From MDGs to SDGs: The Nigeria Story

DEVELOPMENT

As the global community is accelerating efforts in the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals, adopted by world leaders in September 2015, as a successor framework to the Millennium Development Goals, Udora Orizu writes on the Nigeria story

With the adoption, world leaders, including President Muhammadu Buhari, had saddled themselves with the task of mobilizing efforts to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind in the space of 15 years.

The SDGs build on the success of the MDGs, but with the added challenge to world leaders end all forms of poverty by 2030. The 17 Goals and 169 targets of the Sustainable Development are indeed call for action by all countries, poor, rich and middle-income to promote prosperity while protecting the planet.

In adopting the framework, world leaders recognised that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and addresses a range of social needs including education, health, social protection, and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection.

Therefore, the SDGs are about people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership. With it, global community committed to ending poverty and hunger in all forms and ensuring dignity and equality, protecting the planet’s natural resources and climate for generations yet unborn, ensuring prosperous and fulfilling lives in harmony with nature and working for a peaceful, just and inclusive societies for all. These goals are to be achieved through the spirit of partnership and pragmatism to make the necessary choices to improve livelihood in a sustainable way.

In realisation of the need to accelerate efforts directed at achieving the goals, the global community has declared the next 10 years Decade of Action.

Groundwork for Successful SDGs

In Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari expressed his commitment to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals with the appointment of Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire as his Senior Special Assistant on Sustainable Development Goals and the establishment of the Office of the Senior Special Assistant for Sustainable Development Goals, OSSAP –SDGs as the national focal office for the implementation of 2030 Agenda in Nigeria.

The Office started off with stock taking of its implementation of MDGs followed by the crafting of the country’s transition strategy from MDGs to SDGs. This process culminated in the production of a strategic document which phased the implementation of the SDGs into three phases.

The first phase which covers the first five years which is that of building on existing foundations advocacy sensitization and partnership building.

The second phase is that of scaling up investments and implementation while the third phase which is essentially about tracking, monitoring and reporting for the SDG while simultaneously implementing key initiatives directed at leaving no one behind.

In this first phase of the implementation, OSSAP-SDGs under the leadership of Princess Orelope-Adefulire had in the past five years provided the strategic leadership and guidance, high-level representation, advocacy and partnership building; mobilization, robust monitoring, evaluation and reporting needed for the success of the SDGs in Nigeria.

As part of multi-stakeholder Engagement for SDGs Implementation, a Private Sector Advisory Group on the SDGs, Donors’ Partnership Forum for SDGs, Civil Society Strategy Group on SDGs have been launched while OSSAP-SDGs has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the NBA to provide free legal and pro-bono services in actualization of justice goals of Sustainable Development.

A Presidential Council on SDGs has also been established. In the area of advocacy, OSSAP-SDGs has established SDGs Ambassadors for advocacy and sensitization as well as SDGs Champions for grassroots advocacy.

Also, a series of capacity building sessions aimed at bridging capacity gaps of Technical Officers involved in the planning and implementation of the SDGs at both National and Sub-National Levels have been organised.

The Office has worked vertically and horizontally with Federal Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) to integrate relevant SDGs into their Sectoral Policies and Plans with an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) already established for successful coordination.

At the Sub-national level, the OSSAP-SDGs in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been working with the 36 States and the FCT to mainstream the priority SDGs into the Medium and Long-term Development Plans of the State and Local Governments.

Some of the key achievements include the production of SDGs Baseline Report in 2017; Publication of the 1st Voluntary National Review Report to the United Nations in 2017; the re-alignment of the National Statistical System with the requirements of the SDGs; the signing of the Data Bond and Responsibility Framework with MDAs, the Domestication of the Integrated SDG (iSDG) Model for Nigeria and the Publication of the 2nd Voluntary National Review Report to the United Nations in 2020.

The Nigeria iSDG, a home-grown analytical tool for SDG-based planning and reporting at the national and sub-national levels, the Report was officially launched by President Muhammadu Buhari on September 24, 2019 during the Nigeria High Level Side Event on the Margins of the 74th Session of the UN General Assembly.

“I will say we have done extremely well and it’s a demonstration of the commitment of this administration to the 2030 agenda by establishing all these institutional frameworks that will enable us achieve the SDGs, not only timely but in a way and manner that is extraordinary. The realignment of the national statistical system will enable us in the next ten years on annual basis to track our progress towards the SDGs. If we hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t be able to track our progress towards the SDGs,” SSAP-SDGs, Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire said.

In addition, the SDGs Office has supported various SDGs-related programmes and projects across the 36 States and the FCT through the scale up of the implementation of the Conditional Grants Scheme to State and Local Governments.

