The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udoma, has explained why Nigeria and other African countries could not achieve their target of the Millennium Development Goals, blaming the development on the region’s over-reliance on foreign aids.
Udoma disclosed this on Wednesday, in Abuja, while speaking at the High-Level Policy Dialogue on Development Planning in Africa, organised by United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
Represented at the event by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Budget and National Planning, Fatima Nana, the minister noted that though Nigeria made some progress in achieving some of the MDGs, it could not meet the expectation, because of lack of political will to implement policies.
He said, “We have not made as much progress as we had hoped for partly because of poor implementation mechanisms and excessive reliance on development aid.
“Another factor is the failure of many African countries in mainstreaming the MDGs into their national economic plans, policies and budgets. Added to these is the fact that many African countries lacked relevant data and mechanisms to monitor progress.”
To avoid failures in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, the minister said that the Federal Government has concluded plans to ensure that the SDGs are main -streamed into the annual budgets at the Federal and State levels.
“Let me also inform you that concerted efforts are being made to ensure that SDGs are main -streamed into the annual budgets at the Federal and State levels.
“Other actions we have taken in ensuring effective main -streaming the SDGs in our national plans include: raising public awareness and applying multi-stakeholders approaches” he added.
The minister also said another major issue that has hampered sectoral development in Nigeria, is data management, adding that the lack of proper data collation and management has impeded economic planning not only in Nigeria but in other African countries.
