FG Pushes Care Economy Formalisation For Jobs, Social Protection

By Hannah Yemisi

The federal government, through the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, signalled a policy shift towards formalising the country’s care economy at the recent National Caregivers Summit 2026 in Abuja, held during National Children’s Day activities. Honourable Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, said that government was repositioning caregiving from informal, unpaid labour into a professionalised sector anchored on standards, certification, institutional frameworks and investment pathways.

Sulaiman-Ibrahim disclosed that government was leveraging the Nigerian Education Data Infrastructure to digitalise social development data for real-time tracking of vulnerabilities, exclusion indicators and education gaps. She linked the policy direction to Nigeria’s demographic pressures, including a growing youth population, rising elderly care demand, gender-based violence risks and persistent child marriage concerns.

“The formalisation of the care economy would create employment opportunities for young Nigerians, particularly in childcare, special needs support and community caregiving services,” the Minister said.

Chief Executive Officer of Caring Africa, Blessing Adesiyan, argued that Nigeria currently lacks “a national care policy and standardised childcare systems”, alongside weak eldercare, disability support and workforce pathways.

United Nations Women Representative to Nigeria and Economic Community of West African States, Beatrice Eyong, framed the care economy as foundational to women’s economic and political participation. “Women need care and support systems to help them succeed in the roles they are expected to play,” Eyong said.

DECISION HIGHLIGHT
The federal government is attempting to elevate caregiving into a recognised economic sector tied to employment generation, social infrastructure and human capital policy. The approach combines workforce certification, institutional coordination and social data infrastructure.

DECISION MEMO
The summit signals that Abuja is beginning to interpret caregiving less as a welfare issue and more as an economic productivity variable. The policy framing matters. Nigeria’s labour market continues to absorb millions of young entrants annually with limited formal-sector expansion, while unpaid domestic and community care work remains structurally invisible within national economic accounting.

Formalising care services potentially creates a labour-intensive employment corridor requiring comparatively lower capital intensity than manufacturing or large-scale infrastructure sectors. Childcare, elderly care, disability support and community caregiving collectively represent decentralised service markets capable of absorbing semi-skilled and vocational labour if regulatory systems emerge.

However, the government’s emphasis on certification and institutionalisation also reveals a recognition that the sector’s fragmentation currently limits scalability, investment credibility and wage formalisation. Without national standards, care work remains largely informal, weakly remunerated and excluded from policy financing structures.

The use of the Nigerian Education Data Infrastructure introduces another layer. By linking social vulnerabilities to digital data systems, government appears to be constructing a more targeted social protection architecture capable of identifying households requiring interventions. This creates future possibilities for conditional support programmes, labour matching and localised care service deployment.

Yet the summit also exposed structural gaps. Adesiyan’s intervention highlighted the absence of a national care policy, weak childcare systems and minimal care infrastructure investment. That suggests the current initiative remains largely agenda-setting rather than execution-stage reform.

The broader macroeconomic implication is that the care economy is increasingly being framed globally as productive infrastructure rather than recurrent welfare expenditure. Nigeria’s adoption of that language indicates policy convergence with international social investment models promoted by multilateral institutions and gender-focused development agencies.

DATA BOX

• Event: National Caregivers Summit 2026
• Location: Abuja
• Convened by: Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development
• Core policy thrust: Professionalisation of caregiving sector
• Government tool referenced: Nigerian Education Data Infrastructure
• Targeted sub-sectors: Childcare, eldercare, disability care, special needs support, community caregiving
• Key structural gaps identified:
  • No national care policy
  • No standardised childcare systems
  • Weak elder and disability care structures
  • Limited formal workforce pathways
  • Inadequate care infrastructure investment
• Policy rationale: Employment generation, social protection strengthening, women’s economic participation, demographic pressure management

WHO WINS / WHO LOSES
Potential Winners:

• Young job seekers entering service-based employment markets
• Women requiring structured support systems for workforce participation
• Private vocational training providers and certification institutions
• Development finance and social impact investors targeting gender and inclusion sectors
• Technology and data firms linked to social infrastructure systems

Potential Losers:

• Informal operators unable to comply with future certification standards
• Households dependent on unpaid domestic care arrangements if formal services become cost-intensive
• State institutions if implementation remains underfunded or fragmented

POLICY SIGNALS
The government is gradually broadening economic policy beyond infrastructure and industrial production into social economy sectors. The framing of caregiving as productivity infrastructure indicates an attempt to integrate gender, labour and social protection policies into mainstream economic planning.

The emphasis on digital vulnerability tracking also signals a likely expansion of data-driven welfare administration and targeted intervention models.

INVESTOR SIGNAL
The care economy may evolve into an investible social infrastructure segment if regulatory clarity emerges. Areas with potential medium-term commercial viability include childcare centres, eldercare facilities, vocational caregiver training, disability support services, edtech-linked care certification and community health support systems.

However, investment readiness remains weak without national standards, funding frameworks and enforceable operational guidelines. Early-stage positioning is likely to remain donor-driven or impact-investment-led rather than conventionally commercial.

RISK RADAR

• Absence of national care policy framework
• Weak fiscal capacity for sustained social infrastructure financing
• Informal labour dominance may resist standardisation
• Certification without wage protections could deepen labour precarity
• Data infrastructure expansion raises implementation and governance risks
• Institutional overlap across ministries and agencies may slow execution
• Social care demand could outpace available trained workforce capacity