Poverty Incidence and Social Protection Programs in Rural Ebonyi State: An Economic Evaluation

Social protection programs represent the state's primary instrument for addressing extreme poverty and providing economic buffers for vulnerable rural households, yet their effectiveness in Nigeria's rural geographies remains empirically contested. This study evaluates the effectiveness of social protection programs on poverty reduction outcomes in rural Ebonyi State from 2019 to 2024, focusing on the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) and conditional cash transfer schemes. The study is grounded in the Social Protection Floor Framework, which advocates universal access to social guarantees that prevent households from falling into or remaining in extreme deprivation. A survey research design was adopted, targeting rural households in six LGAs of Ebonyi State. From an estimated population of 60,000 rural households, a sample of 397 respondents was drawn using multi-stage stratified random sampling. Structured questionnaires and poverty scorecards served as data instruments. Findings reveal that only 19 percent of identified poor households in surveyed communities were enrolled in any form of formal social protection program, indicating significant coverage gaps. Beneficiary households showed a statistically significant 23 percent improvement in food security scores relative to non-beneficiaries. Program leakage, elite capture, and weak identification mechanisms reduced overall program efficiency. The study concludes that social protection programs in rural Ebonyi State face critical design and implementation gaps that limit poverty reduction impact. It is recommended that the state government strengthen beneficiary identification systems using community-based verification and enforce accountability mechanisms against program leakage.

Keywords: Poverty incidence, social protection, rural Ebonyi State, NSIP, cash transfers