“Where do I leave my baby?”
It’s the unspoken question that trails every Nigerian woman on the brink of a new job, a promotion or the daily hustle that keeps food on a family table. With roughly 31 million children under five, Nigeria’s future is quite literally toddling around in living-rooms, improvised crèches and the backs of market stalls. Yet fewer than ten percent of these children occupy licensed, quality-assured care. The rest sit in an informal patchwork held together by goodwill, under-paid caregivers and exhausted grandmothers.
Last week, inside the United Nations House in Abuja, something shifted. Caring Africa, in partnership with The Baby Lounge and UN Women, working alongside the Federal Capital Territory’s Women Affairs Secretariat hosted the Child-Care Growth Lab, a four-day sprint of policy co-design, live clinics and field tours that brought together 30 regulators and more than 50 crèche owners. It felt less like a workshop and more like an emergency operating theatre: diagnosis, treatment, prognosis—no detours.
The Maze We Found. Operators told us licensing can take nine months and a half-dozen ministry stamps; half the centres in the room had never secured a permit at all. Fees overlap; guidance shifts; inspections arrive, if they arrive, after a haphazard opening or harm is done. Predictably, capital is scarce. Banks view the sector as risky and providers, forced to price low for affordability, cannot invest in training or fire-safety upgrades. Parents, picking between “cheap” and “trustworthy,” often choose grandmother. Women’s workforce participation stalls; the economy bleeds talent.
What We Proposed. First, clarity: a minimum standard of care for childcare centers that outlines in plain language, covering ratios, safety, play-based curriculum and child-protection rules. Hang it on every wall from Kubwa to Kuje.
Second, speed: a single online e-licensing portal modelled after Rwanda’s IremboGov, that processes an application, schedules a pre-opening multi-disciplinary inspection of health, safety, nutrition, and issues a provisional license within 30 days. No courier envelopes. No office hopping.
Third, transparency: an aggregated list of vetted, trusted, and reliable childcare providers within the FCT that gives families peace of mind.
Finally, people: a National Care Academy that certifies caregivers in 40 hours and trains owners in finance, marketing and continuous quality improvement (CQI).
The regulators in the room, like Women Affairs FCT left with a list of short, mid, and long-term recommendations on how to make it easier for childcare operators to build, launch, and scale their businesses. Childcare operators left with marketing and operational excellence plans that could breathe life into empty seats. The Lagos State government has already asked for its own Growth Lab.
Nigeria aims to diversify its economy beyond crude oil and harness a demographic dividend. None of that is possible if educated women retreat from the labour market because “day-care is a gamble.” UNICEF estimates that universal access to quality early-childhood services can raise a nation’s GDP by as much as one percent through female employment alone. Add the long-term benefits of brain development, and the compound interest is staggering.
A skeptic might argue that government budgets are stretched thin. That’s precisely why a public-private partnership makes sense. Digital portals are cheaper than paper bureaucracy; blended finance shares risk; and transparent data gives parents, our most vigilant auditors, the power to hold providers accountable.
In July, Caring Africa and the FCT Secretariat will launch a beta version of the e-licensing portal. We also aim to train 3000 providers nationwide by 2026, adding 20,000 licensed seats and giving at least 10,000 women the confidence to stay in or return to work.
But momentum is fragile. We need federal legislators to adopt the minimum standard of care as a national baseline. We need state governments to integrate the portal into their service stacks. We need banks to fund childcare operators, and help them stay in business. Care work indeed powers all work. Above all, we need Nigerians to demand that child-care move from the private agony of individual households to the centre of economic policy.
During the Growth Lab, one operator described the programme as “Business School with activation codes.” Another whispered, “I didn’t know the government was rooting for us.” That trust between state and citizen, between parent and provider is the most precious outcome of all.
Nigeria has tried educating girls, funding SMEs and boosting maternal health. All worthy pursuits. Yet without safe, affordable, high-quality child-care, we are filling a bucket whose base is cracked. Close the care gap and we seal that bucket, capturing the talent, tax revenue and human potential we keep spilling.
The blueprint is on the table. The checklist fits on a wall. The portal fits on a smartphone. What remains is collective will.
Blessing Adesiyan is a chemical engineer turned care-economy advocate. She founded Caring Africa to build a thriving care economy on the continent, and close the care gap for good.
