Fixing Sustainable Development Goals implementation in Nigeria

World leaders gathered at the UN General Assembly in the September of 2015 to launch an ambitious new sustainable development agenda. It builds on progress made since the Millennium Declaration, with clear focus on reducing poverty and inequality, improvement of people’s lives, and the promotion of peace, security, good governance, and the rule of law.

Essential to ensuring the success of the Sustainable Development Goals are government accountability and national policy. Many experts believe that parliaments should be at the forefront of these imperatives, because they play a critical role in meeting those requirements through their lawmaking, budgeting, and oversight functions.

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The 17 SDGs and their 169 targets were designed to encapsulate all three pillars of sustainable development – economic, social and environmental. They have a comprehensive policy framework, which applies to both developed and developing countries. The goals range from eradicating absolute poverty to reversing climate change, and from achieving gender equality to changing consumption and production patterns (see graphic). A number of global indicators have been designed to help track progress towards the goals.

The 2030 Agenda places people at the centre of the development process. It calls on governments, parliaments and other stakeholders to design and deliver laws and programmes that meet the needs of the people, break down policy silos, uphold human rights, and leave no one behind.

According to the Quito declaration, “Stronger parliaments will have to play a central role in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. This will include ensuring that development policies and plans are drawn up through participatory and inclusive processes, and with regular progress reports submitted to parliament for review.”

Rather than the presidency’s corruption prone SDGs special assistant office, Nigeria should have a parliamentary based SDGs office that checks and assists SDG efforts in a number of ways that makes progress a priority. This office should provide advice and guidance in the development and implementation of strategies needed in the achievement of SDGs in Nigeria and Support the Nigerian Parliament in working directly with the United Nations (UN) to implement strategic SDG programmes in Nigeria.

In addition to guidance, this office should complement the presidency’s effort in coordinating and facilitating engagements and partnerships with the Committees on SDGs, UN agencies, development and private organisations to strengthen the involvement of the parliamentary in the achievement of the SDGs in Nigeria.

In ensuring understanding and smooth law making, the office must compile and analyse information on the latest developments regarding the SDGs using relevant tools and data sources to gain insights and support the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives’ as well as committees’ decisions on SDG activities in Nigeria. This will involve data mining activities and data visualisations used in developing reports and working papers related to SDG programmes in Nigeria that are evidence based. The office should therefore be able to provide analytical support to the parliament in positioning itself by aligning with the UN to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs in Nigeria.

Locally and internationally, this office will play a huge role in strengthening partnerships with research institutions and similar entities across the world through concrete collaborations on areas that are significant to the implementation of the SDGs. This will help in supporting and encouraging knowledge management and capacity development needed in Nigeria for effective implementation of SDG programmes in Nigeria.

In terms of public engagements, the office should develop internal and external communications on issues by evaluating the situation and preparing the most appropriate response on matters related to the SDGs to Nigerians and the world. Consequently, the office can work with the presidency in the identification of good practices and lessons learned on SDG activities across the world and share findings so that benefits of best practices are referenced in decisions related to the implementation of the SDGs in Nigeria.

I believe most of these measures will be necessary in order to strengthen SDGs implementation, check the excesses of the Presidency’s SDGs office and drastically reduce the rampant corruption that has beleaguered Nigeria’s SDGs efforts. To give you an example of how this is required let’s look at ‘Ending hunger’ in Nigeria. This concerns the second Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of the United Nations which has four country-specific targets to be achieved by 2030.

The goal seeks to end undernourishment, end malnutrition, double agricultural productivity of small-scale producers, and ensure sustainable and resilient agricultural practices. Studies have shown that for almost each of the targets of the SDG2, there have been improvements over the past decade perhaps with the exception of the sustainability target, but not enough to make the 2030 deadline. In Nigeria, because of the multiple dimensions of our food system challenges, the dysfunction of our private and especially public sectors and the debilitating effect of the corruption in SDGs implementation, we may be missing the 2030 mark by a very wide margin indeed.

Beyond all racketeering and political gimmick, I believe we must have an SDGs office that is upright, diligent and perfectly situated to support the presidency as well as the parliament in interfacing between the people and state institutions, and promoting and adopting people-centred policies and legislation to ensure that no one is left behind.