Nigeria, Udoma and MDGs

Recently, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udo Udoma, has given reasons why Nigeria and other African countries could not achieve the targets set under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), blaming the development on Africa’s over-reliance on foreign aids. At the high level policy dialogue on development planning in Africa, organised by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the minister had noted that though Nigeria had made some progress in achieving some of the targets but it could not meet the expectations because of lack of political will to implement policies.
Udoma, as a way forward in implementation of the 2030 new targets for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), has assured that the Federal Government had concluded plans to ensure that the SDGs were mainstreamed into the annual budgets at both the federal and state levels while other actions taken in ensuring effective mainstreaming the SDGs.We recall that in 2000, at the Millennium Summit, the world leaders had adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration, which committed various nations to a new global partnership that was aimed at reducing extreme poverty and other time-bound targets with a stated deadline of 2015. The MDGs became the world’s time-bound and quantifiable targets for addressing extreme poverty, as seriously manifested in the form of hunger, inadequate shelter, healthcare and income. MDGs initiative was meant to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, while aiming to achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, while ensuring environmental and climatic sustainability, among others.
Generally, Nigeria has been adjudged to have missed the targets, despite the contending positions. Various post-2015 reports have revealed that the indices that contributed to the poor implementation of the programme include the absence of correct and reliable data, wrong assumptions, healthcare workers’ industrial actions and unrest and the absence of a virile National Health Insurance Scheme. More importantly, it is instructive to add that the inability of Nigeria to attain some of the MDGs targets can largely be blamed on poor leadership. Not only that, the failure caused by the late commencement of the programme in Nigeria was also part of factors that contributed to the failure of the country to attain the set targets. The protracted insecurity in the North-East was another big setback that inhibited the progress of project implementation across the country because of the many areas that could not be visited as well as the restive Niger Delta areas that were under constant attacks and made it possible for developmental projects to reach them.
This time around, there is the need for critical assessment of where we got it wrong, learn from experiences and forge ahead with lessons learnt. Key sectors should be fully integrated into the programme to allow for leveraging of resources and development of sustainable processes and healthcare systems through periodic evaluation process, training and retraining of personnel as well as the promotion of accountability and transparency in the public system. As Nigeria moves from the MDGs to the SDGs, government should provide political support and policy guidance to make the realisation possible by paying serious attention to measures that would promote peace, stability and good governance.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has defined good governance as the embodiment of the rule of law, transparency, participation, equity, effectiveness and efficiency, accountability and possessing the strategic vision in the exercise of political, economic and administrative authority, just as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has listed eight major characteristics of any government that professes good governance should epitomise. It should be: participatory, consensus-oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable, inclusive and follows the rule of law. Similarly, the Nigeria’s Vision 20: 2020 document also identified good governance to mean accountability in all its ramifications, rule of law, unfettered judiciary, freedom of expression and free-choice in political association. Special focus should certainly be placed on education, health and the environment, as the post-2015 development agenda should truly recognise the changed context of the world, the changing geography of poverty and the need not only to improve the content.
While I agree with Udoma on the negative effects of foreign aids, he should go a step further in harvesting these points by ensuring that the country has a better outing in SDGs. He should not also forget that not much could be achieved by any country, under an atmosphere where corruption is the order of the day. Corruption makes it impossible for public resources to be judiciously and legally utilised. Hence, the Federal Government’s anti-corruption programme should be further strengthened by ensuring that public integrity is accorded the necessary priority.
As a way out, the active and direct engagement of the citizens becomes more relevant in promoting transparency and accountability in the public sector for good governance and in line with the United Nations SDGs. This, they can do by taking more interest in politics. The era of docility and lukewarm disposition to public affairs should be gone. Governance should be of paramount interest to all and sundry. That is what I think should really be the focus as Nigeria transits from MDGs to SDGs!
• Kupoluyi writes from Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), adewalekupoluyi@yahoo.co.uk