FG Urges States to Align Budgets With Education, Healthcare Priorities

The Federal Government has urged state governments to align their 2027 budgets with priorities in basic education and primary healthcare to improve service delivery and accountability.

The call comes as the government, through the World Bank-assisted HOPE Governance Programme (HOPE-GOV), begins a technical workshop for officials from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The workshop, scheduled to run in Abuja from October 12 to November 4, is designed to strengthen budget planning, resource allocation and implementation across the two critical sectors.

Joe Mutah, communications officer of the HOPE-GOV Programme, said the training would help state officials align their budgets with sectoral priorities and approved operational plans.

The exercise will focus on linking Primary Healthcare Annual Operational Plans with state budgets and ensuring that Basic Education Annual Consolidated Workplans are reflected in proposed spending.

Participants will also examine programme-based budgeting, project prioritisation and costing, mapping and geo-tagging, and the use of the National Chart of Accounts. The aim is to ensure that budget allocations are based on identified needs, available resources and measurable outcomes.

The initiative comes amid concerns over the utilisation of education funds. According to the Federal Government, more than ₦267 billion in released basic education intervention funds remained unspent as of August 2026, while over ₦65 billion in state counterpart funding was yet to be accessed.

The figures have renewed calls for better planning and accountability in the use of public resources intended to improve learning outcomes and access to essential healthcare.

The World Bank’s October 2026 Nigeria Development Update also found that state revenues had increased substantially, but spending on education and health had grown more slowly than expenditure on economic infrastructure.

The report noted that education’s share of total state expenditure fell from 14.9 per cent in 2021 to 12.1 per cent in 2025, while health spending remained broadly stable at about seven per cent.

The HOPE-GOV workshop will bring together budget and planning officials, state primary healthcare agencies, universal basic education boards and programme focal persons to identify challenges and develop practical solutions.

The Federal Government says the broader objective is to ensure that increased public revenues translate into better-funded schools, stronger primary healthcare facilities and improved services for Nigerians.