Report Advises Nigeria, Others on Measures to Achieve SDGs
By Oluchi Chibuzor
Countries in Africa have been urged to strive for improvement in the areas of data aggregation, developmental techniques and empowerment of people to enable them meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
Partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Tolu Oyekan, made the call while highlighting challenges hindering development in the region and proffering possible solutions to address the numerous problems in the continent.
Oyekan said: “The UN has set a target of 2030 to reach the SDGs and in effect eliminate the developmental obstacles to growth and minimum livelihoods that hold back Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and other countries around the world. For SSA, that is an ambitious deadline.”
He, however, suggested that for SSA countries to meet the set target, various governments and citizens must gather more and better data and utilise them more effectively.
He added that the governments must also increase and adjust the developmental techniques they employ to ensure they sufficiently address concerns and issues while taking advantage of existing best practices, even from other disciplines.
He added that SSA must enlarge the tent to bring a wider and more diverse group of people into the design and implementation process.
The BCG Partner emphasised that when effectively used, data, developmental techniques and human capital could help SSA countries achieve meaningful developmental gains, thereby making the region more competitive.
According to Oyekan, statistics reflect that the region has an alarming poverty rate as about 40 per cent or over 400 million people, live on less than $1.90 a day, defined as the extreme-poverty line.
He, however, stressed that good data from the SSA region was mandatory as it would enable the people understand the prevailing challenges and conditions; and can also be used as a yardstick in comparing SSA countries with other countries of the world.
Oyekan further pointed out that for meaningful development to be achieved, SSA countries must implement developmental techniques and methods that are aligned with unique regional needs.
He said: “For instance, behavioural techniques can encourage desirable actions by sub-Saharan individuals and groups, which in turn can help in local development.”
While speaking in terms of people, Oyekan appealed for a push to increasingly widen the participation of African people in the campaigns to solve Africa’s problems.
He believes that stakeholders are pivotal for the success of SSA developmental efforts; noting that these stakeholders include women, young people, the bottom of the economic pyramid, the private sector and small businesses.
