoming more financially healthy and more resilient. I am aware that there are ongoing reviews of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy. The strategy has historically been central to expanding access, but as the country prepares for NFIS 4.0, there is now a real opportunity to move beyond counting reach and usage, and to embed financial health more deliberately within public policy, performance indicators, consumer protection, and the design of financial solutions themselves. My position is that if we truly want economic reform to translate into human progress, then financial health and resilience must sit much at the centre of how we define inclusive growth, judge policy success, and pursue socio-economic development. In the end, they are not optional or extras to the development agenda; they are among its clearest tests. A stronger economy matters, but stronger households are how we build a strong economy and know if it is working.
Jennifer Mairo is CEO Joy Inc. (Joy Incredible), where she champions transformational storytelling for social impact.