President Muhammadu Buhari has said that one of his administration’s cardinal objectives is to reduce extreme poverty and hunger.
He made the declaration during a keynote address at the Nigeria High-Level Side-Event at the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA74 on Integration – Bridging the Policy Planning – Budgeting Gap for the Achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
President Buhari noted: “It is for this reason that in May this year, we committed ourselves to lift approximately 100 million Nigerians out of poverty within a 10-year period. This is a national development priority and in line with the aspirations of the SDGs. We have since established an ambitious National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) targeting the poor and vulnerable members of the Nigerian population.”
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According to him, “Through the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP), we are tackling and addressing the root causes of poverty in all its manifestations. For example, the Home Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSF) component is feeding almost 10 Million school pupils daily and empowering over 90, 000 local catering staff across the country.”
On the need to overcome ad hoc planning for the SDGs, President Buhari said among others: “It was our genuine desire for scientific planning and implementation of the SDGs that made Nigeria commence the process of domestication and customization of the Integrated Sustainable Development Goals Model in 2017.
“The Nigeria SDG Model, the Report of which we will officially launch today, will serve as a framework for robust, fact-based policy analysis, planning and implementation at all levels of government. It is expected to be used as a planning tool to complement existing ones currently in use at the national, sectoral and sub-national levels.”
He said: “It is exactly four years since I joined other World Leaders during the 70th Session of the UNGA to adopt the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda, we set for ourselves ambitious goal of seeing an economically sustainable, socially inclusive and environmentally resilient world. For Nigeria, and indeed Africa as a whole, the goal of the SDGs will mean ending poverty and hunger, safeguarding our ecosystem and ensuring that our people live in peace and prosperity by the year 2030.
“It is for this reason that our government acted quickly in the implementation of the SDGs by establishing the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on the SDGs in January 2016.
“The Office is charged with the responsibility for strategic planning; horizontal and vertical inter-governmental coordination; multi-stakeholders’ partnership and resource mobilisation. It is also mandated to lead robust advocacy and communications for the SDGs in Nigeria.”
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