Education

Quality Education as enshrined in Goal 4 is recognized as one of the cross cutting goals of Sustainable Development as the achievement of the goal can have a multiplier effect on the achievement of all the other goals. In realization of its importance, OSSAP-SDGs either through its Conditional Grants Scheme or by direct funding has been intervening in efforts to improve the education process since 2016.

Aside the intervention at the States, OSSAP-SDGs on 24 January, 2019 in conjunction with other partners, celebrated the first International Day of Education in Nigeria in commemoration of the role of education in peace and development.

The event, celebrated globally under the theme Education: A Key Driver for Inclusion and Empowerment was celebrated in Nigeria with a panel session which discussed the centrality of education in the achievement of all the other 16 SDGs with key stakeholders in the Nigerian education sector in attendance.

Also, OSSAP-SDGs in January 24 2020 also with the support of other partners celebrated the International Day of Education under the theme, Learning for People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace. The event was used to rally stakeholders on the need to accelerate achievements of SDG 4, especially, the need to bring over 10 million out of school children roaming the streets in Nigeria back to classrooms.

To celebrate the 2020 day, OSSAP-SDGs took stakeholders to Pilot Science and Nursery, School, Abuja where the maiden initiative of its partnership with a Chinese company, NetDragon Websoft, to use digital technology for the advancement of education in Nigeria was implemented.

OSSAP-SDGs had through the partnership established digital classroom designed to equip pupils with ICT skills to enhance teaching and learning opportunities.

Also as part of its contributions to help tackle the phenomenon of out of school children in Nigeria, the Office constituted a Technical Committee on Out of School Children to provide leadership in the conduct of a rapid assessment in states where the problem is most pronounced and to design cost effective interventions. And following the recommendation of the committee, President Muhammadu Buhari recently constituted a steering committee to implement the alternate school initiative in States where the problems are most pronounced.

For the management of OSSAP-SDGs, availability of secured and conducive environment for learning is also very crucial. To this end, the Office has been embarking on massive construction, rehabilitation and furnishing of some educational facilities. So far, about 731 blocks of classroom have been constructed & furnished with VIP toilets and external works across the country.

The office has also completed a Library building in Mega School Dumurkol, Daura, Katsina State. The Library is expected to serve as knowledge and resource centre for students

Good Health and Wellbeing

The office has also intervened and supported states and public medical institutions with resources through building of various categories of healthcare facilities and supply of medical equipment to help advance the health goals of SDGs. Significantly, to help reduce the high level of maternal and child mortality ratio in the country, OSSAP-SDGs in partnership with global soft drink giant, Coca-Cola, Medshare International and Federal Ministry of Health on November 2, 2018 launched the Coca-Cola Safe Birth Initiative, SBI at the National Hospital, Abuja. The SBI is designed to support 10 selected tertiary level hospitals in the country with vital state of the art life-saving medical equipment and technical capacity building – including kits and supplies needed for diagnosis and treatment of mother and child during the ante-natal, birthing and post natal period.

The equipment supplied include ultrasound Machine, Infant Incubator, Resuscitaire Infant Warmers, Delivery Bed , Anesthesia Machine, Multi-Parameter Patient Vital Signs Monitors, phototherapy Light, Stainless Steel Baby Bassinets, Fetal Monitor, Baby Scales, Theatre Lamps, Patient/ Hospital Beds and Bubbled Wrapped Baby Incubator.

With Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) of 576 per 100,000 live birth, Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR) of 37 per 1,000 live births and Under-Five Mortality Rate (UMR) of 128 per 1,000 live births, the OSSAP-SDGs as part of its intervention programme has been taking strategic steps to halt and reverse the trend by strengthening healthcare service delivery.

Particularly, the Office has constructed nine Maternal and Child Centre with 149-bed capacity. The Centres are located in Kano, Kaduna, Benue, Kwara, Yobe, Adamawa, Abia Lagos and Ondo State. The facility is complemented by other 80 Bed prototype Hospital established in 5 other States namely: Kebbi, Lagos, Bauchi, Enugu and Anambra State.

The three-floor prototype Maternal and Child Centre has two operating theatres, recovery rooms, sterilisation room, delivery room, consultation rooms, private and general wards, scanning room, side laboratory rooms, reception area, lounge, nurses room and station, doctor call rooms, scrub room and a Board room.

The facility also boasts of ultra-modern equipment that will aid the prompt delivery of maternal and childcare services; these include patient monitors with EC02, Suction machine double jar, ultra scan machines, oxygen generating machine, vacuum extractor delivery set, anaesthetic machine and diathermy machine. It also has an emergency cart with a defibrillator, baby incubators, phototherapy lamps, paediatric ventilators, multi-parameter monitors for mothers and babies, crash cart, theatre monitor, defibrillators and foetal Doppler.

