CAN NIGERIA STILL MEET MDG's TARGETS?

Recently, I was drawn into a discourse with a group of political scientists on whether Nigeria could still achieve fully, the Millennium Development Goals targets or not. At the end, the participants were at a crossroads in reaching a consensus but the exercise still paid off in providing a clue on how to move closer to development.

We recall that in September 2000, about 189 heads of state and government had gathered to reaffirm their faith in the United Nations and to adopt the UN Millennium Declaration. The eight key goals and 21 targets that were  to be attained on or before 2015 are: eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, achievement of universal primary education, promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women, reduction in child mortality rates, improvement in maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS pandemic, malaria and other diseases, environmental sustainability as well as developing a global partnership for development.

Almost 14 years after, Nigeria’s attainment of the set goals has been rated differently from good, bad to worse, depending on who is saying what but one thing that is clear to all and sundry is that life has not been a bed of roses under the current harsh economic climate prevailing in the nation.

At a Water Summit held recently, President Goodluck Jonathan stated that Nigeria needs over N350 billion annually to meet its water and sanitation targets while Vice President, Mohammed Sambo, at a Stakeholders’ Meeting in Abuja said “Although Nigeria has made significant strides in reducing maternal mortality from figures that were above 1000/100,000 live births in 1990 to 545/100,000 live births in 2008, attainment of the health MDGs still remain a challenge in Nigeria, as the current annual reduction in under-five mortality of 4% is far below the 13% annual reduction needed to bend the curve to attain Goal 4 by 2015”.

For the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation, Nigeria is among the 38 countries that have already met the internationally-set hunger eradication targets ahead of 2015! According to the Director-General of FAO, José Graziano da Silva, “these countries are leading the way to a better future. They are proof that with strong political will, coordination and cooperation, it is possible to achieve rapid and lasting reductions in hunger”.

“The MDG Report 2013: Assessing Progress in Africa toward the Millennium Development Goals” noted that Africa is the world’s second fastest growing region and bemoans that its rate of poverty reduction is insufficient to attain set target of halving extreme poverty by 2015.

It assesses four goals as “on-track” and another four as “off-track”. On-track are the MDG 2 goal of achieving universal primary education; MDG 3 of promoting gender equality and empowering  women; MDG 6 of combating HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases; and  MDG 8, which is centred on global partnership for development.

On the other hand, off-track targets are: MDG 1 that covers the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger; MDG 4 – reduction in child mortality; MDG 5 – improvement in maternal health; and MDG 7 – ensuring environmental sustainability.

Nigeria’s Country Director of Actionaid, Hussain Abdu had told FrontiersNews that Nigeria may not achieve the MDGs because not much has come from government investments; as over 90 per cent of funds for the fight against HIV/AIDS is coming from the NGOs and donor agencies.

The status of MDGs in Nigeria indicates that the country is unlikely to meet most of the targets because the incidence of poverty is reported to have increased from 54.4 per cent in 2004 to 65.1 per cent in 2010 while about 10 million children of school- going age are out of school.

In the 2011 elections, women representation at the National Assembly was found to have declined and the national average is about 6 per cent which is one of the lowest in Africa while climate-related shocks, as manifested by extreme harsh weather conditions, claimed livelihoods and exacerbated Africa’s food insecurity, resulting in a high incidence of strife, widespread hunger, underweight children and extremely low dietary consumption patterns. The World Bank says over 70 per cent of Nigerian adults are poor.

Even though successive governments have worked assiduously in ensuring that compulsory Universal Basic Primary Education becomes the right of every Nigerian child, achievements so far recorded in the sector leave much to be desired. The National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education has stated that 35 per cent of Nigeria’s estimated 160 million population, about 56 million is considered to be illiterate. Other contending educational issues include inadequate funding, examination malpractices, poor performances recorded in public examinations and industrial unrest.

At a sensitisation workshop on the Conditional Grant Scheme, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDGs, Dr Precious Gbeneol, announced the scaling-up of the Conditional Grants Scheme to 250 local governments across the country from 148 LGAs. Benefiting LGAs are entitled to N100 million annually that are counterpart-funded by the states, even though the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on MDGs, Alhassan Doguwa, had accused some state governors of tying down funds meant for the MDGs, making the execution of projects impossible.

 

The Ondo State Governor, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, whose state was adjudged to have recorded phenomenal success in the programme has advocated  strong political will and readiness to commit resources to the attainment of the Goals. Mimiko, who stated this recently at the Nigerian side event of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on the award-winning “Abiye” Safe Motherhood success story, called on African leaders to be ready to commit needed resources to combat maternal and infant mortality, which are primary sources of dysfunctions in family and economic development.

Many observers, however, believe that as the year 2015 is less than two years away, African countries are still off-track in terms of achieving the goals and should rather begin to think beyond the magic year. This argument is based on the assumption that in 2000 when the implementation of the MDGs began, there was relative stability, prosperity while other socio-economic conditions were favourable at forging agreements on global targets for development unlike in 2015 target date, when the world is presumed to encounter more complex problems of climate change, population pressures, increasing urbanisation, multi-polar world, among others.

The post 2015 development agenda should certainly recognise the changed context of the world, the changing geography of poverty and the need not only to improve the content but also put in place an accountability framework.  Additionally, the development agenda should recognise the changed demographics of the world, youth issues, terrorism and ensure better co-ordination and synergy among all the tiers of government.

 

By

Kupoluyi Adewale,

Federal University Of Agriculture (FUNAB)

Abeokuta , Nigeria.

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About Unknown

Eddy Uwoghiren is a Medical Student at the University of Benin, Benin city, Nigeria. He is a contributor to several prints and web media. He freelances with nine newspapers in Nigeria. Eddy is very passionate about medical journalism. He wants to find out why some communities are more healthy than others, develop skills needed to cover health and medicine anywhere in the world, for any audience , in any medium.