The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals(OSSAP-SDGs), Princess Adejoke Olurepe-Adefulire, has said that in order to fast track the attainment of the SDGs in Nigeria, there needs to be more budgetary allocation for the implementation and sustenance of the SDGs.
She made this call in Abuja recently at the Stakeholders’ Validation Workshop on Integrated Sustainable Development Goals (ISDGs) Model Domestication in Nigeria, organized by OSSAP-SDGs in collaboration with the United Nations Development Project (UNDP) and the Federal Ministry of Budget and National Planning.
She underscored the importance of mainstreaming the SDGs at the national level, stressing that the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, had integrated the core areas of concern to the SDGs, such as food security, agriculture, inclusive growth, industry, infrastructural development into the Economic Growth Plan (ERGP) 2017-2020.
The Presidential Aide stressed that, significant amount of government expenditure would be needed on an annual basis between now and 2030, and more importantly, the private sector would need to spend similar amount, for the country to achieve the SDGs.
She noted that “we need to work together in scaling up our efforts and to expand the fiscal space for SDGs implementation in Nigeria for it is evidently clear that the current level of funding is grossly inadequate to meet the SDGs. The private sector, being a key partner in pursuit of the SDGs must also be brought on board and be facilitated to play their role noting that without the private sector, the promise of the SDGs will remain a mirage”.
Princess Adejoke Olurepe-Adefulire assured that her office will continue to work with all stakeholders to ensure that the ISDGs domestication process is a success and that policy formulation planning processes are integrated, covering all the SDGs and all States of the federation.
Earlier, the UNDP Country Representative, Mohammed Yahya, noted that the application of the ISDG Model showed that, an effective implementation of ERGP can lead to the achievement of a number of SDGs targets; however, not all, adding that, several of them would be missed out, unless the unintended impact of some ERGP policies, which could have a positive impact on some SDGs, are considered. “We cannot get the planning right if we do not have reliable data” he added.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Budget and National Planning, Mr.Ernest Umakhire observed that, data continued to be a major challenge in attaining robust simulation results, adding that, the Ministry would work in collaboration with its Parastatals, particularly the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and other key sector MDAs that possess primary and secondary data to produce necessary data for running the ISDGs model and other economic models housed in the Ministry.
He added that, it was also important for all data generating agencies to come together to articulate the way forward in making credible, reliable and timely data available for budget and planning,
Markus Y. Mangai
Chief Information Officer
