View
3
Download
0
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
1
1
POOR POLICY IMPLEMENTATION IN NIGERIA:
IMPLICATIONS ON THE ATTAINMENT OF THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS (MDGs) BY 2015.
BY
NDU UCHENNA MAUREEN
PG/MSC/08/48359
A RESEARCH PROJECT PRESENTED TO THE DEPARTMENT
OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (PALG), FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF
NIGERIA, NSUKKA, IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF M.SC IN PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION.
SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR FAB. O. ONAH
CHAPTER ONE
2
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
The problem of development according to Igbuzor {2005} has
occupied the attention of scholars, activists, politicians,
development workers, local and international organization for
many years with increased tempo in the last decade. Though
there are different perspectives to development, there is a general
consensus among scholars that development will lead to good
change manifested in increased capacity of people to have control
over material assets, intellectual resources and ideology and
obtain physical necessities of life (food, clothing, and shelter)
employment equality, participation in government, political and
economic independence, adequate education, gender equality,
sustainable development and peace. This is why some people
have argued that the purpose of development is to improve
peoples’ lives by expanding their choice, freedom and dignity.
However the reality of development all over the world is that
many countries are underdeveloped with precarious development
indices. More than 1.2 billion people or about 20 percent of world
population live on less than one us dollar per pay. Wealth is
concentrated in the hand of a few people. The UNDP (1988)
documented that the three richest people in the world have
assets that exceed the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the 48
least developed countries. Similarly, the 1000 richest people in
the world have personal wealth that is greater than that of 500
million people in the least developed countries.
Nigeria, which was one of the richest 50 countries in
the early 1970s, has retrogressed to become one of the 25 poorest
3
countries at the threshold of the twenty first century. It is ironical
that Nigeria which is the sixth largest exporter of oil, at the same
time hosts the third largest number of poor people after China
and India. World Bank (2001) statistics show that the incidence
of poverty using the US one dollar per day increased from 28.1
percent in 1980 to 46.3 percent in 1985 and declined to 42.7
percent in 1992 but increased again to 65.6 percent in 1996. The
incidence increased to 69.2 percent in 1997. The National
planning commission (2004) report indicates that the poverty
level has decreased to 54.4 percent. Nigeria fares very poorly in
development indices. The average annual percentage growth of
GDP in Nigeria from 1990 to 2000 according to this report was
2.4 percent. This is very poor when compared to Ghana (4.3) and
Egypt (4.6) percent
NBS (2007) reports that Nigeria is among the 20
countries in the world with the widest gap between the rich and
the poor. The Gini index according to this report remains one of
the highest in the world. Nigeria has a Gini index of 50.6. This
compares poorly with other countries such as India (37.3),
Jamaica (37.9) Mauritania (37.8) and Rwanda (28.9). The Gini
index measures the extent to which the distribution of income
among individuals or household, within an economy deviates
from a perfectly equal distribution. A Gini index of zero
represents perfect equality while an index of 100 implies perfect
inequality.
In order to address the global problem of poverty and
promote sustainable development, 192 members of the United
Nations and at least 23 international organizations in September
4
2000 adopted the United Nation Millennium Declaration on
poverty eradication, universal primary education, promotion of
gender equality, peace, democracy and environmental
sustainability. The eight main targets using 1990 as a base line
are:
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
2015 target: Halve proportion of people living on less than
One dollar, a day and those suffering from hunger.
2. Achieve universal basic education.
2015 target: Achieve Universal Primary Education.
3. Promote Gender Equality.
2005/2015 target: Eliminate gender disparities in primary
and secondary education enrolment by 2015.
4. Reduce child mortality.
2015 target: Reduce by two-third the child mortality rate.
5. Improve maternal health.
2015 target: Reduce by three-quarters the proportion of
women dying in child birth.
6. Combat AIDS, malaria and other Diseases.
2015 target: Halt and begin to reserve the incidence of
HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases.
7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability. Integrate the
principles of sustainable development into country policies
and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental
resources.
2015 target: reduce by half the proportion of people
without access to clean drinking water and basic
5
sanitation. By 2020 achieve a significant improvement in
the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.
8. Develop a Global Partnership for Development. There are
no measurable but Goal 8 commits North and South to
working together to achieve an open, rule based trading
and financial system, more generous aid to countries
committed to poverty reduction and relief for the debt
problems of developing countries.
It draws attention to the problems of the least developed and
landlocked countries and small Island developing states, which
have greater difficulty competing in the global economy.
Following the slow pace of progress in achieving the above
goals by these underdeveloped countries, especially Africa, the
United Nations held another World summit in September, 2005
to review the rate of progress. Representatives of the 192 member
states met in New York city for what the united Nations described
as “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to take bold decisions in
the areas of development, security, human right and reform of
the United Nations (world summit outcome:2005). In his opening
address, Brockmann (2005) reminded delegates that the cry of
African people did not require new commitments; rather “the
courage to live up to the words we have spoken many times
“over”. Africa cannot move ahead on its own, he said, stressing
that it was now time to move from promises to concrete action,
and for donors and Breton woods institutions to fully honour
their pledges. Addressing the summit also, Ban Ki-Moon (2005)
stressed that $72 billion per year was needed in external
financing to achieve the Millennium Goals by 2010. While that
6
figure might seem daunting, it was, in fact, affordable,
particularly considering the $267 billion spent the precious year
by organizations for Economic Cooperation and Development (O
E C D) Countries on agricultural subsidies alone. “No one is more
alarmed than you at the current trends, which indicate that no
African country will achieve all the Goals by 2015, he said, but
emphasized that he was nonetheless convinced that through
concerted actions by African Governments and their development
partners, Millennium Development Goals remained achievable.
Kikwete (2005) speaking on behalf of the African Union,
underscored that Africa was determined to wrestle itself from its
predicaments, all it needed was help to complement its efforts. A
lack of resources stood in the way, and he was disappointed at
the failure of developed nations to follow through on their
commitments.
The MDG Report (2009) revealed that although development
assistance rose to record levels in 2008, donors are falling short
by 835 billion per year on the 2005 pledge on annual aid flows
made by the group of Eight in Gleneagles. More than half way to
the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals
(M D G), major advances in the fight against poverty and hunger
have begun to slow or even, reserve as a result of the global
economic and food crisis. The assessment, launched by UN
secretary general in Geneva warns that, despite many successes,
overall progress has been too slow for most of the targets to be
met by 2015.
Therefore, judging from the perceived global trend in the
progress or lack of progress in the achievement of the Millennium
7
Development Goals, what is the position of Nigeria in achieving
these targets by 2015 in the face of our peculiar economic
environment? In my view, Nigeria has sufficient resources to meet
the MDGs in 2015. But for this to happen, the country will have
to change course in the conceptualization and implementation of
policies and programmes. This is necessary because according to
Egonmwan (1991), policy implementation has been described as
one major problem confronting developing countries such as
Nigeria. The implementation problem in developing countries is
the problem of a widening gap between intentions and results.
Implementation gap manifest in the widening of the distance
between stated policy goal and the realization of such planned
goals. In the words of Honadle (1979), no matter how beautiful
the blueprint of a programme is, a defective implementation of it
will make nonsense of the whole programme.
Nigeria has a chequered history in the area of policy
formulation and implementation. It very clear from records that
Nigeria over the years has initiated so many development policies,
many of which did not see the light of the day due to poor
implementation or non-implementation. There were policies such
as Operation feed the Nation, Better Life for Rural Women (B L P),
Family Support Programme (F S P), Green Revolution, Child Care
Trust (C C T)etc.
The failure of these programmes notwithstanding the huge
amount of resources that have been committed to their
implementation has provoked the desire of the researcher to
embark on this research effort. Attempts will be made to examine
thoroughly the prospects and fears in the policy formulation and
8
implementation machinery in Nigeria that will either make or mar
the chances of our country in meeting the millennium
development targets by 2015.
1.2. Statement of the Problem
The Millennium Development Goals represent a global
partnership that has grown from the commitments and targets
established at the world summits of the 1990s. Responding to the
world’s main development challenges and to the calls by civil
society, the MDGs promote poverty reduction, education
maternal health, gender equality, and aim at combating child
mortality and other diseases. Set for the year 2015, the MDGs are
an agreed set goals that can be achieved if all actors work
together and do their part. Poor countries have pledged to govern
better and invest in their people through health care and
education. Rich countries have pledged to support them through
aid, debt relief and fairer trade.
However, 2015 is just four years away and the global
situation has remained slow resource commitment by donor
countries and slow progress in achieving targets by these poor
countries. In Nigeria situation going by MDGs (2005) report, the
challenges are enormous but some appear to be more critical.
First, the system of information gathering and management in
Nigeria is daunting. Second, good governance is necessary for
achieving the MDGs by 2015 but these are virtues that have
eluded Nigeria since her independence. Third, although several
reforms have been undertaken at the federal level, inadequate
complementary efforts from state and local governments limit the
impact of these reforms.
9
The Report goes further to show that there is the challenge
of accurate, reliable, credible and believable statistics, coupled
with the fact again that development strategy planning in Nigeria
has been essentially external focused.
In the face of all these challenges that are standing on our
way, what is the likelihood that we shall join the rest of the world
in celebrating the millennium targets by 2015? Nigeria by
October last year rolled-out redcapets to celebrate her golden
jubilee as a sovereign nation. But four years away from 2015
targets of global fight against poverty and disease, the nation has
not much on ground to show for the resources and aids it has
received for this global project Ban Ki-moon (2009) put it this
way. Time is shot. We must seize this historic moment to act
responsibly and decisively for the common good”
Considering Nigeria records in policy formulation and
implementation, shall we in our characteristic feature of policy
failures due to implementation gap act responsibly and decisively
in achieving these set targets by 2015? For a long time in Nigeria
especially during colonial era and immediate post independence
period, policy making was not guided by scientific models or
principles but by incrementalism i.e an experimental process by
which government reacted to problems and situation as they
arose (Akpan, 2000). Although the situation has since improved
as reflected in certain key policies and programmes, many
economic and social problems in the country have subsisted
because of weakness in public policy formulation and
implementations. Some of the weaknesses and problems are due
to inadequate information and data leading to “planning without
10
facts” and also most policy decisions and statements are not
predicated on sound analysis.
