Nigeria ranks 143rd out of 145 economies in the World Economic Forum’s latest assessment of gender equality in political empowerment, with 96.3% of the gender gap in the area still to be closed.
The finding is contained in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2026, published on Wednesday, which assesses gender parity across economic participation, education, health and political empowerment.
Nigeria recorded an overall gender parity score of 67.6%, an improvement of 2.7 percentage points from 64.9% in 2025. Its overall position also improved by 10 places compared with the previous edition.
However, the report identified political empowerment as Nigeria’s weakest area of performance.
According to the Forum, Nigeria has closed only 3.7% of its political gender gap, leaving 96.3% unclosed. The country ranks third from the bottom among the 145 economies assessed on the overall index in this dimension.
The report says women’s representation in both ministerial and parliamentary positions remains below the 10% parity threshold, with both indicators recording declines of more than one percentage point over the longer term.
The political empowerment index measures women’s representation in parliament and ministerial positions, as well as the proportion of years in which a country has had a woman as head of state.
Economic progress
Despite its poor showing in political empowerment, Nigeria recorded stronger results in some other areas.
The country’s economic participation and opportunity score rose to 76.6%, while its labour-force participation parity improved substantially over the past two decades.
The Forum said parity in labour-force participation increased from 53.5% in 2006 to 97.4% in 2026. Estimated earned-income parity also rose from 41.1% to 77.1% over the same period.
Nigeria also achieved full parity in secondary school enrolment in the latest assessment, while its health and survival score stood at 96.2%.
Overall, Nigeria’s gender parity score has risen from 61% when the index was first published in 2006 to 67.6% in 2026.
Global picture
The World Economic Forum assessed 145 economies in its 2026 report, which marks the 20th edition of the Global Gender Gap Index.
Globally, 69.2% of the gender gap has been closed. But political empowerment remains the weakest of the four dimensions, with only 22.1% of the global gap closed.
The Forum said political empowerment has made the greatest long-term progress since the index was introduced in 2006, but recent gains have begun to reverse.
No economy has achieved full gender parity across all four dimensions, and the Forum estimates that global parity remains 120 years away at the current rate of progress.
For Nigeria, the latest figures highlight a contrast between improvements in economic participation and education and the continuing gap in women’s representation in political decision-making.
