Nigeria Content Online

One of the
specificities of Nigeria is that we have one of the largest numbers of
extremely poor people in the world. Indeed, about 70% of Nigerians live
below the poverty line while over 10 million primary school age children
are still out of school. In addition, about 100 children will die by
the age of 5 out of every 1,000 born in Nigeria while almost 800
pregnant women out of 100, 000 die during child birth in our country.

Tomorrow, Monday
20th, world leaders will begin a summit at the United Nations in New
York to assess progress in achieving the 8 millennium goals adopted at
the largest gathering ever of heads of state in September 2000. The hope
then was that by 2015, combined action would eradicate poverty, promote
human dignity and equality, and achieve peace, democracy and
environmental stability.

Ten years after the
commitments, the Nigerian situation is that although a lot of effort has
been made, we are still not sure of achieving any of the targets by
2015. It will be recalled that in pursuance of the goal of scaling up
and creating further traction for programmes aimed at achieving the
MDGs, Nigeria would commit to channelling about N100 billion ($750
million by the federal government and $250 million by the state
governments) annually to key poverty-reduction sectors.

In this regard,
between 2006 and 2010, N571 billion has been allocated for the MDG
programmes through annual appropriations by the federal government
alone. It is coordinated by the Office of Senior Special Assistant to
the President on MDGs (OSSAP) that has the responsibility of overseeing
the country’s efforts at achieving the MDGs. The programmes provide
water, health clinics, midwives and medical care, teacher training and
so on to poor communities.

One important
element of the programme is the annual Monitoring and Evaluation
(M&E) by independent consultants and civil society, and the centre I
work for has led the civil society component over the past three years.
Our reports cover all states in the federation and are objective and
results-based, providing dependable expenditure tracking and impact
assessment of projects. In addition to physical assessment of the
projects, the end users and beneficiaries’ views were sought through
individual informant interviews and focus group discussions using clear
benchmarks.

The latest report
covers projects executed under the 2008 federal budget and the results
show very high completion rates of over 86%. Completion relates to the
actual physical finishing of a project as well as an assessment of the
quality of execution of the project based on agreed benchmarks. Over and
beyond project completion, the Nigerian MDG programmes have over the
past five years set in motion a number of trends that are having a
positive impact on governmental processes.

The first is the
emergence of positive governmental responsiveness to our assessments.
Following the results of the monitoring of the 2006 budget which showed
that many of the projects were not executed by certain ministries and
agencies and even when they were, the distance between the federal
agencies and the beneficiary communities were so profound that neither
the affected states nor local governments were aware of ownership of the
projects. The federal government responded positively by creating new
project lines including the conditional grants scheme in which states,
and later, local governments, chose, provided part funding and executed
the projects.

This innovation has
created a higher sense of ownership in terms of choice and quality of
execution of projects. Even more important, the high standards of due
process mechanisms embedded in the project implementation plan have
significantly improved the accountability mechanisms in project
execution, therefore providing better value to beneficiary communities.

A third significant
result is that some of the non-performing MDAs identified in earlier
reports no longer benefit from the allocations and alternative better
performing institutions have taken over the said portfolios. This trend
is important, as it has now introduced sanctions for non-performance and
inefficiency thereby improving the conduct of government business.

The net result of
this process is the emergence of observable and measurable improvement
in performance and project delivery. Prior to the commencement of these
programmes, monitoring and evaluation had virtually disappeared from
government. However, today, we observe the establishment and
strengthening of M&E units in government departments.

The scaling up of
investment in the MDG sector in Nigeria and the improvement in
performance demonstrates that achieving the MDGs by 2015 is realistic if
we can build up on the institutional improvements and scale up further
the net investment not only by the three tiers of government – federal,
state and local, but also by the private sector and the international
community which remains a notoriously low key player in the Nigerian
arena.

As Nigeria engages
gear on the countdown to 2015, one key required strategy is the
increased involvement of communities in creating the demand, conception,
supervision, management and maintenance of projects that improve their
lives and livelihoods.

We must intensify
the fight against corruption and lack of transparency in government
while scaling up investments in the social sector to ensure that Nigeria
can show the world that the largest African country can and will attain
the MDGs by 2015. The ultimate message is that committed governance can
reverse the massive level of poverty Nigerians are suffering from.