The Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) formulated by the United Nations enjoined all nations to pursue eight basic policies to better the quality of life of majority of their people. The policy ends this month, to be followed by pursuit of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to eradicate poverty by 2030. Correspondent, SAM NWOKORO, x-rays how Nigeria has fared.
At the turn of the century in 2000, the United Nations Organisation (UN) formulated a set of policies for nations to use as template in formulating public policies to better the quality of lives of peoples the world over. The aim of the UN was that if nations use the template as policy directives, it would lead to halving rampaging poverty in the world, especially in the developing nations.
The eight MDGs include: provision of universal basic primary education, provision of shelter, security, child and maternal health, eradication of HIV/AIDS, provision of food and pursuit of environmental sustainability, eradication of the child killer diseases (polio, dysentery, diarrhoea, tetanus, diphtheria, cholera), including the eradication of malaria and typhoid fever. Towards the end of 2010, the term “Inclusive Growth” was added to the mandate.
To a large extent, some nations of the world have met at varying degrees the mandate of the MDGs. Nigeria for instance was certified polio-free by the World Health Organisation (WHO) last September owing to her diligent implementation of the mandate.
The concept of the MDG was formulated by the UN at the advent of the new millennium (year 2000) to help nations implement pro-poor policies. It was expedient for the UN to do that to mitigate the fall-out of free enterprise political economic ideologies which many nations in the now developing nations adopted in the 1980s, and which created deprivations and lots of poor people.
Nations have MDG offices as matter of administrative template to ensure that policies meet the demands of poor communities. Nigeria created the MDG office in 2005 to coordinate pro-poor policies. Every state and local government has MDG office. It operates an annual fiscal budget and executes pro-poor development goals directly through a network of development partners in the private sector.
MDG reviews
The Nigerian government has made only measured successes in implementing most of the mandates of the MDG. But according to development experts, a combination of poor oversight functions and corruption in the bureaucracy affected due realisation of the MDGs. According to an online journal, Development Today: “MDG implementation has been marred by legendary corruption in developing and less-developed nations of the South. In the past 15 years of implementing the MDGs, majority of African countries has occupied the top five positions in Transparency International (TI)’s Corruption Index. For three consecutive years (2005, 2006 and 2007), Nigeria topped all African countries in corruption rating, occupying 24th, 29th and 34th in world ranking during this period.
“Political structures in most countries in the less-developed countries encourage sharp practices, and budgets for MDG projects are most times diverted into private pockets. In Rwanda, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Tanzania and Costa Rica, money meant for poor rural communities stray into the hands of drug lords and political rebels.”
UBE
So far, Nigeria has made only measured progress in implementing the Universal Basic Education (UBE) mandate. Though children in Nigeria do not pay school fees in public schools, at least in the primary and junior secondary schools in most states, the Nigerian school system is still riddled with challenges such as insecurity, especially in the North East part of the country, reeling under the throes of Boko Haram terrorism. The problem of internally-displaced persons (IDPs) has also affected children’s enrolment in schools. Even in the South, inadequate teaching aids and teacher grievances affect the educational needs of most children. Thus, there is the compelling perception that Nigeria still needs to double her educational budget allocation in line with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)-recommended 45 per cent of annual budget for it to meet the UBE mandate. Also, UNESCO has called for increase in the number of teachers in the years ahead, if nations are to meet the UBE mandate.
Shelter
Most nations, Nigeria inclusive, have found provision of standard shelter a hard nut to crack. The UN estimates that about 65 per cent of city dwellers the world over are homeless, in addition to the fact that by 2030, the world would need at least 50 more cities to contain impending migration implosion as UN pursues peace overtures around the world to end wars and make the world a safer place.
In Nigeria, for instance, various federal government’s policies in the last seven years have been to bring in private sector players in the provision of houses, both in the urban and rural areas. The last Nigerian government under Goodluck Jonathan set up the African Mortgage Refinance Scheme. Also, there was massive empowerment of primary mortgage firms to make houses affordable.
The government has also initiated the Centenary City project in Abuja in line with the MDG mandate to decongest city centres. Despite these efforts, the challenges of shelter remains daunting dur to to the growing population with attendant migration.
