AN ASSESSMENT OF THE RENEWED HOPE AGENDA AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA UNDER BOLA AHMED TINUBU ADMINISTRATION

Abstract

This paper assesses the relationship between President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's Renewed Hope Agenda and Nigeria's pursuit of sustainable development, using a qualitative conceptual review and documentary assessment of the eight presidential priority areas against recent policy documents, the 2025 Voluntary National Review (VNR), World Bank Nigeria Development Updates, UN and UNDP publications, and peer-reviewed studies from 2020 to 2026. The assessment finds significant progress in macroeconomic reform, revenue mobilisation, financial and foreign-exchange stabilisation, social investment, human-capital programmes, digital transformation and SDG institutional alignment, but this progress has not consistently translated into improved household welfare, as inflation, food insecurity, poverty, insecurity, weak public-service delivery, financing constraints and institutional capacity gaps continue to limit outcomes. Nigeria's 2025 VNR shows uneven SDG progress, with 18 of 52 assessed indicators improving, 16 stagnating, and 18 regressing. The paper argues that the Renewed Hope Agenda can meaningfully advance sustainable development only if policy reforms are converted into tangible gains in welfare, employment, service access, environmental resilience, institutional accountability and equitable opportunity, and it calls for greater policy coherence, clearer performance measures, stronger social protection, improved domestic resource mobilisation, accelerated human-capital and infrastructure investment, climate-sensitive development, more effective security governance, and better federal-state-local coordination.