Akpan[2000] summarized his fears in journey towards the
attainment of the MDGs target by 2015 in the following words
“when you take a look at the Millennium Development Goals and
examine the priority attention given to poverty eradication, basic
education, sustainable development and public health related
issues like maternal and child mortality, eradication of infectious
disease like Malaria, HIV/AID, in Nigeria situation, it will be
obvious that we are not making any headway “No nation can
attempt to attain these lofty goals without a well-thought out,
well consummated and implemented national policy. The fears
expressed here are real and I equally feel the same way and these
shall form the focus of this research effort.
1.3. Objectives of the Study
a. General Objectives: The general objective of this study is to
examine holistically, judging from the slow pace in resource
commitment by these developed nations and slow progress in
achieving targets by these poor countries, the possibilities of
attaining or achieving the global target set on or before 2015.
b. Specific Objectives: The specific objectives of this research
are to;
1. ascertain the extent to which Nigeria has been able to make
progress in the attainment of the eight goals set by UN general
Assembly.
2. examine the level of resource commitments by the donor
countries visa –vis Nigeria’s access and effective use of such
resources in targets attainment.
11
3. find out the efficacy of policy instrument that have been
designed towards the attainment of these millennium
development goals.
4. propose a way forward towards ensuring full attainment of the
eight millennium goals by Nigeria.
1.4. Significance of the Study
A. Theoretical Significance: This research is theoretically
significant in the following ways:
i. it will give a comprehensive overview of the global trend and
state of art in the journey towards the attainment of the
millennium development goals by 2015.
ii. the world is a global village and as such just like the political
system theory, what affects one country will also go to affect
other member countries of the system. The global financial
crisis has affected the economy of many nations and this study
will provide information on the situations of many donor
countries as way of guiding poor countries like Nigeria on how
to make some adjustments in her policy instruments as to
withstand the global financial fever in order to work towards
attaining the set target by 2015.
iii. this study again will be theoretically significant because it will
employ information gathering techniques that will provide a
concise position of Nigeria in the area of millennium
development goals attainment. It will briefly summarize the
level of attainment of each stated target and the prospects or
otherwise of full attainment of these targets by 2015.
B. Empirical Significance:
12
This study will be significant empirically in the following ways:
i. the data that will be generated from this study will be of such
a value that will enable one to make some projections or
postulations into the future prospects of these poor countries
especially Nigeria in meeting the global targets by 2015.
ii. the statistical data/findings of this research will be such that
will provide in quantitative terms the relative performance of
Nigeria in the eight target areas as provided by the united
Nations. With this it will be possible to make such prediction
about Nigeria position before 2015.
iii. With the data that will emerge at the end, one will be able to
make a comparative assessment o f Nigeria in relation to other
countries in the attainment of these global initiatives.
iv. Conclusions of this work will be objectively based on the
theoretical as well as empirical data that will be collected from
all the sources of information to be used.
1.5. Scope/Limitations of the Study
This study is analytical in nature and as such will cover the
performance of the eight millennium goals as set out by the
United Nations as it affects Nigeria situation. The study shall
examine the Nigerian performance in the attainment of the set
goals right from inception of the programme.
However due to the time constraint and limited resources,
the study will not be able to cover other countries of the world
who are also involved in this programme.
13
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Introduction
In order to arrive at both theoretical and empirical
conclusions in this research effort, the researcher reviewed a lot
of literary works that have direct bearing on the subject under
study. The literature revered were those that have to do with
such aspect of the topic and are in the areas of:-
- Concept of public policy
- policy formation/implementation in Nigeria situation
- problems of policy implementation in Nigeria
- review of Nigeria’s progress in the M D Gs as set by united
Nations.
- Prospects of Nigeria in meeting the set target by 2015.
2.2. The Concept of Public Policy
The Longman’s Dictionary of Contemporary English defines
policy as “a plan or course of action in directing affairs, as chosen
by a political party, government, business company, etc. In
political science, In this sense according to Akpan (2000), policy
answers questions such as “what do you do in this organization
and what kinds of issues or problems do you deal with? “He went
further to opine that public policies the policies of governments-
entails both conceptions in terms of the “what” and “how” of
government activities. Thus, public policies relate to
government’s decision making. In the words of Suberu (1999),
policy may be conceived as the course of action by government
towards an aspect of the economy, including the goals of
14
government methods to pursue such goals. In general terms,
policy implies state intervention in the economy. They are
purposeful statements, written or oral, aimed at solving a
particular problem. The point that some, policies could be oral
statement is important to note because very often policies are
pronounced even when they have not been articulated in writing
or are enacted without being written (Gitu, 2001).
In practical terms according to Ekaete (2001), public policy
consist of a course of actions and measures deliberately taken in
other to direct the affairs of society towards the realization of pre-
determined goals or objectives of development. Public policies
here aim to promote societal well-being, good governance and
development. Accordingly, they deal with a wide range of societal
issues- economic, political, social cultural, scientific social
welfare, environmental, political structures and organizations,
law and order, regulation of economic and social activities.
(Seburu, 1999)
At the economic level, Bolt (1991) views public policy as
comprising of two or more categories; on the one hand, there are
the economy –wide or macro-economic policies, which are
consigned with how the economy as a whole could fare better in
terms of high level of employment, relatively low and stable
general high price level, higher and sustainable economic growth,
fair distribution of income, stable exchange rates, favourable
balance of payments position etc. Then there are the sectoral or
micro-economic policies, which are concerned with how
individual sectors of the economy can perform better. There are
nevertheless other vital aspects of public policy which are not
15
necessarily directly linked to economic considerations as for
example, policies that have to do with education, health, the
environment, population, social welfare, science and technology
etc.
Then, of course, there is the political dimension of public
policy (Seburu, 1999) which may be directly concerned with
issues of reorganization, redistribution, or national symbolism.
In the opinion of Egomnwam (2000:1), there is lack of
consensus over the meaning of public policy. This lack of
consensus derives from disagreement “over the boundary of what
should constitute public policy should it be posited at the level of
decision –making intention or action of the government?”
According to Abdusalami (1998:1) public policy “ refers to hard
patterns of resource allocation represented by projects and
programmes designed to respond to perceived public problems or
challenges requiring government action for their solution” Implicit
in the above definition is that public policy is what governments
actually do and not what they intend doing. In other words, mere
declaration of intentions, wishes, principles or expression of
desires cannot be regarded as public policy. A policy has wider
ramifications and longer time perspective than a decision.
Policies provide the guiding framework for day to- day decisions
required in the application of resources towards the attainment of
organizational goals (Nwosu; 1980).
In his view about the concept of public policy, Dye (1981:8)
defines public policy as “whatever government chooses to do or
not to do. A major flow of this definition is its failure to recognize
the divergence between what governments decide to do and what
16
they actually do. In his critic of the two definitions above
Egonmwan (2000:2) maintained that they failed to provide basis
for distinguishing policy formulation from policy implementation.
Again they failed “to provide any basis for evaluating the overall
success or failure of policies as the assumptions in the
definitions are that each decision or actions of government is
supposed to be an independent policy of its own”.
17
In his contribution to this concept definition Ezeani (2005)
opined that public policy should be seen as a proposed course of
action which the government intends to implement in response to
a given problem or situation confronting it. It is a statement of
what government wants to do or what it will do. Public policy can
in this sense be regarded as general rules, regulation, guiding
practices or actions in a particular activity or problem area.
Public policy, therefore, has to do with selected choice of action
or programme by government which will guide it in achieving
governmental objectives of essential service rendering, citizen
protection, promotion of individual and general societal welfare
and external representatives. Public policy is government’s long
range plans and values and the principles and practices that
should be adopted in various fields of national life.
Public policy from the opinions above, include government’s
action and in action and the effects such actions and inactions
have on the target audience. In this regard, one may align his
ideas to the definition of public policy as authoritative allocation
of values for the whole society”. This authoritative value
allocation covers a wide range of areas or activities such as
welfare education, health, labour, rural development,
transportation, communication, agriculture etc.
In a very broad definition, Dye (1981) likened the term
public policy to whatever governments choose to do or not to do”.
In this definition, the most important word in so far as it
concerns public policy is “choose”. For government to make its
choice on what to do or, not to do, it must have, first of all
18
consider the issues involved and the total ramifications of its
actions or inactions upon other related issues. In other words,
government must have to take a decision in one way or the other.
Essentially, therefore, the “existence of a policy means that
there is also an articulated and clearly defined public issue
requiring solution on a continuing basis through the commitment
of substantial public sector resources and efforts within the
context of government programme”. According to Ibrahim (1998)
government actions which can be referred to as public policy
include the provision of public goods and services such as
education, health, highways, electricity, social welfare, among
others, the control and supervision of personal and group
activities through law-making, law enforcement, inspection of
personal and business premises, quality control etc. Government
usually makes a decision on each of the forgoing and then take
active steps towards the enforcement of their observance or non-
observance by members of the public. That then, not only
represents government policy, but also becomes public policy on
such issues or problems. One can then conclusively say that even
though policy is somehow related to the word decision, “a policy
usually has wider ramifications and longer time perspective than
a decision. While the former may be a continuing process, the
later is terminal action.
2.3. Categories of Public Policy
Anderson (1975) categorized public policy into five main
policy agenda depending on the political environment where such
policies are to be executed. But in Nigeria situation, he classified
them as:
19
i. Policy demands: These are demands or claims made upon
public officials by other actors in the political system for
actions or inaction on some perceived problem. Such demands
may take the form of insistence that government ought to do
something” to a proposal for specific action on the matter.
