MDGs’ challenges surmountable --Obasanjo
From KABIRU YUSUF, Abuja

President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday in Abuja assessed the challenges facing Nigeria in meeting the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and concluded that they were not insurmountable.
Presiding over the quarterly meeting of the Presidential Committee on the Assessment and Monitoring of the MDGs at the State House, the president noted that one of the ways of meeting the challenges was for states and local governments to “wake up to their responsibilities in order to complement the efforts of the federal government.”
He stressed the importance of baseline data as helping to properly align money spent with results achieved.
President Obasanjo again commended Nigeria ’s development partners “for always being there for us,” citing the support the country received during last year’s national population census which “has given us at least a baseline to work with on a number of things.”
Speaking on behalf of his colleagues, the governor of Edo state, Chief Lucky Igbinedion, commended the efforts of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDGs, Mrs. Amina Ibrahim, for bringing the state governments on board, while stressing the need to sensitize the local governments in order to avoid duplicating the efforts of the state governments.
Presenting the fourth quarter 2006 Report on the MDGs and the 2007 Budget Appropriation, Mrs. Ibrahim noted that the key challenges lay in the areas of “continued lack of consultation between Millennium Development Agencies (MDAs) and the States as evidenced by the duplication of projects;” inadequate investments by states in the MDGs; reinforcing the public sector reforms and deepening their impact in the goals, among others.
Representatives of development partners and civil society organizations also commended the country’s efforts towards attaining the MDGs.