Nigeria and the challenge of the MDGs
By Ephraims Sheyin
In a big heave, it appeared that the world rose against poverty in 2000 when leaders of the 189 members of the UN, at a special session in New York, adopted an Action Plan towards reducing by half, the number of poverty-stricken people by the year 2015.
The plan, encapsulated in what is now commonly referred to as the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), enjoined countries to displayexemplary political will and commitment to pursue policies and programmes that would tackle factors that impinge on human development.
Specifically, the countries committed themselves to eight MDGs that include a 50 percent reduction in poverty and hunger, universal primary education, promotion of gender equality; ensuring environmental sustainability; reduction in child mortality by two thirds; cutbacks in maternal health by three quarters, reversal of spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, malaria and other diseases; and forging a global partnership for development between rich and poor nations.
The last goal often referred to by its sobriquet, goal eight, is critical as the implementation of most of the other goals depends on this partnership, especially through increased development aid by western donors.
Given UN and World Bank records which showed that more than 1.2 billion people globally survive on less than a dollar a day, World Bank president Paul Wolfwitz has continued to challenge and encourage leaders to muster the needed political will to meet the MDGs and especially tackle poverty, as many human problems are traceable to the scourge.
Speaking on the subject recently, Wolfowitz described Africa as the worst hit with one African child dying of hunger or malaria every 30 seconds while the HIV/AIDS epidemic killed two million Africans last year alone. Also, he said, more than 50 million African children are still not in school.
The rider to the World Bank president’s assertion is the empirical fact that given these statistics and Africa’s economic record, it remains the continent that is least likely to meet the MDGs across the board.
It is, therefore, hardly surprising that seven years after the declaration on the MDGs, UN monitoring teams have reported a lack of progress in their implementation, largely because goal eight had lagged and remained a target without deadline.
For this reason, Saradha Iyer of the NGO, Third World Network based in Malaysia, quotes the World Bank as saying ‘’on current trends there is not the remotest chance of the poorest countries meeting the MDGs until 2169 on a business-as-usual scenario’’.
This assertion holds true because western development partners have failed to provide tariff and quota-free access for exports from least developed countries, provide enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries, cancel official bilateral debts and provide more generous Official Development Assistance (ODA) to countries that had shown commitment to ending poverty.
These complaints, which came when the declaration of the MDGs turned five, were particularly unanimous in observing that the progress so far made, therefore, is not significant to arrest poverty’s relentless advance especially in Africa, the Caribbean Islands and parts of Asia.
Observations
UN Resident Coordinator in Nigeria Alberic Kacou, for instance, recently expressed fears that most African countries would not meet the 2015 target and hinged his fears on the situation in Nigeria, a country, he said, was ``very critical’’ to Africa’s capacity to meet the MDGs.
``Africa cannot meet the goals without Nigeria. First, Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country, accounting for one in every five Africans. Secondly, the 54.4 per cent of Nigerians living in poverty represents a staggering figure not only for the country but also for the continent’’, he said.
Senior Special Assistant to the president on the MDGs, Mrs Amina Ibrahim, recently confirmed Kacou’s claims by disclosing that more than half of the 140 Nigerians still live in abject poverty, but expressed the hope that the trend would be bucked by the activities of the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), the body established by government in 2001 to coordinate and monitor all poverty reduction efforts toward meeting the MDGs.
Among programmes by NAPEP whose intervention areas, according to Mrs Ibrahim, are in conformity with the vision and values of the MDGs, are the Farmers Empowerment Programme (FEP) charged with food security to combat hunger. The FEP programme targeted at small scale farmers, has seen a total of N240 million disbursed to 7,200 farming families.
Another NAPEP programme is the Youth Empowerment Scheme (YES) initiative geared towards imparting skills and know how among the youth after which they will receive financial support to start up business ventures. Records showed that 52,000 people have so far benefited from the YES programme.
Other NAPEP programmes include Keke NAPEP aimed at boosting both rural and urban transportation. Under this initiative, 4,000 units of tricycles (three wheeler diesel engine automobiles) have been distributed to unemployed owner operators nationwide on a credit basis.
To strengthen this scheme, 109 unemployed youths from the 109 senatorial districts of the country have been trained and allocated stocks of spare parts for the tricycles on loan basis.
NAPEP has also embarked on a revolving micro-finance programme where funds are provided to activate business and market, while vulnerable members in the society are being catered for via another intervention initiative known as the Social Welfare Scheme (SOWES).
Under SOWES, projects designed to improve the social and personal well being of vulnerable Nigerians and cushion the misery of such weak groups like the elderly, the widows, disabled, orphans, HIV/AIDS victims, refugees, retirees and ex-convicts are executed.