Orewa (1997) puts it that the demands for the solution of a
public problem are usually made as input into government’s
policy process. Sometimes, these problems may change and
the groups affected by them will subsequently modify their
demands and desires in form of further inputs. Therefore,
policy makers have to adapt their policies to suit the changing
input of their stakeholders.
ii. Policy Decisions: Policy decision according to Anderson
(1975) are decisions made by public officials that authorize or
give direction and content to public policy actions. Examples
are decisions to enact statutes, issue executive orders or edict
promulgation, decrees etc. As it appears according to Orewa
(1997), government may take a decision on certain issues but
does not support or pursue that decision either with its
resources allocation or it may fail to follow up its decision for a
long time. That decision of government then stops short of
being a policy. Thus, decision has been described as “mere
declaration of intentions, wishes principles or expression of
desires.
iii. Policy Statements: Policy statements, according to
Anderson (1975) are the formal expressions or articulations of
public policy. They include legislative statute, decrees,
presidential orders, administrative rules and court opinions, as
20
well as indicating the intention and goals of government, and
how to realize them.
iv. Policy Outputs: Policy outputs, according to Anderson, are
tangible manifestation, of policy, ie the things actually done in
pursuance of policy decisions and statements. They are
therefore, what government does as distinguished from what it
says it will do. Examples are health centres actually built,
roads constructed, schools built etc. It is worthy to note, that
policy outputs may sometimes differ from what policy
statements indicate they should be. Orewa (1997) Cited the
poverty alleviation policy to give assertions to the claim above.
According to him, the poverty alleviation programme/policy of
former president Obasanjo’s government had the objective of
reducing poverty through a welfare package to the poor and
the unemployed in the society. They were to be paid stipends
and allowances on a monthly basis. These supposed stipends
only succeeded in lining up the pockets of the ruling party’s
local stalwarts and politicians who merely stuffed the poverty
alleviation registers with fictitious names of their longer- on
and relations whose entitlements ended up in the private
purses of the former. So rather then alleviating the problems
of poverty among the very poor Nigerians the Obasanjo
administration merely acted on the problem, while the
influential persons in the society seized the opportunity to
satisfy their personal selfish interests, thus widening the
poverty gap amongst Nigerians, resulting, in the exact opposite
of what the policy was intended to solve.
21
v. Policy Outcomes: These are the consequences for society that
resulted from action or inaction y government both intended
and unintended. For example, the intended consequences, of
the current privatization policy being implemented in Nigeria
are efficiency and higher profit of the privatized firms, removal
government subsides for public enterprises thereby saving
billions of Naira worth of public funds spent on them over the
years etc. but the unintended consequences are inflation and
the consequent hardship for families due to low purchasing
power of the naira. Again the capitalization policy and the
merging of banks being currently implemented by the central
bank of Nigeria might achieve the intended consequences of
strengthening the banks thereby securing public funds, but it
has led to the retrenchment of workers of banks that were not
able to meet up.
2.4. Policy Formulation in Nigeria-Nature and Problems.
Policy formulation according to Orewa (1997) refers to the
development of proposed courses of action for dealing with public
problems. Existing studies of the policy process in several
countries show that policy making is a complex exercise which
involves a large number of actors. Taiwo (2005) for instance
distinguishes between “proximate policy makers and more remote
policy makers and policy influencers. By proximate policy
makers, he refers to those who have legal authority to make
public policies. Remote policy makers and policy influencers refer
to persons or group of persons, not within the orbit of the
“proximate” policy makers, who influence and determine the
content of public policies.
22
According to Ugoo et al (2004), policy formulation has to do
with the selection of the principles and rules of action that are to
govern a type of activity. New policies are to be formulated when
a new function is performed, when new conditions changes, when
a policy gap is discovered or when supplementary policy is
carried to lower levels. Policy making according to Ekaete 2001),
can be defined as the elaboration of policy in terms of formulation
and implementation. It is the process by which the government or
enterprise develops and implements an effective strategy to meet
desired objective. The policy formulation process entails the
determination of the policy problem, policy content, design of
implementation strategies and monitoring, review and revision of
strategy. For any policy to achieve its goals, it must be predicated
on a clearly identified and articulated strategy.
In Nigeria, the principal actors in the policy formulation
include the following:
- the legislature who is traditionally recognized as a policy-
making organ in Nigeria especially in the current democratic
process. The legislators according to him have sponsored many
bills which address pressing problems of their constituencies
and the nation at large. Most of these bills have been passed
into laws and are now public policies. However, policy making is
no longer the exclusive preserve of legislators. According to
Leeds (1983) the “congress has found it necessary to delegate
substantial legislative power to agencies and departments:
- The executive is another important source of public policies in
Nigeria. The president and his cabinet have been the major
23
source of initiative in the development of policy proposals. In
Nigeria situation, Adebayo (1981:74) has observed that
“responsibility for policy rest with the political chief Executive,
who should lay down policy guidelines, and set the broad lines
of policy to be pursued.
Anderson (1975:39) remarked that “we live in what has been
called an “executive “.
- Centred era”, in which the effectiveness of government, depends
substantially upon executive leadership, both in policy
formulation and in policy execution.
- Administrative Agencies. He also remarked that quite a
substantial number of policy proposals are developed by career
bureaucrat in the administration departments and agencies.
These are forwarded to the executive and the legislature for their
consideration. Thus the popular and traditional view that policy
is the responsibility of political functionaries, whilst career
officials are mere policy executors is now unrealistic (Anderson,
1975). The permanence of the career officials, their experience
and expert knowledge of and skills in modern management
combine to put them in an advantageous position in the
determination of government policies.
- The Courts according to Adamolekun (1983) have often played
an important role in policy formulation, by affecting the nature
of and content of public policy through the exercise of the
powers of judicial review and statutory interpretation in cases
brought before them. Judicial review is the power of courts to
determine the constitutionality of actions of the legislative and
executive branches and declare them null and void, if such go
24
contrary to the provisions of the constitution. The trust of policy
is usually affected by such decisions.
Then finally comes the interest groups who Jones (1984)
opined that they have crucial roles to play in the policy
formulation process. According to him, they submit to the
legislature specific proposals by government to suit their interest.
The influence of interest groups, however, depend on the size of
the group, its monetary and other resources, cohesiveness and
the skills of its leadership etc.
Public policies are aimed at addressing the numerous
problems and concerns of society. They can be simple or
complicated, depending on the nature of the problems. Economic
policy making, for example, is much more complicated than
promulgating laws or regulations. While some major policies can
be changed by the “stroke of pen”, most require a continuous and
difficult period of formulation analysis and implementation. For
example, privatization policy and civil service reforms require
high degree of technical competence to go along with political
will. But because public policy is an aggregation of a people’s
collective hopes, wishes and aspirations, development decision-
making should not be a top-down but a needs-motivated people-
supported, community-involved, botton-up process. This requires
wide consultation prior to the initiation of policy and involvement
of stakeholders in policy implementation.
But it is saddening to note that in Nigeria today, majority of
the people whom this public policy is meant for are not well
informed because of their lack of reading habits and lack of
awareness of government intentions and programme. In the word
25
of Badwi (2004), majority of the population cannot afford the
least access to information on what the government does or
intends to do for the generality of its citizens not to talk of
making positive inputs to issues that will directly affect them. A
policy must be conceived before it is formulated, it must be
formulated before it can be implemented or executed.
As pointed out by Ogunsola (2004), the problem of policy
formulation hinges more poor representation of the people in the
policy formulation machinery or process. The principle of
delegation or representation requires that there should be a kind
of input, output and feedback provisions in our new democratic
system. But the issue remains that those that are being
represented do not have say as soon as the election are over and
so denies the vast majority of the people the opportunity of
taking parts in matters that have direct bearing on their future,
children and general welfare.
The obvious gap in policy formulation process according to
Akpan (2000) has led to the failure of most policies which did not
see the light of the day in Nigeria. Most of these policies even died
in the formulation stages and some during the stages of
implementation. He went further to say that for a long time in
Nigeria, especially during colonial era and immediate post
independence period, policy making was not guided by scientific
models or principles but by incrementalism ie an experimental
process by which government reacted to problem and situation as
they arose. Gitu (2001), concluded this assertion by saying that
although the situation has since improved, as reflected in certain
key policies and programmes, many economic and social
26
problems in the country have subsisted because of weakness in
public policy formulation and implementation. Some of the
weaknesses and problems are due to inadequate information and
data leading to “planning without facts” and so most policy
decisions and statements are not predicated on sound analysis.
2.5. Problems of Policy Implementation in Nigeria
It has been observed that policy implementation is one of
the major problems confronting developing nations. According
to Adamolekun (1983), policy implementation refers to the
activities that are carried out in the light of established policies.
It refers to the process of converting financial material, technical
and human inputs into outputs-goods and services (Egonmwan,
1991)
Edward (1980) defines policy implementation as a stage of
policy making between the establishments of a policy - such as
the passage of a legislative act, the issuing of an executive order
or the promulgation of a regulatory rule and the consequences of
the policy for the people whom it affects. It involves a wide variety
of action such as issuing and enforcing directives, disbursing
funds, making loans etc.
Egonmwan (1991), points out that policy implementation is
programme implementation. The implementation stage has been
identified as the most difficult stage in policy making process.
This stage according to him is made more difficult because of
certain assumptions that are generally made by policy
formulators which include that implementing agencies will
faithfully adhere to the policy handed down to them, that the
policy handed down is implementable meaning that resources
27
like knowledge or technical know-how, money men and material
are available to implement a given policy. In line with the
thinking, Adamolekun (1983) has identified the following
subjects, that deserve attention in a policy implementation
situation: first it is essential that the policy to be implemented is
clear and specific, second, there is the question of the
implementation organization, ie the structure of the organization
and the quality of its personnel, third, there is the question of the
target group to be affected by the new policy to be implemented.
Ezeani (2005: 6) notes that the content of policy and its
impact on those affected, may be substantially modified and
elaborated, even negated during implementation. He identified
the following relevant actors in the implementation process.
- Administrative agencies
- The judiciary
- Interest or pressure groups
- The legislature
- Community based organization etc.
Policy Implementation Problems-The Nigerian Experience
According to Taiwo (2005), implementation problems occur
when the desired result on the target beneficiaries is not
achieved. Wherever and whenever the basic critical factors that
are very crucial to implementing public policy are missing, there
is bound to be implementation problem. Edward III (1980) in
Taiwo (2005), identified these critical factors to be
communication, resources dispositions or attitudes and
bureaucratic structures. These four factors operate
28
simultaneously and they interact with each other to aid or hinder
policy implementation.
