Nigeria unlikely to meet MDG goals by 2015, says report

Abuja, Nigeria - A report by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has said that that Nigeria is unlikely to meet the 2015 goal for poverty eradication, stating that five out of every 10 Nigerian still live in poverty.

The report, made available in Abuja, the Nigerian federal capital, during a workshop on the validation of the 2010 MDGs report and the five-year countdown strategy for Nigeria, also doubted the ability of the country to also meet the target on improved maternal health and environmental sustainability.

The report also did not give a qualified satisfaction to the implementation of MDG in the country, saying it had been a mixed-bag of modest and steady progress on many goals and a slow progress on a few others.

The report further noted that out of the eight goals, Nigeria had recorded an average performance on five MDGs with less satisfactory performance on three others.

Listed under the less satisfactory performance are Goals 1, 5 and 7.

On Goal 1, which is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by 2015; the report noted “although poverty has been reduced since 2000, the reality is that among every ten Nigerians, five still live in poverty. Growth has not been sufficiently equitable or generated employment' The report added, however, that nutrition had improved significantly.

On Goal 5, which is improvement on maternal health, the report noted that there was a sizeable reduction of maternal mortality ratio from 800/100,000 (2003) to 157/100,000 (2008). Proportion of births attended by skilled health personnel increased slightly from 36% (2003) to 39% (2008). The report also noted increase in contraceptive prevalence rate from 8.0% (2003) to 10.0% (2008).

The last goal that was listed as unlikely to be achieved was that of environmental sustainability (goal 7).

According to the report, access to safe water and sanitation had not improved significantly and other environmental challenges such as erosion, coastal flooding and climate change are growing.

On the other five goals, the report noted that the country had made significant progress. The goals are universal primary education, gender equality, reduced child mortality, combat HIV/AIDs, malaria and other diseases and global partnership for development.

The report also attributed the modest progress recorded to the gains of debt relief.

While blaming the long period of military rule in the country for the loss of a disciplined culture of generating reliable and consistent baseline date for national planning and development, the report also noted that human capacity and implementation challenges and weak coordination among the tiers and arms of government had reduced the implementation rate of MDGs over the years.

The report, however, noted that there were mitigation efforts to overcome these challenges.

Speaking on the occasion, the Special Assistant to the President on MDGs, Hajiya Amina Az-zubair, said that the overarching objective of this countdown strategy (CDS) was to outline the roadmap to accelerate progress towards Nigeria’s achievement of the MDGs by 2015.

She further said that the objectives of the CDS were to identify the most effective mechanisms and interventions that had made progress against the MDGs; to re-emphasise the constitutional roles and responsibilities of each tier of government and the need for stronger partnership with key stakeholders; to guide the institutional improvements, policies and human resources required; to chart the trajectory of MDGs financing and investment to 2015; and to interface with vision 20:2020 and the 7-point agenda.
http://www.afriquejet.com/news/africa-news/nigeria-unlikely-to-meet-mdg-goals-by-2015,-says-report-2010082054753.html