On education, NAPEP is supporting the Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme in the country via its contribution to the school feeding programme aimed at boosting primary and secondary schools enrolment.
Though skeptical about NAPEP programmes, Kacou believes that the Nigerian government was striking the right cord as it had some serious commitment in achieving the MDGs. Evidence of such commitment, he says, also includes better macro-economic management, increased transparency and the efficient use of debt relief gains.
``But these reforms need to be sustained and a lot more still need to be done, especially in placing the MDGs at the heart of central policies. There must also be emphasis on fiscal responsibility and the building of government capacity to invest wisely for development and strengthening institutions for service delivery,’’ he said.
Indeed, while observers laud government’s efforts toward checking poverty, they have conversely chastised the on-going reforms as lacking a `` human face.’’
One aspect most vilified is the ``rightsizing’’ in the civil service that has cost many jobs as well as the demolitions of many homes by the authorities of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) working toward making Abuja a model city. The demolitions have rendered many homeless with little cushioning strategies for the weak and vulnerable.
``The already saturated job market is getting more crowded every other day, while many people are being dislocated and rendered refugees in their country. By its actions, government is only aggravating, not fighting poverty,’’ said Ayuba Manu, who lost his job as a result of ongoing public service reforms and also had his house in Kubwa, demolished by the Abuja bulldozers.
But for many observers, the main obstacle to the achievement of the MDGs in Nigeria is the morbid corruption that has ravaged the country over the years.
According to Nuhu Ribadu, chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigerian leaders have stolen about $500 billion (N85 trillion) within the past 40 years, an amount, he said, represented six times the value in financial terms that funded the U.S. Marshal Plan for rebuilding Europe, at the end of the Second World War.
``This is to say that the money that past Nigerian leaders have stolen in about 40 years could have recreated the beauty and glory of Western Europe six times over,’’ he said at the launch of the ``Fix Nigeria Initative’’.
Ribadu cited the example of N200 billion lost through the failed banks phenomenon as computed by the Central Bank, the N18 billion recovered from a former police boss, while a governor recently coughed out N50 billion in stolen assets. He said his commission had also recovered assets and cash worth $5 billion from corrupt Nigerians.
Corroborating Ribadu’s claims, Wolfowitz recently noted that about $300 billion oil wealth had been stolen from Nigeria in the last four decades saying that such recklessness was partly responsible for the abject poverty in the country.
Noting that 75 per cent of Nigeria’s more than 140 million people live below the poverty line despite the nation’s enormous wealth, the World Bank chief said Nigeria represented a ``classical example of how people in a resource rich country could wallow in abject poverty.’’
Meeting the MDGs, according to Wolfowitz, will also be difficult in Nigeria except electricity, the main factor in industrial growth, was available.
UNDP records substantiate this fact as they indicate that only 30 per cent of Nigerians have access to its largely unstable energy, a situation it said were frustrating cottage firms whose proliferation is being canvassed by NAPEP. The report listed other growth impediments to include the dearth of basic infrastructure like water and roads, as well as violent conflicts.
Hope
But despite the gloomy picture, Wolfowitz believes there is still hope for Nigeria.
``There is great hope for Africa. Conflicts are diminishing and small businesses are emerging. A new breadth of hope is infusing the continent as new generations of leaders, who increasingly recognize their responsibility to their people, are emerging,’’ he said, adding that there was also hope on electricity as the World Bank was already building a working partnership with donors.
He is also optimistic that the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, a global initiative of developing countries, donors and extractive industry companies, would promote transparency and ensure that profits from oil, gas and minerals were used for growth rather than being squandered.
``Things are getting better for because there is a leadership now fighting corruption. Mr Nuhu Ribadu (EFCC boss), a wonderful young man has literarily put his life on the line in the fight to rid Nigeria of that menace. These efforts only need to be sustained by successive governments and supported by the nationals.’’
But with the populous African nation still battling thieving leaders, pundits believe that Nigeria, like many other African nations, indeed requires an enormous political will from present and future leaders if it is to lead the continent into meeting the MDGs’ main dream of halving abject poverty by the year 2015.
Similarly, as it draws down on its crippling debt burden with hefty payments to its external creditors, it must seek out partners in the rich industrialised countries, on behalf of less endowed African nations, to address the systematic failure of the rich nations to nurture the goal eight requirement of positive partnership and honouring of commitments to the MDGs.
As the 2005 UN report of the implementation of the MDGs warned, this must be done otherwise the ‘’global community risks relegating the MDGs to the boulevard of broken promises, and turning the laudable MDGs into laughable gimmicks’’.
(N A N F E A T U R E S)