Stripped of all technicalities, implementation problem in
developing nations is the problem of a widening gap between
intentions and result. Honadle (1979) tried to identify the
problem associated with policy implementation as that of social
carpenters and masons who fail to build to specification and this
distort the beautiful blue print. Here he was equating with a
building plan.
Quoting him, he said:
Implementation is the nemesis of designers, it conjures
up images of plan gone away and of social carpenters
and masons who fail to build to specifications and
thereby distort the beautiful blue prints for progress
which were handed to them. It provokes memories of
“good” ideas that did not work and places the blame on
the second member of the policy and administrative
team …
The above quotation shows the importance that is attached
to policy implementation and those that are responsible for
implementing these policies. It also shows that no matter how
beautiful the blue print of government programme is, a defective
implementation of it will make nonsense of the whole programme.
Unfortunately, the situation as described by Honadle above
is what goes on in most developing countries, Nigeria inclusive.
As stated by Egonmwan (1971), implementation in these
countries often turns out to be the graveyard of policy where the
intentions of the designers of policies are often undermined by a
29
constellation of power forces of politics and administration in
cooperation with people. Little attention is paid to the subject of
policy implementation by policy decision makers while it is often
taken for granted that once a policy is adopted by government, it
must be implemented and the desired goals achieved. The above
lapse has resulted in poor policy implementation, which in effect,
gives rise to implementation gap. There is policy failure when
there is a sizeable gap between a policy decision and its
implementation.
2.6. Review of Nigeria’s Progress in MDGs
According to the MDGs Reports (2005-2009] Nigeria has the
potential to achieve some of the outlined goals in the millennium
Development Goals combating HIV/AIDS, ensuring
environmental sustainability, and developing a global partnership
for development ahead of the target time. However, there are
serious challenges in the area of reducing child and maternal
mortality.
In the same development, Igbuzor (2006:6), said, a review of
the Nigeria Millennium Development Goals 2005 report will reveal
a number of problems. As given by the report itself:
The challenges (facing the achievement of the
millennium Development Goals in 2015) are enormous,
but some appear to be more critical. First, the system
of information gathering and management in Nigeria is
daunting. Secondly, good governance is necessary for
achieving the MDGs by 2015. Continued process is
needed on this at the federal level while a lot more
needs to be done at the state and local government
30
levels to live up to up the challenge of ensuring
transparent, accountable, and responsive governance.
Thirdly, although several reforms have been
undertaken at the federal level, inadequate
complementary efforts from the state and local
governments limit the impact of the reforms. This
underscores the need for adequate coordination among
the three tiers of government.
A review of Nigeria progress on the achievement of the MDGs can
be thus seen.
Goal 1: Eradication of Extreme Poverty
Target: halve, between 19990 and 2015, the proportion of people
whose income is less than one dollar a day.
- Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people
who suffer from hunger.
The core welfare indicators survey (2004) conducted by the
National planning commission (NPC) shows that the
proportion of population living in relative poverty reduced to
54%. The data equally show that the proportion of
population living in extreme poverty was 35% while the
percentage of under weight children was 30%.
Following the above development, policy reform and
macroeconomic stability have created a platform for strategic
investments in agriculture and other pro-poor sectors. The
problems associated with poverty in Nigeria are multifaceted .
Therefore, investments must be undertaken by the tiers of
government, the private sector and international community.
Goal 2: Achieving Universal Primary Education
31
Target; ensure that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and
girls alike will be able to complete a full course of primary
schooling.
Poverty in Nigeria has more devastating effect on women
and the unskilled and the uneducated in terms of lack of access
to health care and income generation activities (NEEDS
Document, 2004). With the achievement of Universal primary
education with a focus on gender balance and skills acquisition
the people can, better be empowered to find better jobs, access
health care and other social amenities that will greatly improve
their lives.
Primary educational enrolment in Nigeria is a success story.
Accordingly MDGs Report (2006) notes that about 84% of school
age children attend school and an increasing number stay there
though to Grade 5. Net enrolment ratio in primary education was
84. 26% in 2005 as against 81.1% in 2004. The literacy rate of
15-24 years old also improved from 76.2% in 2004 to 80.20% in
2005.
This success has been bolstered by improved policy and better
intergovernmental coordination. The Universal Basic Education
(UBE) programme has improved access to schools. In another
situation, the increased enrolment rate have created challenges
to improving educational outcomes as resources are spread more
thinly across increasing number of students. Therefore,
concerted efforts are needed to improve the quality of teaching
and schooling, ensure value for money in the use of educational
resources, and sustain political commitment to the
implementation of UBE.
32
Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empowerment of
Women
Target: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary
education, preferably by 2015, and in all levels of education not
later then 2015.
Over 50% of the population in Nigeria are females, yet they
are underrepresented in public life and decision making,
discriminated against, denied equal access to basic social
amenities, and bear the brunt of poverty and all its related
negative effects .
According to the National Bureau of statistics Report (2006),
the ratio of girls to boys in primary education (ie girls per 100
boys) improved from 79% in 2004 to 81.0% in 2005. The
proportion of women in non-agricultural wage employment rose
to 79%in 2005 while the proportion of seats held by women in
national parliament was 5.76%. In 2005, women in Nigeria still
face inequalities in political participation and control of
household resources.
A sustained programme of action that focuses on
empowerment of women would be highly beneficial in reducing
poverty as more educated women can get better jobs, earn higher
incomes, and contribute more to society. They can also take
charge of their sexual and reproductive rights, thereby producing
healthier children and reducing their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.
As Okpanachi (2007) remarked.
Empowered women will also be able to access and use
the land for the benefit of themselves, then children
and their communities as studies have shown that
33
when women gain access to resources, they tend to
invest in improving the health, education, and
opportunities of their children.
On this note, therefore, the incentive for parents to send
their girl- children to school and keep them there must be
strengthened. The states need to reduce the cost of schooling and
make school environment more girl-friendly. Gender issues must
be mainstreamed into development strategies and budgets. The
government at the federal, state and local must pay attention to
schooling, political participation, employment and formulation of
gender responsive policies to fight the feminization of poverty.
Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality
Target: Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under
five mortality rate.
The NEEDS Document (2004:98) focuses on the welfare of
the child through the enforcement of the child Rights Act, 2005.
Emphasis is placed on child nutrition and immunization and the
issue of safe drinking water as it affects child health as addressed
in the document.
The reduction of child mortality remains one of the major
challenges facing Nigeria today. In MDGs Report (2006:2), as
against the global targets of 30/1000 live births in 2015, Nigeria
had 110/1000 live birth in 2005 with wide disparities which
subsist between rural and urban centres and among geographical
zones. Low maternal education, low coverage of immunization,
weak primary Health care (PHC) system, high incidence of
poverty, inequality, and poor household practices, among other
things accounted for high mortality rate in Nigeria.
34
The rate of child mortality in Nigeria (201/1000 live births)
remains very high when compared with other sub-Saharan region
countries (173.9/1000live births) and this ranks Nigeria as
highest country with the prevalence of polio in the world.
However, under-5 mortality rate improved marginally from
201 per 1000 births in 2003 to 197 per 1000 live birth in 2005
while the percentage of one year olds fully immunized against
measles also improved from 31.4% in 2003 to 50% in 2005
(MDGs Report, 2006). In 2005, the three tiers of government
showed appreciable signs of better collaboration in the provision
of health services. There are indications that decentralization of
immunization management has started to pay off. Continued
advocacy across the three tiers of government and traditional
institutions better household practices, access to safe drinking
water and adequate sanitation, will be key opportunities to
improving child health. Improving the federal system between the
primary and secondary health facilities is also paramount. Goal
5: Improve Maternal Healthcare
Target; Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the
maternal mortality ratio.
The MDGS Report (2006:3) says:
Maternal mortality continues to be high (800/1000)
live births in 2004). It is even higher in rural area and
the northern part of the country. About 15% and 46%
of urban and rural dwellers do not go for antenatal
care, and only about 44% deliveries are attended by
skilled health care personnel. About 2 million women
35
of reproductive age do not survive pregnancy or
childbirth.
In making progress, one of the aims of NEEDs is to reform
institutions such as teaching hospitals, federal medical centres
(FMC), and primary health care development agencies as well as
states and local government health system towards improved
maternal services. Implementation of National Health Insurance
scheme (NHIS) is working to make health care affordable and
accessible for all citizens. Encouraging private sector involvement
in maternity homes and support to existing government
structures will help to improve health services.
In a midst of the above following developments, long-
standing cultural, social and economic factors are challenges to
rapid improvement in these statistics, as rural dwellers
considered cost to be the greatest challenge to accessing health
care.
According to NEEDs document (2004), 1999 figures shows
that Nigeria has a maternal mortality rate of 704 per 100,000 live
births among the highest in the world. In the acknowledgment of
this, the Nigerian government currently put in place the following
programmes:
The national safe Motherhood partner which helps
to support expectant women in local communities.
National policy on VVF eradication, and
Programmes on the prevention of mother to child
HIV transmission are supported by UNICEF and
USAID throughout the country in tertiary
institutions.
36
In a nutshell, improving maternal health requires
addressing the cultural practices and social norms that limits
women’s knowledge and access to skill services. In addition to
overhauling the basic health infrastructure, training of health
workers and care givers as well as addressing financial barriers
to improved health care system deserve urgent attention. There is
also the need to improve availability and management of health
services, and promotion effective partnership, collaboration and
coordination.
Goal6: Combat HIV and AIDS, Malaria and other Diseases
Targets;
- Halt by 2015 and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
- Have halted by 2015 and begin to reverse the incidence of
malaria, tuberculosis, polio and other childhood killer
Diseases.
Since the identification of the first- HIV/AIDS case in mid 1980s,
the HIV prevalence rate has continually been on the increase.
