BRIDGING DEMOGRAPHIC DATA GAPS THROUGH POPULATION PROJECTIONS

Abstract

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development launched in 2015 aims to eradicate poverty and hunger, improve health and well-being, quality education, achieve greater gender equality among other goals in order to achieve sustainable development by 2030.  Regrettably, the modest progress recorded prior to and since 2015 towards realizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is being eroded by the covid-19 pandemic since 2020. Moreover, the adverse economic impact of the pandemic is likely to undermine the supply of funds for timely collection of good quality data required to guide policies and development planning. Using the 2006 Nigeria Census and the 2018 Nigeria Health and Demographic Survey data, this paper provides reliable population estimates and projections for Nigeria for the period 2015-2035. The data are also disaggregated into special population groups to provide requisite denominators to support calculation of appropriate indicators for effective tracking of progress towards achievement of the SDGs.