Poverty and malnutrition are persistent problems in Africa. Alleviation of these closely-related socioeconomic problems must be guided by knowledge of their spatial distribution and relationships to biophysical and development factors. Two country-wide surveys, one on rural livelihoods, poverty and food demand, and the other on food consumption and child nutrition, were carried out in Nigeria by IITA, and the results mapped in order to assist interpretation.The lack of reliable recent census statistics in Nigeria complicates the process of mapping socio-economic variables. The Small Area Estimation technique has been adapted for regression of poverty and nutrition indicators against biophysical and socio-economic variables such as rainfall, soil fertility and travel time to markets and applied to groups of Nigerian States. Where no significant correlation was observed, values were interpolated geostatistically. Preliminary maps of poverty and nutrition are presented, and relationships of these indices to each other and to biophysical and socioeconomic factors is discussed.

Livelihoods; Nutrition; Plant Health; Plant Production

Poverty; Malnutrition; Socioeconomic Development; Livelihoods

Africa; West Africa

Nigeria