Opia Kumah advises Nigeria to take advantage of MDG lessons in implementing SDGs

NaijaAgroNet:

The Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) office in Nigeria, Mr. Opia Kumah has advised Nigeria to take advantage of lessons learnt from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to tackle implementation of the recently promulgated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), reports NaijaAgroNet.

Addressing the State-level workshop on ‘Data Mapping for the Sustainable Development Goals in Nigeria” at the weekend in Kaduna, Mr. Kumah who was represented by the Economic Advisor in the state, Ojijo Odhiambo, described workshop as timely given its coming two months after the highly successful national-level meeting on the same subject held in Abuja and hardly two weeks after the Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDGs Indicators Meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.

“As you are well aware, the Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators which brings together member states of the United Nations, Nigeria included, and regional and international agencies, was created by the United Nations Statistical Commission in March this year with the mandate of proposing a global indicator framework,” he said.

The results of this global initiative, he said, will be considered by the Statistical Commission at its 47th session in March 2016. He stressed that the work of the group has nonetheless become an important reference point and input into national level activities related to data for monitoring and reporting on the SDGs.

While the Inter-agency and expert group is yet to complete its work, he pointed out that it is now clear that the international community favours a limited number of indicators for monitoring progress towards the SDGs.

“In the area of poverty, for instance, the group has just adopted the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) as an indicator for measuring progress towards the SDGs,” he said.

Emphasising that this is a clear testimony of the desire of the international community to capture and measure progress towards the SDGs in more qualitative and comprehensive terms. 

“As we deliberate on the indicators for measuring progress in Nigeria over the next two days, we should therefore keep in mind the need to evolve and adopt those indicators which are broad, qualitative and contextually relevant to our unique national situation,” he charged.

According to Kumah, regarding data for the SDGs implementation, monitoring and reporting, the critical challenge facing Nigeria is not the lack of knowledge of what needs to be done but rather how to apply the available knowledge and lessons learnt from the MDGs implementation over the past fifteen years.

“The country has learnt invaluable lessons from the MDGs implementation process. We fully appreciate the challenges that the country faces with respect to data. We know what works and what does not. We know where the gaps are. We know where the bottlenecks are. We know which indicators are particularly problematic to measure. We ought to use this rich knowledge base to evolve the most plausible implementation strategies for tracking, capturing and processing the SDGs indicators in a comprehensive, coordinated and efficient manner,” Kumah said.

+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms) @ITRealms
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Implement Maputo declaration on agriculture - Lawmakers

House Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has canvassed for implementation of the African Union (AU) Maputo Declaration, which requires 10 per cent of the member country’s annual budget to be voted for the development of agriculture sector.

The Chairman, House Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development at the National Assembly, Alhaji Mohammed Mungono and his Deputy, Alhaji Munir Babba Dan made the House position known to NaijaAgroNet, at a workshop on IAR4D and Innovation Systems Approach for SARD-SC Wheat Value-Chain, in Abuja.

The lawmakers explained that funding of research and development will be ineffective unless there is an established strong partnership with the federal government.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that the legislature has not asserted step of legislation and appropriation of the African Union Maputo Declaration of 10 per cent to agriculture, because of the long history of military adventurism into the nation’s polity and the issue of budgeting between the executive and legislature.

According to Mungono “At this point, there is need to cooperate with the executive to at least give 10 per cent of our national budget to agriculture in tandem with the Maputo Declaration.”

Lamenting the over N635 billion spent on wheat importation annually, he said that although oil is a working asset, there was need to diversify the economy through agriculture to create sustainable development and generate employment.

He said that the Maputo Declaration would have been implemented if the House had the veto power, adding that “As a legislator, one of our major functions is appropriation. We assure you that we are going to do everything possible to give you robust funding not only for wheat, but also other crops and especially for research and development.”

Earlier, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adesina who was represented by Dr Akinbolawa Osho said the wheat value chain was expected to cover a minimum of 33,000 hectare in each of the wheat producing states, adding that about 7,500 improved seeds would be distributed to the farmers in the selected states in an effort to reduce wheat importation at least by 50 per cent.

The selected states include Borno (Ngala and Kirnowa), Taraba (Gembu, Ngoroje), Adamawa (Dasin Hausa), Bauchi (Badel Jama’are, Misau), Jigawa (Hadejia, Chiyeko, Ringim), Plateau (Tahoss), Kano (Kadawa, Bunkure, Alkamawa and Bagwai), Kebbi (Kebbi), Sokoto (Sokoto),  Zamfara (Talata Mafara), Yobe (Gashua)and Gombe (Balanga & Dadinkowa).

The Africa Union Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security of 2003 stated that 10 per cent of national budget should be allocated to agricultural development.

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