Nigeria’s fiscally centralized political economy limits the capacity of sub-national governments to mobilize resources and lead sustainable development initiatives.  These agelong structural and institutional barriers continue to constrain Nigeria’s vast economic potential.

While there has been incremental progress toward decentralization in recent years, many local and state authorities in Nigeria still lack the technical and institutional capacity to catalyze innovation and take advantage of emerging economic opportunities.

One of the strongest arguments for federalism lies in its capacity for policy innovation and diffusion — where successful sub-national policies can be scaled nationally. Insofar as policy entrepreneurs are key actors in the policy innovation process, they are front and centre of the NCfD journey across all 774 local government areas.

NCfD is a policy lab dedicated to mapping and pioneering new social and economic governance paradigms across Nigeria under three thematic pillars:

• Governance Innovation
• Policy Entrepreneurship
• Cluster-based Development