Substantiatively, NEEDs document (2004:40) asserted that;
HIV/AIDS is a cross-cutting issue, with links to
education, health agriculture, defense, labour, and
other sectors. The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Nigeria has
extended beyond high-risk groups. More than 2.7
million Nigerians are now infected with the virus. An
estimate based on a 2001 sentinel survey
conservatively puts prevalence at 5.4 percent of the
population. The figure suggests that the nation is in
real danger of facing explosive growth in the epidemic,
with dire consequences for economic growth, health
37
and social development. HIV/AIDS is already having
disastrous impact on social and economic development
in Nigeria.
The main drivers of HIV in Nigeria include blood
transmission, unsafe sexual practices, while stigmatization and
discrimination against people living with AIDS (PLWAs) still
remain rife.
In the submission of MDGs Report (2006), Malaria and TB
are still a major public health problem in Nigeria because,
malaria accounted for 60% of all outpatient attendance, 30% of
all hospital admissions and responsible for 300,000 death
annually. The Report says, Nigeria ranked fourth among the 22
high burden countries in the world.
Poor sanitation and lack of access to clean water are some
of the major causes for the spread of malaria and other
communicable diseases in Nigeria. In the view of Okpanachi
(2007:14), Nigeria has only 54% of its urban population and 45%
of the rural population having access to improved sanitation
facilities and 62% of its urban population and 49% of the rural
population with access to improved water sources as at 2000.
Nigeria is still at high risk of a vast percentage of its population
being vulnerable to malaria and other communicable diseases.
Nigeria is one of the 20 countries most burdened by
tuberculosis as well. Although many of the cases of TB are
curable by relatively affordable drugs, only 19 percent of these
cases are treated .
Effective decentralization of HIV/AIDS programming to state
and local governments (in collaboration with non-governmental
38
stakeholders), addressing the problem of stigma and
discrimination, value for money in the use of public resources,
and sustained awareness creation among youths are central to
dealing with HIV/AIDS. In addition, the Roll Back Malaria
initiative needs to be strengthened and its interventions scaled
up. Improved reporting network and continuous public education
on TB coupled with stakeholders collaboration on its
managements is required.
Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
Targets:
o integrate the principles of sustainable development
into country policies and programmes and reverse the
loss of environmental resources.
o Halve by 2015 the proportion of people without
sustainable access to safe drinking water.
o By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement
in the live of at least 100 million slum dwellers.
Nigeria’s rich environmental resources base is being undermined
by unsustainable practices. Deforestation is high (3.5% annually)
and is being encouraged by use of fuel wood for cooking, a
common phenomenon in rural area. Oil companies pollute water
in the Niger Delta while gas flaring, though on a declining trend,
still remains high. Access to safe drinking water and sanitation is
improving but housing has reached a crisis point with only
31.1% having secured tenure (MDGs Report, 2006:4).
The NEEDs document (2004) presents a figure of over 90%
of the rural populace depending on the forest for livelihood and
domestic energy. The document also recognized desertification,
39
deforestation and oil spillage as sources of high risk to the
environment, so it proposes environmental measure to stem
pollution, tree planting, agro-forestry incentives to convert to
alternative energy use, enforcement of standard oil field
practices.
Nigeria is endowed with a rich and diverse natural
environment but over the years it has reaped its riches with
insufficient care for the livelihoods and well being of future
generations. There is a lot of environmental degradation in the
Niger Delta and other parts of Nigeria due to the activities of oil
prospecting companies and other mineral exploration
corporations. These unsustainable practices have led to conflicts
between the rural communities the companies and government
with the communities often becoming the economic and social
consequences of these conflicts.
Goal8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development
Targets:
- Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-
discriminatory trading and financial system.
- Address the special needs of the least developed countries
- Address the special needs of land locked developing countries
and Small Island developing state.
- Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing
countries through national and international measures in
order to make debt sustainable in the long term
- In cooperation with developing countries, develop and
implement strategies for decent and productive work for
youth
40
- In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide
access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries,
and
- In cooperation with the private sector, make available the
benefits of new technologies, especially information and
communications (UN General Assembly Report, 2001:58).
Nigeria like every other developing country needs as much
assistance as it can get from global partners as it strives to
achieve sustainable development. The country is blessed with
rich natural and human resources but years of military rule,
corruption and mismanagement have left the society under
developed and its people severely impoverished .
In the Nigeria’s MDGs progress report (2006:4)
The debt services as a percentage of exports of goods
and services improved from 7.4% in 2003 to 3.4% in
27% in2005 are indicators of improved partnership.
However access of Nigeria’s agricultural and semi-
processed goods to industrial countries’ markets
remain weak.
While over 70% of the population living on less than $1 a
day, high rate of unemployment among the youth, high levels of
illiteracy, high infant and maternal mortality rates, low life
expectancy, high HIV, and malaria infection rates, high
percentages of the population living in slums in unsanitary
conditions with poor access to clean water etc, the future looks
black indeed. Therefore, the government has through NEEDS
articulated a comprehensive plan for addressing poverty and the
general underdevelopment of the nation. The government has
41
also to an extent demonstrated the political will to carry through
the implementation of NEEDS but the process cannot be entirely
successful without securing the partnership and commitment of
the more developed countries.
Improved and sustained macro economic management and
promoting transparent and accountable governance are central to
fostering strong partnership for development. The sustenance of
the economic and structural reforms already initiated at the
federal level and widespread replication at the state level is
paramount. Commitment to the implementation of the policy
support instruments will also improve international credibility.
2.7. Can Nigeria Meet Targets by 2015
Africa is a continent in despair. Despite its enormous
natural and human resource endowments, the continent has
been trailing in all socio-economic indices of development when
compared with other third World Regions. Despite considerable
progress made by some countries in Asia and Latin America
between 1990 and 2002, Africa as a whole suffered immensely,
recorded the lowest progress overall and in some vital areas, it
suffered reverses. In sub Sahara Africa (SSA) nations, the
number of people living in absolute poverty, ie US $1 or less per
day, soared from 2.7 million in 1990 to 290 million in 2000
(Economic Commission for Africa, 2005:1). It is disheartening
that women form the bulk of this number and, adult life
expectancy also declined. Following these developments, the
Addis Ababa-based ECA (2005:1) argues that, based on the
trends of the past 15 years, SSA will not achieve the MDGs on
time.
42
In relating the above scenario to Nigeria, Taiwo (2005)
exclusively put that:
The situation in Nigeria does not fare better as the
continent’s most populous country has been
confronting development challenges and crisis of
governance especially with the foray of military on its
political sense. Nigeria, Africa’s crippled giant, was
among the world’s 50 richest countries in the early
1970s but slumped to find itself among the 25 poorest
countries in the world at the dawn of the 21st century.
Putting the attainment of these goals in Nigeria context, it is
clear that they are real challenges. Flowing from the review of the
progress of Nigeria at achieving the MDGs above, the Nigeria
government is obviously overwhelmed by the tasks. The positive
social impacts that the implementation of the MDGs can make in
the lives of Nigerians were considered by the International
Financial Institutions (IFIs) in giving debt relief to Nigeria. The
Vanguard (2009) highlighted that, so far, the Nigerian
government score sheet is unimpressive to the extent that the
House of Representatives has threatened to stop financial
allocation to any ministry or parastatal that has failed to
implement the MDGs.
Considering the possibility of achieving the MDGs in Nigeria
by 2015 the actual challenge that militates against the
attainment is that of lack of policy implementation because
adequate budgetary allocations have been made by the
government. Furthermore, the implementation of MDGs has been
characterized by deeply entrenched corruption and gross
43
inefficiency, and wastefulness. For example, the senate report on
MDGs described the MDGs office as a “cesspool of corruption and
shady deals” (The Guardian, 2004b). Borrowing stance from the
NEEDS document (2004:100)
Corruption and abuse of positions and privilege have
long been features of Nigeria.. Systemic corruption and
low level of transparency and accountability have been
major source of development failure.
The disadvantage of the above development in the
realization of the MDGs in Nigeria by 2015 in the worlds of UNDP
Report (2004) stipulates that, it makes the country unattractive
to investors as it raises the cost and risk of doing business in the
country.
In addition, speculations point to the fact that there is
problem of duplication of projects in the same areas by the
federal Government, and multilateral donor agencies. In the same
vien, even the senior special Assistant to the President; Az-zubar
is skeptical about the possibilities of Nigeria meeting the MDGs
by 2015 in spite of the huge funding which amounts to N320
billion deducted from the Debt Relief Gains (DRG) devoted to
MDGs projects all over Nigeria. Although analysts believe that
Nigeria can overcome the odds and achieve the MDGs in the
areas of universal primary education, the fight against the
scourge of HIV/AIDS, and improve on the sustainability of its
environment, and partner in global development, the fact still
remains that reduction of child and maternal mortality, as well as
lessening poverty remain problematic (NPC, 2007).
44
According to Igbuzor (2006:8), the question of whether
Nigeria can or cannot meet the MDGs, is a crucial one that
should agitate the minds of politicians, government bureaucrats,
civil society activist and development workers. Despite the great
natural wealth, Nigeria is impoverished and social development is
found wanting. In summary analysis, the NEEDS document
(2004: xiii) emphasized that;
If present trends continue, the country is not likely to meet
the millennium Development Goals (by 2015).
2.8. Theoretical Framework: - This study applied the systems
theory as its theoretical background. The Millennium
development goal initiative is a global programme designed to
achieve progress around the world. A system according to
Hellriegl (1996) is an association of interrelated and
interdependent parts. The systems perspective according to Abba
et al (2004) represents an approach to solving problems by
diagnosing them within a framework of inputs, transformation
processes output and major premises as efficiency and
effectiveness of the subsystems as well as the synergic
relationships within the subsystems.
One of the global treats to the achievement of the goals set
by the United Nations was the recent financial crisis that affected
some members/donor countries within the United Nations. The
MDGs as global programme operatives within the subsystems of
United Nations general body.
45
2.9. Research Questions: - This study used mainly the
secondary data and as such the researcher relied on the research
questions set from where data on the progress and challenges in
each target and indicators were gathered and analyzed.
The research questions include:-
1. To what extent has Nigeria been able to make progress in
the attainment of the MDGs target?
2. Has Nigeria been able to access funds from donor countries
and how committed are the agencies concerned?
3. How effective are the agencies like NAPEP, NACA, UBE etc
in ensuring the attainment of MDGS in Nigeria?
