Nigeria

UNDP’s support to the achievement of the MDGs in Nigeria

Since the Millennium Declaration in 2000, the MDGs have become important tools of monitoring human progress across nations. The eight time-bound goals are aimed at achieving the following by 2015: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV&AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and develop a global partnership for development.

UNDP has been given the role of Global MDG Monitor for the UN System, a role that UNDP Nigeria takes very seriously. On a global level and in collaboration with other development partners, the UNDP has transformed the MDGs into an actionable instrument of development management by turning the eight goals into 18 targets and 48 indicators that can be used to monitor human progress across nations. Nigeria amongst other nations has signed up to these goals, targets and indicators.

In Nigeria, evidence from the 2006 MDGR shows that there is a likelihood of achieving three of the eight goals in Nigeria; achieving universal basic education; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing global partnership for development while the health MDGs remain daunting challenges for Nigeria. A critical barrier to planning for achievement of the MDGS continues to be the availability of up to date data on most of the indicators. This is compounded by the limited funding available for data generation and management.

Constitutional responsibility for implementation on almost all the goals rest with the states and local governments in Nigeria’s federal structure, however inspite of remarkable strides at federal level, appreciation of the requirements for meeting these goals, as well as institutional capacity remain relatively low at these levels of government. Poor governance and integration of the MDGs into national development strategies have also been a challenge while other challenges include a weak monitoring mechanism for the MDGs and low stakeholder involvement (private sector and Civil Society Organisations).

Despite these challenges political commitment remains very high at Federal level under the leadership of the Senior Special Adviser to the President on MDGs. Under its four practice areas, UNDP has provided support to the government in a number of areas.

Poverty Reduction
A major component of UNDP’s assistance has been the production of country MDG reports published for 2004, 2005 and 2006. At subnational level UNDP has succeeded in taking the message of preparing MDGs reports to the state level on pilot basis with Niger and Akwa Ibom States MDG Reports serving as the first set of pilots. About ten states are in the process of developing their MDGs reports.  These will provide important baseline information awhile also serving as advocacy and awareness raising tools. A mid term review of the MDGs is also underway.

In collaboration with the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDGs, the UNDP has undertaken a National MDGs Costing Exercise in eight key sectors (agriculture, health, education, roads, energy, water resources, environment and housing). The final results are being reviewed. This would provide a good basis for estimating the cost of achieving the MDGs in the country.

UNDP has built up a cream of national experts (across the public, private and CSOs sectors) on MDGs needs assessment. With strong collaboration with the Office of the Senior Special Assistance to the President on MDGs, the National Planning Commission, and other partners there is a plan to extend this opportunity to states.

The implementation of the Millennium Villages in Kaduna and Ondo states by UNDP in collaboration with the respective state governments is motivated by the need to transform the lives of rural people as well as provide good pilots for other states and local governments to emulate as good practices. 

The Local Governance Project is being implemented in Ondo state and will be extended on a pilot basis to Bayelsa State. The LGP is aimed at demonstrating successful models of local development planning and decentralization. In addition, a Local poverty reduction  strategy guide for the participatory preparation of Local Economic Empowerment and Development Strategies (LEEDS) was produced and tested in 18 local governments in 6 states. UNDP continues to provide technical backstopping to states in the use of this guide and 5 states (Sokoto, Ogun, Akwa Ibom, Gombe and Kogi) are currently in the process of developing LEEDS using this methodology. In two of these states, the LEEDS preparation process is informing the review and development of follow on States Economic Empowerment and Development Strategies (SEEDS), while Sokoto and Akwa Ibom states are being supported to effectively mainstream HIV/AIDS into these development strategies. It is hoped that there will be lesson sharing between the states to aid replication of this mainstreaming.

An MDGs consistent Macroeconomic Framework has also been initiated with NPC and OSSAP as the anchoring institutions. The outcome of this would feed into NEEDS2 or any medium term development strategy of government as well as the Vision 2020 initiative.

Under this practice area UNDP is also working with the National Bureau of Statistics and States Statistical Agencies in 18 states to build capacity for data management and statistical literacy. We have also supported the Office of the Senior Special Adviser to the President on MDGs with technical personnel and have further enhanced the institutional capacity of the office through provision of relevant physical facilities. We hope to continue to provide technical support to the office in delivering its mandate.

HIV/AIDS
UNDP through it work on mainstreaming HIV and AIDS into national poverty reduction strategies and sectoral plan and budgets (service line 5.1), is creating the enabling environment for strong multisectoral response the HIV epidemic in Nigeria which led to the reduction of HIV prevalence from 5.8% in 2001 to 4.4% in 2005. More specifically, the technical and financial support to Global Fund grants implementation in Nigeria, through the Country Coordinating mechanism (CCM) has a direct impact on access the prevention, care and support for people living with and affected by HIV. All this leading to achievement of MDG Goal 6: Combat HIV, Malaria and Tuberculosis.

Energy and Environment
The contributions that Energy and Environment unit has made towards the attainment of the goal 7 of the MDG includes but not limited to preparation of various policies in the energy and environment sector that would assist the government at the advisory level. These policies include but not limited to:

The Unit also has four (4) pilot projects on renewable energy access to rural dwellers spread all over the geopolitical zones of the country. Villages with no access to the National Grid were chosen for the pilots and Solar PVs were constructed to generate electricity to public buildings like schools, churches, mosques and most importantly the health centers.

Democratic Governance
UNDP recruited an MDGs expert for the National Assembly with the overall goal to provide the National Assembly with timely, accurate, and relevant information for effective allocation of resources and decision making. This is to ensure that the budget is MDGs compliant and leading to the attainment of set objectives. It is also to ensure that public policies and performance align to the achievement of MDGs and link with to annual budget. This would result in improving deliberation of the legislature on the budget. The expert also has the responsibility of strengthening the capacity of the National Assembly Budget and Planning Department in budget analysis.