Child and maternal health
Nigeria has achieved mileage in the area of child and maternal healthcare. Series of public health policies by federal and state governments have also improved maternal and child health.
However, problems of underfunding of the health sector, especially in the area of reproductive health, is still prevalent. Sicknesses such as cancer have been discovered to be one of the most rampaging health challenge in most developing economies like Nigeria. Nigeria recently re-started the in vitro fertilisation (IVF) therapy for the production of babies outside the womb at the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital (LUTH), a feat it achieved some more than 1 years ago before it suspended it.
TheNiche learnt that it was done in line with the UN mandate to improve maternal health in line with WHO and UN standards.
HIV/AIDS
The stigma associated with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is abating in Nigeria. And Africa’s most populous country has improved rating in HIV/AIDS testing and counselling. It has become common place in Nigeria for adolescents and young adults to avail themselves regular HIV/AIDS tests and counselling. The use of community-based organisations (CBOs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has helped in no small way. However, there is the problem of obtaining the anti-retroviral drug because of accurate certification by WHO.
Food security
Nigeria has also done policy reforms in the agriculture sector in an effort to ensure food security. Series of bail-outs have been done on the agriculture sector to encourage large-scale mechanised farming and rural farmers. Though Nigeria has achieved some level of food security and reserves, there is still the problem of massive mobilisation to pull in more participants into the target of making agriculture replace crude oil as Nigeria’s main revenue-earner.
Environmental sustainability
This is probably where Nigeria is far from meeting any UN target. Environmental issues border on politics as much as economics. The Boko Haram ravages in the North has thrown up a deluge of IDPs, one of the worst post-civil war refugee crises in peacetime. Apart from the physical assault by insurgents’ rifles on habitats and ecosystems, the trauma of bloodshed has been a visual terror on infants and other minors.
On the other flank, the perennial problems of pollution wrought by crude oil prospecting in the Niger Delta and the associated politics of militancy have added another angle to Nigeria’s wicked environment-hatred profile, the worst in global ranking, probably. Nigeria is yet to pay various damages awarded by both local and supranational environmental courts to communities in the Niger Delta, even as she continues to scout for more crude scavengers in the years ahead for proposed drilling on many more fields. She has, in fact, borrowed or is planning to borrow another $500 million for that purpose.
Security
Nigeria is still plagued by insecurity. It has been its lot since 2009 and is not about to abate. Nigeria is still investing in arms purchase to effectively prosecute insurgency in the North East. Issues about Nigeria’s political structures and fiscal systems still provoke sundry militant disturbances in various parts of the country, in the Niger Delta, North East and other small places where cattle rearers searching for greener pastures continue to mow down fellow compatriots with dane guns, worsening Nigeria’s security situation. Obviously, Nigeria’s rating on security falls short of UN prescriptions under the MDG mandate.
Inclusive growth
Here Nigeria has also keyed into policies to make most Nigerians participate in economic activities. There has been series of financial interventions in various sectors of the Nigerian economy over the years to broaden economic activities and give people hold on economic levers. However, infrastructural challenges have slowed this intention.
SDGs
The UN, after appraisal of the MDGs, came up with the SDGs which anchored on broader issues to deepen policy frameworks aimed at eradicating all forms of social and material inequality in the world by 2030. According to the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, it was aimed at “making this world a safer place”. He premised this on the fact that “economic inequality breeds all kinds of behaviours that threaten our world today”.
Some of those goals include: eradication of poverty, zero hunger, good health and wellbeing, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, and decent work and economic growth.
Other goods include: industry innovation and infrastructure, reduced inequality, sustainability cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate action, life below water, life on land, peace justice and strong institutions, and partnership for the goals.
These goals, according to experts, are a constellation and deepening of milestones attained by all nations in MDG implementation. Whereas the MDG targets to halve poverty by 2015, the SDG starting from January 2016 hopes to eradicate poverty in at least half member countries, and possibly eradicate it by 2050 all over the world.
Now that President Muhammadu Buhari has his cabinet in place, the challenge, experts posit, is having government commit to pursuing these goals to the letter.