4. In amidst of the enabling policy environment, what is the
possibility of Nigeria achieving the set target by 2015?
5. How will Nigeria be able to surmount the challenges facing
the realization of MDGs come, 2015
46
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 The Methodology
This chapter describes the procedure used for carrying out this
research work. In the words of Oguonu and Anugwom (2006.33),
methodology refers to the framework of activity or operation of
the research. Furthermore, seen purely in terms of method of
study, it denotes the range of approaches used in research
together and interpretation on which to anchor explanation and
predictions. These approaches include design of the study, area
of the study, sources of data and method of data analysis.
3.2 Design of the Study
The design that was adopted for the study was observation
method. The structural design of this research is in such away
that it allows for comparison of results and the progress towards
the goal and to assess the possibility of Nigeria in attaining the
set targets by 2015, given the current activities in policy
environment of the federal government in collaboration with other
tiers of the government.
3.3 Area of the Study
The research work was carried out in Nigeria. The country has
thirty – six (36) states, the federal capital Territory and seven
hundred and seventy four (774) Local Government Areas.
However, the researcher gathered from what the Nigeria
Presidential Senior Special Assistant on MDGs Az- Zubair (2010)
cited in Nwosu (2010:30) that at the inception of the MDGs,
projects were executed through the Federal Government
47
ministries whose responsibilities synchronize with the
millennium Development Goals objectives. It is necessary to co-
fund MDGs projects with state Governments and local
Government so as to have the desired impact at the grassroots
where poverty, hunger and diseases are highest. It then became
obvious that a change in strategy was necessary to involve states
in order to cover more grounds and reach Nigerians at the lowest
poverty ladder.
3.4 Sources of Data
The research used secondary Data to carryout analysis of
the eight goals collected from variety of sources including the line
ministries, Department and Agencies of the government
responsible for monitoring the MDGs issues and indicators in
Nigeria. The line ministries directly involved in the monitoring
and generation of data for the MDGs include the ministries of
Health, Education, woman Affairs and Social Development,
commerce and industry, youths and sports.
Agencies that provide very critical and useful
information/data include National/Action committee on Aids
(NACA) UNICEF, UNDP, World Bank Reports, National Poverty
Alleviation Programme (NAPEP) National Bureau of Statistics
(NBS) National Population Commission (NPC). Other sources
include official government leading documents and reports such
as NEEDS, Nigeria MDGs Reports and Nigerian Statistical year
Book. Other Government Agencies that helped in the generation
of data are Universal Basic Education Commission Enugu Area
office and Nnamdi Azikiwe Library, University of Nigeria Nsukka.
3.5 Method of Data Analysis
48
The data gathered for this study was presented in tabular form
and percentages. The major findings and discussion of the
indicators of the goals were based on the status and trend,
supportive policy environment and the problems challenging the
attainment of the MDGs in Nigeria by 2015. The data gathered
from these major areas formed focus of analysis and projections
covering the period under review.
49
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
4.1 Introduction
In this chapter the data obtained are organized and
presented in tables as they related to the research questions that
guided the study. Frequency and percentage tables were used in t
he presentation. Analysis and discussion was done on the three
element of investigation: The levels and direction, enabling policy
framework and the problems facing the implementation and
realization of each of the Millennium Development Goals policy in
Nigeria by 2015.
Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
Indicators 2000 2004 2009 Target
@2015
Progress
towards target
% of population living in
relative poverty
66 54 54 21 slow
% of population living in
relative poverty
(consuming 2900
Calories or lower daily)
- 35 35 - Insufficient
data
% of underweight
children (under five)
31 30 30 18 Slow
Sources: NBS (2005): poverty profile Nigeria
Word Development Indicators, various years.
Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education
Indicators 2000 2004 2009 Target
@2015
Progress
towards target
Net enrolment ratio in 81.1 81.1 84.26 100 Good
50
primary education
Proportion of pupils
starting Grade one who
reach Grade five
71 74 80 100 Good
Literacy rate of 15-24
years old
- 76.2 80.20 100 Good
Sources: federal Ministry of Education, Abuja
Universal Basic Education Commission, 2006
Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Women Empowerment
Indicators 2000 2004 2009 Target
@2015
Progress
towards target
Ratio of girls to boys in
primary education (girls
per 100 boys)
82 79 81 100 Good
Ratio of girls to boys in Secondary (girls per boys)
106 79 81 100 Good
Ratio of Girls to boys in tertiary education (girls per 100 boys)
106 79 81 100 Good
Share of women in wage employment in non-agricultural sector (%)
46 72 79 - Insufficient data
Proportion of seats held by women in National Assembly (%)
1.0 5.76 5.76 30% Slow/weak
Sources:
National Planning Commission (NPC): Nigeria’s MDGs Report, 2005 Federal Ministry of Education, Statistics Dept
51
Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality
Indicators 2000 2004 2009 Target
@2015
Progress
towards target
Infant Mortality rate (per
100 live births)
91 100 110 30.3 Worsening
Under five mortality rate
(per1000 live births)
191 201 197 63.7 Marginal
Improvement
% of one year- old
children fully immunizes
against measles
46 31.4 100 100 Achieved
Sources: NBS. 2005
UNICEF (2006) progress for Children; A card on Nutrition
NPI (2010): The progress report for the year 2009
Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health
Indicators 2000 2004 2009 Target
@2015
Progress
towards target
Maternal mortality rate
(per 100,000 live births)
- 704 800 >75 Worsening
Proportion of birth
attended to by skilled
health personnel
45.0 36.3 44 >60 Weak data
base
Sources: Nigeria Demographic and Health survey, 2003
Federal Ministry of Health (2006) Health suney
National Hospital Bulletin 2010, Vol 2 No. 4
52
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS Malaria and other Diseases
Indicators 2000 2004 2009 Target
@2015
Progress
towards target
HIV prevalence
among pregnant
woman aged 15-24
5.7 5.2
4.4
100 Good
% of young people
aged15-24 reporting
the use of condom
during sexual
Intercourse with a
non-regular sexual
partner
Female
24.0
Male
49.7
Female
39.5
Male
49.7
100 Slow
Insufficient
data
Number of children
orphaned by AIDS
1.8
Million
1.97
million
Insufficient
data
prevalence of HIV
among Tb patients
(%)
2.2 19.1 27 Worsening
TB defection rate 14 27 70 Slow
TB Treatment
success rate
79 80 85 Good
Source: Federal Ministry of Health 2006. National Situation
Analysis of Health Sector Response to HIV/AIDS in Nigeria
Report of the National Aids and STI control Programme
53
Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
Indicators 200
0
200
4
200
9
Target
@2015
Progress
towards target
Proportion of land area
covered by forests
14.6 13.0 12.6 20 Worsened in
2005
Proportion of gas flared 53.8 43.0 40.0 - Good
Proportion of total
population with access
to safe drinking water
(%)
54.0 57.0 60.0 80 Slow/weak data
base
Proportion of total
population with access
to basic sanitation (%)
39.0 38.0 - 100 Insufficient data
Carbon dioxide
emissions (per capita)
0.3 0.2 0.1 - insufficient data
proportion of people
with access to secure
tenure (%)
- 31.0 - 100 Insufficient data
Residential Housing
construction Index
(ACI)(proxy)
45.8 50.4 - - Improving/insuf
ficient data
Source: NBS (2006) Socio-Economic Fact Sheet. Federal Ministry
of Environment
54
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development
Indicators 1996 2000 2003 2005 Target
@2015
Progress
towards
target
Debt services as a
percentage of
exports of goods
and services
22.3 8.9 7.4 3.4 Good
Private sector
investment (US $m)
- 50 - 6080 Slow
Tele–density (per
1000 people)
0.45 - - 15.72 Insufficient
data
Personnel computer
(per 1000 people)
70 - 30 30 Insufficient
data
Internet access (%) - 0.1 - 1.9 Insufficient
data
Sources: CBN (2005) Annual Report and statement of accounts
National information Technology Development Agency (NITDA)
Abuja.
4.2 Analysis and Discussion Based on Level, Enabling Policies
and Problems Facing the Attainment of each of the Goals
from the Data Presented Above
Goal: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
Nigeria continues to be one of the Africa’s most endowed
countries. According to the MDGs reports (2005:13), despite its
vast oil wealth and national and human resources, 35% of the
population live in extreme poverty while as much as 54% are
55
poor in relative terms. The report said, almost 52% live on less
than a dollar a day and they feel it.
Poverty is wide spread but unequally distributed. There is a
clear North –South divide with the highest incidence of poverty in
the North East Zone (67.3%). North West (62.9%) North central
(62.3%) South (51.1%) South West (42%) and South East (34.2%)
(NBS, 2006). A poor family living in the North Western Nigeria
faces challenges for more numerous and daunting than their
counterparts in the south East. For example, immunization rates
are three times lower, maternal mortality rates stands at 2.5
times higher and literacy rates half those of the south East.
Poverty incidence is significantly greater and the depth of
poverty deeper in rural areas. About 63% of people living in the
rural areas are poor compared with 42% in urban centres. The
primary livelihood of the rural populace is agriculture (85%); the
majority of the farmers are uneducated and they use few inputs
to support their farming (MGDs Report 2005:13). For many a
Nigerian, life has been stagnant for decades.
The intense poverty of the people feeds into widespread
vulnerability. The most commonly reported response to economic
shocks is to reduce food consumption. While hunger is not as
widespread in Nigeria as in other parts of Africa, many are not far
from its grasp. Poor house holds state that in addition to
reducing consumption, they sell assets and pull their children
out of school, both having long-term consequences.