In addition, the OSSAP-SDGs has between 2016 and 2019 constructed about 60 Type A & Type B Primary Health Centres, rehabilitated 12 different Hospitals, while 75 Intensive Care and Rural Ambulances have been supplied to various Hospitals across the country. The Type A & B Primary Healthcare Centres are located in Jimeta, Adamawa State, Tilde Fulani, Toro LGA in Bauchi State, Ibbi, Taraba North Senatorial District in Taraba State, Kudu, Mokwa Niger Central Senatorial District in Niger State, Daura in Katsina State, Nasarawa town, Gudi, Akwanga LGA in Nasarawa state and Ogun Central Senatorial District, Ogun State.

These interventions are directly linked to the achievement of Goal 3 on ‘Quality Health and Well-being for all’ and other cross-cutting SDGs. The Targets include reducing the global maternal and mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100, 000 live births, end preventable deaths of new born and children under 5years old and ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services, which includes family planning, information and education. The efforts of the Office in addressing this, has been receiving commendation.

Empowerment

In a bid to actualize the Targets of Goal 1, No Poverty; Goal 8, Decent Work And Economic Growth; Goal 10, Reduced Inequalities and Goal 7, Affordable and Clean Energy, OSSAP-SDGs has in conjunction with partners organized or supported the organization of skill training programmes for youths across the country.

These include hands-on training programmes on Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Technologies organized by OSSAP-SDGs in collaboration with UN Habit for youths across the country. Under the training programme, 120 youths were trained and empowered with skills in the area of fabrication of solar lanterns, installing small bio-gas systems, setting up briquette production, fabricating improved cook stoves as well as assembling and installing solar light bulbs.

The training was in line with the SDGs framework of ensuring universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services as well as decent work for all men and all women, including young people and persons with disability.

Also, OSSAP-SDGs in collaboration with Google, through its vendor, Mind the Gap, trained over 125, 000 youths in a massive digital training programme across the 36 states and the FCT. The training programme which was flagged off by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was designed to increase access to information and communications technology and to reduce unemployment among the youths. Through the training, with the theme, Nigerian Economy: Enabling Youth through Digital Skills Training, the youths were empowered with skills in line with contemporary technological development.

Similarly, OSSAP-SDGs, in line with the objectives of SDG 8, partnered with UNESCO and Read and Earn Initiative to scale up the UNESCO Tap Project, an initiative which focuses on building the intellectual, leadership capacity and economic potentials of Nigerian Youths. Seed funds were given to youths who graduated from the programme in 2018.

The SDGs Office also embarked on construction of Skill Acquisition Centre Type B and fencing in some states including Borno, Katsina, Lagos, Ogun Rivers and Benue. The Centre has facilities for training of youths in different areas of vocation and will provide the much-needed platform for skills acquisition, which will empower the unemployed youth in the states to become entrepreneurs, thereby removing many from falling into poverty. The projects were implemented through the Sustainable Projects Unit and the Conditional Grants Scheme, CGS of the Office.

Since 2016, OSSAP-SDGs projects have been implemented to perfect completion. The Sustainable Projects Unit designs and implements projects such as the Construction of Mother and Child Centres; Construction of Primary Healthcare Centres; Construction of Classroom Blocks; Supply of Classroom Furniture; Drilling of Boreholes for Water Supply; Construction of Rural Feeder Roads; Supply of Hospital Equipment; Supply of Transformers; Construction of Skills Acquisition Centres; Construction of Solar Street Lights; Construction of Concrete Drainages; and the provision of Economic Empowerment Items among others.

Within the period of implementation, the Office has constructed about 25 IDP Houses to cater for displaced persons in Nganzai, Borno State, one of the areas badly troubled by insurgency.

The Office has also carried out construction of 320 Solar Streetlights in Yola South LGA, Adamawa Central Senatorial District, Adamawa State, Bama/Ngala/Kala Balge Fed. Constituency, Borno State, Hong LGA, Adamawa Central Senatorial District, Adamawa State, Fufure LGA, Adamawa Central Senatorial District, Adamawa State, Yola North LGA, Adamawa Central Senatorial District, Adamawa State, in Yola South LGA, Adamawa Central Senatorial District, Adamawa State

And in accordance to goal 17 (Partnership For The Goals) , OSSAP-SDGs has since 2016 initiated a series of partnership programmes and events designed to popularize and get the buy in of the populace into the 2030 Agenda working with partners and stakeholders.