By Nik Ogbulie
Current report of country specific achievements in meeting the 17 sustainable development goals(SDG) as recommended by the United Nations has shown that Nigeria has not been able to meet even one of the recommendations many years after huge sums of money has been spent by the government, including larger grants which the UN, were passed through the over 160 countries.
Reports coming from the sidelines of the just concluded United Nations General Assembly(UNGA) indicate that Nigeria stands the chance of not achieving even one of the strategic development targets considered as indications for achieving standard of living and healthy life-style in today’s world.
African countries led by Nigeria have continued to lag far behind in meeting these goals with only one rated 10th in a stream of about 166 Nations.
African countries were considered major beneficiaries of this programme if they can take the advantage, but indications have shown that even the much trumpeted big economies are not close to recording even one favourable achievement.
Indications are rife that the very poor performance reflect the very poor leadership record in African countries which have been responsible for lack of adequate development structures with the prevalence of corruption among other vices that have conspired in degrading human existence in Africa.
The existence of myriad of diseases, lack of health institutions and poor access to modern education have been on the rise among many poor economies, including Nigrria.
The channels for implementing this demand in Nigeria, like the civil service have been fraught with huge corruption, poor skills and inconsistent implementation policies to mention the least.
It could be understood that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were always a very ambitious set of targets for global development, stretching across economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection.
It is not certain if any change in performance would be reported by the agencies after a global review must have been made at the meeting in New York.
According to “African Business” publication, “a succession of crises in recent years – Covid, the Russia-Ukraine War – has made them more difficult to achieve by the target year of 2030. With 2023 the halfway point between introduction and conclusion, Africa is lagging.
Of the 166 states that the The Sustainable Development Report 2023 is able to assess, Tunisia is the top-ranked African nation in 58th position.
It is only regarded as having achieved one SDG, that of ending poverty, but still has major challenges in ending hunger, providing decent work and economic growth.
The next highest-ranked African countries are Cape Verde, Mauritius, Namibia and South Africa, but even South Africa finds itself ranked in 110th position, having achieved none of the goals and with a particular deterioration in its education provision.
Only two of the bottom 14 ranked countries are not in sub-Saharan Africa, with South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Chad making the least progress on the goals.
A joint report published at the African Economic Conference 2022 concluded that without quicker progress towards achieving the SDGs, at least 492m people in Africa will remain in extreme poverty in 2030 and 350m in 2050.
However, the report argued that the 2050 figure could be driven down to 159.7m if policies to promote the SDGs are introduced, including transforming agricultural productivity through modernisation and promoting equitable and affordable access to energy.
Achieving the SDGs in their entirety may now be beyond many African countries by the target date, but much good can still come out of efforts to pursue them. “.
