The Impact of COVID-19 on Business Enterprises in Nigeria

It is now over a year since the coronavirus outbreak was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. COVID-19 has claimed over 4 million lives and infected over 200 million people worldwide. The pandemic’s impact has touched almost every aspect of modern life, upending public health systems, the global economy, travel, supply chains, community and social ties and how we work. Unemployment has risen, and the global economy shrank by 4.4% in 2020, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates. The vast majority of nations around the world entered into recessions, having experienced negative GDP growth.

This report detail the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic. Disruption in operations was evident across enterprises with at least two thirds of businesses currently operating in the country having had to close down during the pandemic. The results also shed light on resistance to lockdown directives and regulation by the government, particularly among informal enterprises where a third continued to operate throughout the pandemic. Around one in ten businesses were still closed at the time of the survey. 

2020 Human Development Report

The 30th Anniversary 2020 Human Development Report is the latest in the series of global Human Development Reports published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) since 1990 as independent and analytically and empirically grounded discussions of major development issues, trends and policies.

The report conveys the complex connections between people and the planet, whose interdependence is a hallmark of the Anthropocene. The image evokes the many possibilities for people and planet to flourish if humanity makes different development choices, ones that aim to enhance equity, foster innovation and instill a sense of stewardship of nature.

UNDP Annual Report 2019

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the consequences of building societies on thebacks of people who have less; of weak health systems, tattered safety nets, violence against women and digital divides. It, like climate change, offers proof — if proof were still needed — that all life on Earth is connected. Last year, through an intense period of UN reform, UNDP worked hard to support the people of 170 countries and territories around the world to get on their feet and stay there.

We continued to push the boundaries of how we think, deliver, invest and manage as #NextGenUNDP to deliver on our Strategic Plan, reaffirming UNDP’s financial stability and taking steps to make UNDP nimbler and more responsive. Today, as we support the UN System and help countries prepare, respond, and recover in the face of COVID-19, our investments are proving their worth.

UNDP’s role is to create choices in the face of complexity, whatever the development context, and to create the conditions for new ways for governments, businesses and civil society to power ahead, together, faster and further than before.