56
Enabling Policies
The validation of NEEDS Document (2004:100) that
Government effort at reducing poverty has taken the form of an
anti-corruption drive, economic sector reform, reforms in
government work procedures to achieve greater efficiency and
increased international support stands to justify decisive political
attempt at eradicating poverty in Nigeria. Also, Nigerian
government embarked on a comprehensive poverty reduction
strategy known as National Economic Empowerment and
Development Strategy (NEEDS) in 2004 (together with SEEDS
and LEEDS, as its State and local government counterparts)
which served as a medium –term strategy (2003-2007), which
equally drives from the country’s long-term goals of poverty
reduction, wealth creation, employment generation, and value re-
orientation. Full implementation of these programmes will reduce
unemployment, poverty and lay a solid foundation for sustained
development. In addition, government projects that the economy
should grow at a minimum of 10% with a strong emphasis on
public – private partnership in project implementation. Indeed,
the private sector is expected to function as the engine of growth
and driver of the economy. The completion of the medium– term
plan document spanning 2007-2011 is set to usher in NEED II,
which is commendable on the part of the government. The
reasons for this are many. First, government is demonstrating
that NEEDS will a be a continuous process; and second, with the
birth of NEEDS II, it will be feasible to consolidate and improve
the actions from the implementation of NEED I.
57
In another development, with the assistance of World Bank
(2001/2002), Nigeria formulated poverty reduction strategy
programmes and policies through the Interim Poverty Reduction
Strategy Paper. (IPRSP), which aims at building on the gains of
the earlier efforts on poverty alleviation progammes. Further
efforts of the civilian government to reduce poverty include the
Poverty Alleviation Programme (PAP) targeted at correcting the
deficiencies of the past efforts. This programme metamorphosed
into National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) to make
poverty reduction programme more participatory.
To ensure that the macroeconomic reforms translate welfare
enhancement, priority projects in reaching food security targets
have focused on agricultural development. In addition to different
presidential initiatives on such products as coca, rice, cotton,
and cassava, efforts have also been focused at rehabilitation of
moribund dams and irrigation facilities. Other initiatives include
rural infrastructure, land management, poultry production,
development of agriculture, and organic fertilizer development.
Problems:
One the identified problems that bedeviled the achievement
of MDG goal one is the interrelated nature of the MDGs and, thus
the various dimensions of poverty. Households headed by
persons with little elementary or non formal education have the
highest poverty incidence, depth and severity. Also, Nigerian
economy has traditionally been heavily reliant on the oil sector
thereby relegating agriculture to the background. The country’s
massive agriculture sector’s workforce is dominated by aged
people that substantially rely on crude implements. Efforts to
58
attract youths into this sector by promoting agricultural
mechanization have failed. Therefore, putting all these into
consideration has made poverty eradication attempts as mirage.
Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education.
Level:
At the moment, the level in the net enrolment ratio at the
primary school witnessed considerable fluctuation from 2000-
2004 according to table 4.2. The enrolment ratio increased from
81.1% in 2000 to 84.26% in 2009. The enrolment later peaked at
95% now. One quick explanation for the high increase in net
enrolment is government’s effective campaign for and
implementation of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) launched
in 1999, the UBE is government’s strategy to fight illiteracy in the
country.
Like any other data supplied by the Federal Ministry of
Education (2007), the number of pupils starting grade I who
reach grade 5 in Nigeria has experienced serious fluctuations.
The proportion was 67% in 1990 and rose to 80% in 1994, fell to
71% 1996% and shot up again to 97% but declined to 84% in
2002 while 74% and 80% each was recorded in 2004 and 2009,
respectively.
On pupil enrolment by sex, it is obvious that male
enrolment was consistently higher than the female by over 10%
between 1994 and 2004. Also, although 1994 recorded an
improvement in the primary six completion rate (74.5%), this
declined in 2002, falling steadily to 69% and 75% in 2004 and
2009 respectively as given in table 4.2. Further observation
shows that the proportion of pupils who reached grade 5 in 2009
59
was 80% while the primary six completion rate was 75%. The
main reason for the decline in the grade six completion rates was
that some primary five pupils gained admission to Junior
Secondary Schools. There is a good reason to hope, then, that,
the 100% target set for the junior secondary school completion
rate will be achieved by the year 2015.
The literacy level in the country is inherently unsteady,
especially among the 15-24 year-olds. The literacy rate for this
age group was 64.1% in 2002, 6.4% in 2002 and 76.2% 2004.
The literacy rate was, however, higher in urban area (84.9%) than
the rural (62.1%). Following the NBS (2005) survey, literacy rate
for this group stood at 80.2%.
Enabling Policies:
Again, one quick noticeable factor that is responsible for the
high increase in net enrolment is government’s effective campaign
for and implementation of the Universal Basic Education (UBE)
which was launched in 1999. The UBE is government’s strategy
to fight illiteracy in the country. Due to Stakeholders appreciation
of the importance of UBE project and their commitment to
support its implementation, there is the hope of achieving the
100 percent target in 2015. One other contributory factor to this
is the favourable political climate in this dispensation.
Problems
Following the launching of the UBE in 1999 and its
implementation, one major challenge is the enormity of the
primary and junior secondary education systems. Experience has
shown that poverty is a significant barrier to enrolment when fees
and related expenses apply. It is also an obvious fact that the
60
management of 36 independent states is a significant
undertaking and represents a constant problem.
There is also the problem of incessant wage –related strikes
by teachers in public schools. Such strikes were sometimes
prolonged by official insensitivity leading to withdrawal of pupils
from schools and dampening the morale of a number of them
even when the crises were finally resolved.
Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empowerment of
Women
Women in Nigeria continue to face inequality in many
aspects of life. The proportion of girls enrolled in primary school
is still lower than that of boys, though the trend is positive. The
ratio of girls to boys, (girls and boys) in primary school, rose from
79 in 2004 to 81 in 2009 (see table 4.3). There continues to be a
clear North-South divides in female participation. In a number of
Southern states, girls out-number their male counterparts in
school, while in the Northern state of Zamfara there are 2.5 boys
to every girl.
The trend is not as positive for secondary school enrolment
with the percentage share of female enrolment reducing from
48% in 1999 to 44% in 2003. Again young women in the south
fare better than their counterparts in the North. The net
attendance ratio is abysmally low for females in the North West at
10% against 60% in the South West. At the tertiary level, the level
is once again positive, with increasing numbers of female being
enrolled in University. The literacy level has deteriorated steadily
between both sexes in the 15-24 year group. While it declined
from 81.35% in 1991 to 68.8% in 1999 among the females, the
61
rate of decline among the female was from 62.49% to 59.3%
during the same period. By 2004, these figures had dropped to
60% and 45% for the males and females.
The challenge for both boys and girls in Nigeria is using that
education after graduation. According to MDGs Report (2005:24)
available employment data indicates that woman have become
increasingly favoured in wage employment in the non-
agricultural sector.
There is a gradual increase in the proportion of woman in
the National Assembly, State Houses of Assembly and local
Government legislative councils in Nigeria. However this is clearer
at the national level than at the states and local government
levels. Although the number of Deputy Governors rose from one
in 1999 to three in 2003 and now (ie 2010) more than four.
Majority are from southern part of the country (except plateau
State) from the North central zone. Out of the 774 local
government Chief executives, only five are women in 2003, up
from one in 1999 (MDGs Report 2005). Woman need to make the
jump from their strong representation in the executive arm of
government to the legislative organ.
62
Fig 4.1 National Primary Enrolment by Gender 1999-2005
Source: MDGs Report (2005:25)
Enabling Policies:
Through the strategy for Acceleration of Girl’s Education in
Nigeria (SAGEN) and the Child Friendly initiative, there is an
increased focus on advocacy, partnerships and resource
mobilization and the provision of girl child friendly schools. The
National Policy on Woman (NPW) adopted in 2000 articulates
gender mainstreaming in relevant sectors. It also supports the
formulation of policies in relation to social, economic and political
actions towards the equality of rights. The policie thrusts of
equality and social well-begin are designed to remove the social
menace associated with gender inequality and thereby promote
activities that empower woman to achieve sustainable
employment.
The Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) is responding to the
plight of illiterate and poor rural woman of childbearing age
through a female Functional Literacy for Health (FFLH) project.
The project whose objective is to enhance the health status of
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
16
Millio
ns
63
rural woman and their families, uses a three-pronged approach
of functional literacy health education and poverty alleviation
through viable income generation.
At the moment, women are well represented in key
ministries, parastatals and agencies of the Federal government.
Some women are now ministers and also occupy key leadership
positions in the Federal Inland Revenue Services, Small and
Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN),
Export Promotion Council, Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE)
and MDGs. The State Governments have ample opportunity to
learn from the Federal Government in the appointment of woman
into position.
Problems:
One of the greatest challenges to achieving gender equality
is the limited political will at the state and local government levels
to reduce gender disparities in education. Also female
participation in parliamentary activities is still beggarly.
Goal 4 Reduce Child Mortality
Level:
The reduction of child mortality represents a major
challenge for Nigeria. From the table 4.4 above the national infant
mortality rate has worsened relative to 2000. The trend continues
to worsen with the rate increasing from 100/1000 live births in
2004 to 110/1000 in 2009. This trend is moving far away from
the target for 2015 of 30/1000. Nigeria’s youngest citizens are
becoming more, not less, vulnerable. However, the under five
Mortality Rate (U5MR) made marginal improvement from
64
201/1000 live births (LB) in 2004 to 197/1000 live births in
2009.
In addition, table 4.4 shows the regional disparities which subsist
in 2009. Therefore, there is a wide variation between rural and
urban centers and among geographic zones in Nigeria, North
West, North East and South-South zones recorded the highest
IMR and UMR (se figure 4.2)
Fig4.2: Infant and Under -5 Mortality Rates by Zones
Source: National Planning Commission: MDGs Report (2005:31)
The coverage of vaccinations is highly correlated with
improved mortality outcomes. Vaccination coverage varies across
the regions and states. In the northern zones, vaccination
coverage ranged from 25% to 41% in 2005 whereas in the
southern zones coverage ranged from 43% to 48%.
On average, females constitute a larger portion of the
coverage (as shown in figure 4.3 below). According to MDGs
Report (2005:30), an examination of the immunization coverage
National Urban Rural North
East
North
West
South
East
South
South
South
West
North
Central
65
across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)
shows that the exercise is biased against males for Bayelsa,
Anabra, Ebonyi, Ondo and FCT while the opposite holds true for
Jigawa and Imo states.
Fig 4.3 Immunization Converge by Gender
Source: NBS (2005.85) the Nigerian Statistical Fact Sheet on
Economic and Social Development.
