IN the year 2000, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were adopted; this set of goals expires this year. A new framework debated very widely for several months resulted in the proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs were ratified by a galaxy of Heads of States, including our President.
Thenceforth, the 17 goals will drive global goals till 2030. While we as a country face our peculiar historical contextual challenges, we share broad characteristics of underdevelopment (low GDP/capita, high maternal mortality, high infant mortality, high import-dependence among others) with other African countries which the SDGs aptly capture.
There are seven signposts that we need to watch and implement with utmost urgency and sustained attention over the next 15 years. First is the Goal to end poverty in all its forms by 2030. This is the capstone of development economics in the last six decades. The second signpost is the ending of hunger poverty by ensuring safe, nutritious and sufficient food for all. My third signpost derives from SDG Goal Three and I lump it with the first Goal which is to eliminate “health poverty” by ensuring that all live “healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”. We will accomplish these by engineering a convergence of strong social and economic policies that target income, hunger and health poverty.
The fourth signpost, I derive from Goal 11 which enjoins us to regard urbanisation as a positive force for development: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.” By this, we should implement policies to ensure access to safe and affordable housing and basic services for all Nigerians in the next two decades. In addition, we need to provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by expanding public transport, with special attention to the needs of those in vulnerable situations, women and children. Quite often, our policies are highly biased towards housing for the rich and private transportation that favours the rich; this has to be reviewed.
In order to achieve the broad four goals we find within the SDGs, I identify three core goals of critical importance which emphasise productive activities namely, Goal 8: “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all”. This requires us to promote cross-sectoral economic policies in order to sustain high per capita economic growth that I believe is certainly possible given the diverse resources of this country, to achieve a consistent 7-10 % per annum GDP growth as China has done for three decades.
This can be done by raising sector and labour levels productivity of our economy through economic diversification (move away from the oil economy); promote technological upgrading and innovation, and through explicit policies focus on high value-added and labour-intensive sectors and activities. A key gain of manufacturing dynamism is the potential to achieve full and productive employment; a justifiable goal that will address the widespread youth unemployment in our country.
The second goal that I identify is SDG number 9: “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation”. This goal proposes that countries articulate a framework for dynamic industrialisation policies at the national level drawing on the SDGs that closely coordinate industrial policy with social policy objectives; to prioritise industrial policy mechanisms that reduce employment and poverty.
The goal should lead to inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, and by 2030 raise significantly industry’s share of employment and GDP. We need to improve infrastructure, foster access of small-scale industrial and other enterprises to financial services, including affordable credit.
We need to lay out in a very comprehensive framework the mechanisms for securing better human living conditions and bridging the inequality gap for Nigerians. I have heard both the President and the Vice President; the latter in fact at several times at different fora, lament the intolerably high level of poverty of Nigerians in the midst of plenty. This has to be addressed forcefully and urgently.
We need a long-term multi-dimensional plan for industrialisation because given my own analysis of Nigeria’s long-term structural change, our country as with several African countries, has practically skipped the phase of industrialisation! The manufacturing’s contribution to Nigeria’s overall GDP has remained at an astonishingly low level, below 10 per cent for three decades.
The final goal is the establishment and enforcement of strong institutions. Positive institutions do three things broadly: regulate individual and organisational behaviour towards what is right and beneficial to society. For example without the right laws to punish severely a person who appropriates public funds, corruption will thrive as we have witnessed in our country because though we have the letter of corruption-deterrence institutions (EFCC and others), the right spirit for institutional policies and practices never existed.
Second, institutions resolve conflicts between contending interests in society. In so doing, institutions focus on the social purpose, they transcend individuals and personal agendas in the process of mediating the rules that govern long-term goals, especially those formal organisations of government and public services such as the executive and legislative arms. The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representative, Joh Boener, resigned in order to “save the institution”. Lastly, institutions renew by incentivising social and technological innovations, evolving new structures and mechanisms to promote citizens’ living standards while maintaining social order, security and safety.
Institutions are central to legislation and law-making functions, the formal mechanism for political rule-making and enforcement. Goal 16 of the SDGs enjoins us to: “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels”. The sub-goals include the promotion of the rule of law and to ensure equal access to justice for all.
It explicitly wants us to significantly reduce illicit financial flows, “strengthen recovery and return of stolen assets, and combat all forms of organised crime; substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all its forms”. Our long-run progress hinges on developing enforceable effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels that survive great and good leaders.
• Professor Oyelaran-Oyeyinka is Director, Regional Office for Africa, UN-HABITAT.