Nigeria begins implementation of SDGs

SENIOR Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, has warned that Nigeria must refrain from developing the culture of donor dependency in pursuing the goals.

This is as Statistician General and Chief Executive Officer of National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Yemi Kale, harped on the importance of developing robust and reliable statistical information needed to accurately quantify and communicate the impact of various public policies and programme interventions and ensure that every individual and social group segment of society is not left out of SDGs pursuit.

Speaking at the commencement of training of officers for determination of baseline indicators for SDGs in Abuja, Adefulire said in preparation for the commencement of pursuit of the 17 development goals, Nigeria had already compiled end-point report, country transition strategy, action plan to guide SDGs implementation and other relevant preparatory fundamentals.

He said, “To meet the conditions established by the United Nations for follow up and reporting on SDGs, it is important to strengthen our data gathering and dissemination system.

“First, we must eschew a culture of donor dependency and commit substantial resources in the annual appropriation for this purpose, paying due consideration to the fact that data is power.

“Second, we must strengthen inter-linkages with regional data institutions and other National Statistical Offices”, she declared.

In his keynote address to the participants, Kale recalled that implementation of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) posed challenges in the form of up-to-date and harmonised data for monitoring progress and success recorded for some of the targets and indicators.

He said, “As Nigeria prepares to implement the SDGs, there is need for early preparations in order to effectively monitor these goals and importantly track progress towards achieving them in a comprehensive and systematic manner at both national and sub-national levels.”