SDGs: Will Nigeria meet the 2030 deadline?

LEON USIGBE examines efforts to reduce poverty and improve the quality of life in Nigeria through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

There are 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets that countries around the world should achieve by 2030. Some of them include ending poverty, hunger, improving health, ensuring quality education, gender equality, water and sanitation, energy for all and sustainable economic growth. In Nigeria, responsibility for coordinating the achievement of the goals rests with the President's Senior Special Assistant (SSA) on the SDGs, Ms. Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, who recently provided an update on the country's efforts to ensure that the stated objectives are met at the agreed time.

2023 is eight years away, but the SDGs are already celebrating success in four key areas. These are the establishment of multi-layered and multi-cluster institutional frameworks for better coordination and the process of integrating the SDGs, the existence of a good policy planning framework, the scaling up of the conditional grant program and the identification and targeting of poor and vulnerable groups in the country.

Poverty is a daunting problem in Nigeria. Some statistics put the percentage of people living below the poverty line in the country at 70, falling into the poverty capital of the world. The SDGs, however, have deployed their resources as part of the overall effort to change this depressing narrative.

So to reduce poverty, 23 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have so far received N24,450,000,000.00 from conditional grant programs as an incentive to invest more of their resources in areas of national development priorities under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the SDGs. The fund, disbursed from 2015 to date, was introduced in 2007 with a walking grant of 50% from the federal government and 50% from participating states.

According to Ms. Orelope-Adefulire, the grants were targeted at education, health, water and sanitation projects "and aimed to implement pro-poor projects in consultation with the beneficiaries."

Specifically, she revealed that the money had been spent on setting up 732 water and sanitation facilities; 494 health facilities (new structures and renovation/rehabilitation); 616 educational institutions (new construction, renovation/rehabilitation of a block of classrooms; 1,150 women and men were empowered/trained in vocational skills, such as sewing, knitting, making detergents and ointments, etc.). She also said that there are special intervention projects in geopolitical areas, an initiative, she said, aimed at strategic investment to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs in Nigeria.

The Presidential Assistant said, “Between 2016 and 2021, a record number of projects have been implemented, aimed at providing essential services to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs, ensuring that no Nigerian is left behind. left over. In the education sector, 8,008 classrooms built and 305 renovated with furniture to strengthen basic education across the country. A total of 4,845 desktop and laptop computers were also provided to schools across the country for information and communication technology (ICT) training.

“In the health sector, 195 health centers, comprising primary health care centers (PHCs) and mother-child centers (MCCs) have been constructed, complemented by the provision of 199 intensive care ambulances and rural. About 257 incubators and 7,464 regular and automated hospital beds were provided at the health facilities on the tour.

“In other cross-cutting sectors, (Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President) OSSAP-SDGs has built 66 vocational training and skills acquisition centers; supplied 1,294 transformers; supply of 19,266 solar street lights; 300 housing units for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Borno State; and 925 solar boreholes, in addition to several other interventions.

Results of Nigeria's 2020 2nd Voluntary National Review (VNR) on SDG-3 indicate that while the country is facing health challenges, such as high maternal mortality rates, there have been a significant reduction in under-five mortality (from 157 to 132) as Nigeria's current access to basic drinking water is now 64%. The government hopes to end poverty and share prosperity under Goal 1 of the SDGs by maintaining consistent investment in spending on health, education and other social services. Orelope-Adefulire assured that work continues to achieve Zero Hunger, and healthy living and well-being for all ages.

One of the positive signs of progress is the rate of participation of young people and adults in ...