Abuja: The International Budget Partnership (IBP) has stressed the need for citizen-led budgeting, saying Nigeria’s improving macroeconomic figures mean little if public funds do not translate into quality services for citizens. Speaking at the launch of PULSE Summit 2026 on Thursday, the Country Director, IBP, Olayinka Babalola, said the summit was designed to tackle the disconnect between government revenue and what ordinary Nigerians experience.
According to News Agency of Nigeria, PULSE-Public Finance: Unlocking Last Mile Services, is an initiative focused on connecting budget data with citizen experience to improve service delivery in the country. The theme for PULSE Summit 2026 is: ‘From Approved Budgets to the Last Mile: Examining Budget Implementation in Nigeria’. Babalola emphasized the importance of ensuring that revenues, loans, and approved budgets deliver quality services at the last mile to Nigerian citizens.
While noting that Nigeria’s economy was showing positive signs, Babalola explained that the Real Gross Domestic Products growth hit 4.434 percent in Q2 2026, while headline inflation eased to 15.4 percent in July, and external reserves reached 53.8 billion dollars by the end of August. Despite these impressive numbers, she pointed out the persistent disconnect between macro indicators and micro-level outcomes for regular Nigerians.
The country director cited government interventions like NELFUND student loans, MREF mortgage financing, and tax exemptions for low-income earners as positive steps. However, she stated that these steps do not substitute for the delivery of quality, affordable, and timely public services at the last mile through annual budgets. Babalola suggested five actions the government must take to close this gap: citizens’ consultation, fixing budget credibility, simplifying public finance communication, strengthening oversight with consequences, and using both data types.
She stressed that decisions should be based on both official government data and citizen-generated data, giving equal weight to quantitative and qualitative data. Babalola explained that governments are appointed to manage public resources on behalf of citizens and are thus answerable to them. Community priorities must reflect in how expenditures are determined and how borrowing is incurred, especially at state and local government levels.
Babalola clarified that the summit was not meant to be just another conference but focused on ensuring that public finance works for everyone, particularly the most marginalized. The mission of IBP has been pursued for nine years, working with community-based organizations in Nigeria. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the summit 2026 was organized by International Budget Partnership Nigeria, a non-governmental organization involved in making government budgets more transparent and efficient.