Transition from MDGs to SDGs in Nigeria

The challenge of development is arguably one of the greatest challenges that has dominated world history. Human beings have always been concerned about how to improve their condition of living and better confront the forces of nature and the environment. Over the years, a lot of progress has been made on how to deal with the challenges of development and improve the standard and condition of living of human beings.

The past five decades have witnessed monumental changes in the world. Global economic wealth has increased sevenfold and average incomes have tripled. Yet, poverty has increased to record high levels. The major problem is that wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few people while a majority of the people lives in abject poverty. The United Nations Development Programme in its 1998 report documented that the three richest people in the world have assets that exceed the combined Gross Domestic Product of the 48 least developed countries. In 2014, 85 richest people in the world had the same wealth as the poorest 50 per cent (3.4 billion people). By 2015, 80 richest people have the same wealth as the poorest 50 per cent. In the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, income inequality is at its highest level in the last 50 years. The average income of the richest 10 per cent of the population is about nine times that of the poorest 10 per cent. It has been documented that the drivers of inequalities include globalisation, skilled biased technological change and changes in countries policy approaches (ascendancy of neo-liberalism).

In order to address the problem of poverty and promote sustainable development, the United Nations Millennium Declaration was adopted in September 2000 at the largest ever gathering of heads of heads of States committing countries both rich and poor to do all they can to eradicate poverty, promote human dignity and equality and achieve peace, democracy and environmental stability. The goals include those dedicated to eradicating poverty, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and developing a global partnership for development. There were eight goals namely:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability and
8. Develop a global partnership for development

Nigeria embraced the Millennium Development Goals and set up an office and several programmes for the achievement of the MDGs. But it was confronted with a lot of challenges including credibility of data, resources, transparency and accountability, programme and policy co-ordination and poor commitment at subnational levels. But the opportunity of the MDGs was positively utilised by Nigeria manifested in achievement of some of the goals e.g. the goal relating to hunger, improvement in primary school enrolment and reduction of HIV prevalent rates. However, there are limitations of utilising the MDGs as a framework for delivering or measuring development. First, they risk simplifying what development is about, by restricting the goals to what is measurable. Many aspects of development cannot be easily measured. Second, some of the goals are very modest e.g. the goal to half the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day by 2015 and the target to achieve a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020. Finally, some of the targets do not address the problems holistically. For instance, the MDG on education talks only of a full course of primary schooling with no reference to secondary and tertiary education.

Over the past several decades, there are a lot of lessons that has been learnt on how a country can accelerate its development. In 1990, the United Nations’ Human Development Report focused on development and pointed out that people are the real wealth of nations. In 2010, the UN HDR report reviewed the progress for the past two decades and made some conclusions that will be very helpful in the development of any nation. First and foremost, the report shows that human development is about sustaining positive outcomes steadily over time and combating processes that impoverish people or underpin oppression and structural injustice hence the principles of equity, sustainability and empowerment are important. Second, the report shows that almost all countries of the world have progressed in human development measured by the human development index (life expectancy, schooling and income). Of 135 countries studied, only three-the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia and Zimbabwe- have a lower HDI in 2010 than in 1970. Third, the report shows that there is no significant correlation between economic growth and improvement in health and education. In other words, economic growth can occur without improvement in the health and education of citizens. In a similar vein, there can be substantial improvement in the condition of citizens without fast growth with the right policy, innovation and citizen participation. For instance, the Indian state of Kerala, Costa Rica, Cuba and Sri Lanka attained much higher human development than other countries at their incomes. Fourth, the report shows that institutions are a key determinant of human development. However, “the policies and reforms compatible with progress vary widely across institutional settings and depend on structural and political constraints.” In addition, the report argues that “markets are very bad at ensuring the provision of public goods, such as security, stability, health and education.” It therefore advocates regulation which requires a capable state as well as political commitment. Finally, the report opines that human development is not only about health, education and income-it is also about people’s active engagement in shaping development, equity and sustainability, intrinsic aspects of the freedom people have to lead lives they have reason to value.[viii]

These lessons are important for Nigeria. First and foremost, any development agenda for Nigeria must incorporate strategies to combat the processes that impoverish Nigerians and put in place mechanism to promote equity, sustainability and empowerment. Second, the agenda must show that it will improve life expectancy, education and income. Third, the agenda must not only lead to economic growth but it must be inclusive with the right policy, innovation and citizen participation. Fourth, the agenda must develop leadership but it must also grow institutions. In addition, public administration reform is key to enhance the provision of public goods such as security, health, education, water, energy, housing and transport. Finally, the agenda must promote active citizenship.

At the end of the MDG period, it is clear that Nigeria did not meet most of the targets. The incidence of poverty increased from 54.4 per cent in 2004 to 65.1 per cent in 2010. About 10 million children of school going age are out of school. In the 2015 elections, there was only one female presidential candidate; four female vice-presidential candidates, one main governorship contender and five deputy governorships; and 15 per cent of 1, 774 House of Representatives and 17 per cent of 747 Senate seats. The end result is that while the seventh National Assembly had 27 women, only eight of them were re-elected for the 8th assembly. The percentage of women in the National Assembly is one of the lowest in Africa. There has been a significant reduction in infant mortality and maternal mortality but the gap between current situation and the desirable are still very large. Access to safe water and sanitation and other environmental challenges are still huge. Nigeria is still an aids orphan compared to other African countries.

Despite the poor profile of Nigeria in terms of achievement of the MDGs, there are some actions that have worked well which need to be scaled up in the transition to SDGs:

1. Budgetary allocation to the MDG specific projects since 2006 made Nigerians to focus on the achievement of the MDGs.
2. The institution of Monitoring and Evaluation of the MDG projects is a positive development which has been adopted by the country and incorporated into the Vision 20:2020 economic development blueprint. The involvement of the civil society in the monitoring of the projects is a particularly good innovation.
3. The establishment of an office to guide the MDGs. This should transit to the SDGs.
4. The OSSAP-MDG is guided by a clear strategy to achieve its mandate. This worked very well and state governments, local governments, Ministries, Departments and Agencies need to learn from it.

But there are several areas of improvement going forward including the following:

1. There is the need for increased budgetary allocation to investment clusters that will accelerate development especially health, education, agriculture and infrastructure. No nation serious about development can spend over 70 per cent of its budget on recurrent expenditure.

To be concluded on Wednesday

Dr. Igbuzor, a policy analyst and development strategist, is Executive Director, African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development.

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