Determined to play a prominent role in the attainment of United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Nigerian Government is taking key steps to ensure that it fulfils its responsibilities regarding the programme.

President Olusegun Obasanjo launched Nigeria’s first MDGs Report at a well-attended ceremony at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Monday, 20 December 2004.

According to the 70-page report, which was presented to a roomful of government officials, diplomats and donors, Nigeria has potentials for achieving universal primary education, ensuring environmental stability and developing a global partnership for development.

The report is the product of collaboration between the UN System in Nigeria, the Government, the National Institute for Social and Economic Research (NISER), the academia, civil society and the private sector.

A stakeholders’ forum was organised in January 2004, where 160 participants deliberated on, made inputs into and agreed on a draft report. The forum was organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with the Office of the Economic Adviser to the President. The UN Country Team was part of the whole process, including the printing of the final report.

At the launching, Obasanjo commended the UNDP and other UN agencies for their support in the production of the report, but also called for more international commitment to make the MDGs achievable in Nigeria.

He said that Nigeria’s reform agenda and the investment in infrastructure and human capital were already yielding positive results in reducing food poverty, gender inequality and HIV/AIDS prevalence rates. He added also that more could be achieved with increased international assistance for expanded market access, foreign investment and debt cancellation for Nigeria.

Obasanjo also announced that an Inter-Ministerial Committee on the MDGs would be set up early 2005 to coordinate activities on and monitor progress of the MDGs in Nigeria.

The launching was held at the Council Chambers in the Presidential Villa and was attended by some diplomats, representatives of UNDP, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), the World Bank, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Department for International Development (DFID) and other development partners, as well as by the Ministers of Education, Health, Women Affairs and Water Resources, and Special Advisers to the President.

The ongoing Universal Basic Education (UBE) scheme, which takes education to the grassroots, is one such programme that complements a salient goal of the MDGs. Every Nigerian, through this scheme, and regardless of age or gender, is entitled to basic education.

In Nigeria, there are 7.3 million children of primary age that are out of school, of which 64 percent are girls. To achieve the MDGs of universal basic education and ensuring equal educational opportunities for boys and girls, the Federal Ministry of Education in Nigeria is implementing the UBE with support from the Department for International Development (DFID) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). DFID is providing a £26 million grant to education in six northern states to help Government with the scheme.

Nigeria’s determination to realise the MDGs is further demonstrated in Obasanjo’s speech at the International Conference on Financing for Development, which took place in Monterrey, Mexico from 18-22 March 2002.

Furthermore, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on 1 December 2004 took a decisive step when it officially endorsed MDGs to be met by 2015.

The approval followed the adoption of a memo containing its recommendations as well as a report of Nigeria’s growth performance in 2004 by Obasanjo.

Also on 8 December, the FEC approved N60 billion for the MDGs health scheme, which is designed to reduce infant and mother mortality rates in the country by two-thirds by 2015.

In all, the funds are expected to:

• Reduce the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds between 1990-2015

• Reduce the infant mortality rate by three-quarters

• Reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS

• Reduce the incidence of malaria and other diseases

• Provide access to affordable drugs in developing countries.

Fourteen pilot states were selected from the six geopolitical zones to benefit directly from the health scheme.

The states were selected on the basis of not presently having World Bank/African Development Bank (ADB) funding and are shown to have a high prevalence rate in under-five mortality and in diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria. They include:

• Niger and Kogi (North-Central)

• Katsina, Zamfara and Sokoto (North-West)

• Bauchi, Taraba and Adamawa (North-East)

• Anambra and Imo (South-East)

• Ogun and Ekiti (South-West)

• Edo and Bayelsa (South-South).

Already, N10 billion has been voted for the first phase of the project implementation, out of which three billion naira has been proposed in the 2005 budget.

Regarding the environment, DFID, in both Nigeria and Ghana, is supporting an economic assessment of the contribution of renewable natural resources to growth. This is being done in a way that simultaneously informs Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) processes and empowers poor groups to lobby for sustainable approaches. DFID also supports the Enugu State Government in developing the environment component of its State PRS.

Several other aid agencies are also emphasising the importance of taking environmental opportunities and risks into account when developing country policies and programmes. The World Bank, for example, is encouraging environmental mainstreaming in the PRS.

The MDGs is the result of the Millennium Summit held in New York in September 2000, during which all 189 UN Member States adopted the Millennium Declaration, which contained a group of goals and targets. Some of them were later refined through the “Roadmap towards the implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration: Report of the Secretary General to the General Assembly” (A/56/326, September 2001), and have since become known as the MDGs. These eight goals are essentially centred on national targets for poverty, education, gender equality, and environmental sustainability, but also include targets for establishing an international trade and finance policy framework that favours development.

They are:

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

• Achieve universal primary education

• Promote gender equality and empower women

• Reduce child mortality

• Improve maternal health

• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

• Ensure environmental sustainability

• Develop a global partnership for development

The MDGs, over a relatively short period of time, have gained tremendous currency, primarily in development circles but increasingly in related trade and finance circles. Many actors are now counting on the Goals to galvanise disparate and sometimes competing development agendas, and are imagining how they might become a powerful political tool to hold governments and international institutions accountable.

All current 191 UN Member States have pledged to meet the MDGs by 2015.
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