POVERTY REDUCING IMPACT OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN NIGERIA

The study examines the poverty reducing impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Nigeria between 1992 and 2016, sectoral inflow of FDI, as well as the factors preventing the inflow of FDI into the economy making it difficult to achieve economic growth and development. Secondary data was sourced from World Development Indicator (WDI). The regression analysis of ordinary least square (OLS) was adopted to examine the poverty reducing impact of foreign direct investment. Augmented Dickey Fuller Test (ADF) unit root test was used to test for stationarity of the data series and ARDL was thereafter adopted because of the level of stationarity of the variables. The regression result revealed that there is little correlation relationship between foreign direct investment and poverty reduction and the ADF result showed the presence of stationarity among the variables data set, while the ARDL result confirmed the existence of foreign direct investment (FDI) has a significant negative effect on poverty reduction in the short run at 5% level of significance. The study established that foreign direct investment as an engine of economic growth and also key in alleviating poverty has often been directed to sectors with low impact on poverty reduction. The study recommends that government should intensify efforts to encourage the inflow of foreign direct investment to sectors that has very high capacity for poverty reduction, formulate favourable policies and increase the ease of doing business in the country. FDI inflows should be diversified from oil sector to non -oil sector to ensure it generate more employment opportunities for poverty reduction.