In 2005, the different tiers of government showed
appreciable signs of better collaboration in the provision of health
services. Federal MDAs indicated the need to coordinate planning
processes with the state and local governments.
Nigeria’s debt relief has provided an opportunity for a
conditional grants scheme that also targets the health sector and
empowers sub-national tiers of government. Such condition will
be key to the achievement of all the health MDGs in Nigeria.
Specifically, improved woman status, increased access to safe
46 47 48
49
50
51
52
BCG
Measles
Polio
DPT
66
drinking water and sanitation and improved household practices
are central to improving health status of children.
Enabling Policies:
The Integrated child Survival and Development Strategic
Framework and Plan of Action (2005-2009) serves as reference to
guide implementation of child survival interventions by
Government at all levels. Similarly, the National Programme on
Immunization (NPI) lays out a plan of action to achieve total
coverage. The development of a national policy on Integrated
Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) has the potential of
setting the pace for availability of comprehensive information on
basic health. The expansion of the Integrate Management of Child
Illness (IMCI) strategy from 6-21 states is a welcome
development. Thus Nigeria has the plans.
Commitment of the National Agency for Food and Drug
Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to eradicating fake drugs
and adulterated food materials in the country will reduce the risk
associated with the use of fake drugs across the country and its
implications on child morbidity and mortality. The current
economic reform on health sector and the National Health
Insurance Scheme (NHIS) should serve as a good instrument for
improving child and maternal health in the country.
Problems:
The weakness of the country’s primary health care system
continued to be one of the major problems to child health.
Primary health centres usually lack skilled and motivated staff,
drugs and equipment. This is worsened by a limited referral
system between primary and secondary health facilities coupled
67
with the existence of fake drugs (even though government has
performed gallantly on this in recent times).
Also, there is low maternal education, weak primary health
care system, poverty and inequality, poor household practices,
lack of antenatal and delivery care and shorter birth intervals are
strongly associated with increased child mortality risk.
Diseased such as malaria, diarrhea, acute respiratory tract
infection and various vaccine-preventable diseases contributed to
high levels of child mortality. Mother-to –child transmission of
HIV usually contracted in the womb or through breast milk from
HIV-positive mothers, has become a threat to child survival. At
the core of the high rates of child mortality are high levels of
malnutrition, unhealthy environment, and limited access to and
utilization of quality health care services. These factors account
for higher rates of child mortality in Nigeria’s rural areas where
access to adequate nutrition, quality health care and other basic
social services is even more limited than in the urban areas,
particularly for women and children.
Further more, child survival also depends on parent’s
abilities to understand and react appropriately to child needs, a
factor which is strongly influenced by female literacy levels,
empowerment and status. Family income and household
practices also determine key factors, such as access to safe water
and adequate sanitation. Interventions at promoting universal
immunization coverage exist, but they are not reaching many of
the poorest children who need them most. In some areas like
Northern Nigeria, social factors such as early marriage and
68
inadequate birth spacing, increase the risk of mortality among
children.
Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health.
Level:
Together with child mortality, maternal mortality continued
to be one of the most serious development challenges in the
country until now. The MDGs Report (2005:35) said, maternal
mortality in Nigeria is extremely high representing one of the
country’s most significant development challenges. From table
4.5 above, it worsened from 704 in 2004 to 800/100,000 live
births in 2009. There is wide disparity across the six geo-political
zones. Arranges from about 165/100,000 live births in the North
Eastern part of the country, with higher incidence in the rural
areas. One in every 13 women dies from childbirth – related
cause.
About two million of the 27 million women of the
reproductive age do not survive pregnancy, childbirth or the
immediate six weeks after delivery. Direct causes such as
hemorrhage, sepsis, complications of abortions, pre – eclampsia,
eclampsia and prolonged or obstructive labour accounted for 80%
of maternal mortality while indirect causes such as malaria,
anemia, hepatitis and AIDS account for the balance.
Patronage of Antenatal care (ANC) is low in the country.
Some 15% of urban dwellers and 46% of rural dwellers do not go
for antenatal care. Poverty and level of education account for the
low attendance. About 60% of respondents with no education and
those from the lowest quintile did not attend any ANC. The
distribution of pregnant women who shun ANC ranges from
69
South East (0.8%) and South West (2.3%) to North East (47.1%)
and North West (59.0%) (MDGs Report, 2005:37).
Skilled personnel such as doctors, nurses and midwives
attend to only about one third of deliveries. This varies by age
group with women- 20 years old or less being more disposed to
using the services of non-skilled birth attendants. Traditional
birth attendants delivered 20%, relatives or untrained individuals
delivered 25% while 17% were by self – delivery.
Enabling Policies:
As discussed under Goal 4, the heath policy environment
has seen substantial improvement in recent years. Concerning
access to maternal health care, the Health Sector Reform
Programme (HSRP) seeks to strengthen the national health
system, improving availability and management of health
resources, expanding access to quality health services, and
promoting effective partnership, collaboration and coordination.
In addition, the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has
become operational in the country. The scheme provides the poor
with a source of stability in their health expenditures. However
for these initiatives to facilitate better access to health care for
Nigerians, it should be implemented vigorously by succeeding
administrations.
So far, policy has not adequately catered for reproductive
health. The country needs a national policy on this subject. Such
policy would empower relevant institutions responsible for
coordination and collation of accurate national statistics on
reproductive, prenatal and gynecological health of women in
Nigeria. Given the seriousness of maternal mortality and
70
morbidity, there is an urgent need to establish Maternity Care
Monitoring Committee to conduct confidential investigations into
the causes of maternal deaths. Each of these initiatives will give
much needed focus to the debate.
Problems:
Long-standing cultural, social, political and economic
factors have contributed to the poor state of maternal health in
the country. Maternal morbidity and mortality, for instance, have
been associated with high level of poverty, low-education,
distance to health facilities, ignorance, and outright lack or
limited access to health care services. These are further
complicated by poor state of health facilities and, until very
recently, lack of political will to reform the health sector. Most
Nigerians are yet to appreciate the importance of ANC, or the
potential benefits of caesarean section, Even women with life-
threatening complications refuse to go through caesarean
section, resulting in only 1.7% of live birth being performed by
caesarean section.
Goal 6: Combat HIV AND AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases
Level; HIV/AIDS:
One could argue that Nigeria has achieved Goal 6 with
regards to HIV prevalence. In. 2001, the prevalence was 5.8%.
This declined to 5.2% in 2004 and further fell to 4.4% in 2009
(see table 4.6 above).
Although prevalence rates are generally higher in urban
centers, they are higher in rural areas in 12 states across the
nation. The prevalence rate is highest among unmarried people,
commercial sex workers along distance drivers. Evidence from
71
the 2005 sentinel survey shows that the main drivers of the
pandemic in Nigeria include blood transmission, unsafe and
denials against People Living with AIDS (PLWA) still remain rife in
the country.
The number of people living with HIV in 2005, according to
MDGs Report (2005:44) was estimated at about 2,86 million,
comprising 2.62 million adult (15 years and above) and 238, 000
children. The report further stated that, as at 2005, only 50,000
PLWHA had access to treatment while the 2005 Sentinel Report
indicated that over 400,000 people require ARV. The attention
and care provided to HIV and AIDS – OVC is still very inadequate.
Annual death resulting from AIDS was put at 220, 750 with
females constituting about 63.5% in 2005. Cumulative deaths
were estimated to be 1.45 million at the end of 2005.
It should be noted that while Nigeria has a decreasing
prevalence rate, it’s huge population means that a significant
number of people are affected. Therefore, winning the war on
AIDS in Nigeria is key to winning it in West Africa and beyond.
The population of AIDS – orphans is on the increase. It rose
from 1.8 million in 2004 to 1.97 million in 2009 (as shown in
table 4.6 above). The intensity of this varies across the state.
However its impact is broad. A recent study on the impact of
AIDS on rural livelihoods in Benue state revealed that 34% of the
households surveyed reported having AIDS- orphans in their
care.
Although HIV awareness is generally high, the percentage of
young people aged 15-24 reporting the use of condoms during
sexual intercourse with non-regular sexual partners is still very
72
low. Stigma, discrimination and denial against people living with
HIV and AIDS are still rife in the country.
Malaria; Malaria is a major public health problem in Nigeria,
accounting for about 60% of all outpatient attendance and 30%
of all hospital admissions. Malaria also accounts for a very high
proportion of mortality and morbidity rates in the country. It is
estimated that malaria is responsible for 300,000 deaths per
year, including up to 11% maternal of mortality. However,
malaria mortality rate has reduced from 0.29% in 1999 to 0.16%
in 2005 partly because of government commitment Roll to Back
Malaria initiative.
While almost everyone suffers from malaria, its highest
incidence is found among children (U-5years of age) and pregnant
women. As evident in the 2003 NHDS, 31.6% of the children
surveyed had malaria and convulsion two weeks preceding the
survey of which only 33.9% took anti-malaria drugs.
Substantial resources are at lost to malarial annually in the
form of treatment and prevention costs, loss of person-hours, and
other detrimental effects. For the majority of Nigerians, it costs
approximately N2, 000 per person to comprehensively treat
malaria in the country, whilst the average monthly salary is N 7,
500. An adult malaria victim loses about 2.5 days, their
caretakers lose 2.1 days and a student afflicted with malaria
loses 1.5 school days in a year (NHO Biennial 2004/2005
Report). The cost of treating malaria is approximately 4% of the
GDP in 2003 current market prices. This is in addition to 4% of
GDP loss associated with days of lost productivity.
73
Tuberculosis; TB still remains a public health problem in Nigeria
with the country ranked 4th among the 22 high burden countries
in the world and the first in Africa (MDGs Report, 2005; 45). The
reported cases of TB appear to be on the increase from 25,821 in
2000 to 46, 335 in 2003 and 66,848 in 2005. From the table 4.6
above, this represents an increase in defection from 14% in 2004
to 27% in 2009. The mere positive case defection rate is 27% in
2009, which falls far short of the global target of 70% by 2015.
The actual TB case notification in Nigeria has been quite low due
to low coverage of services (I.TB microscopy centre to a
population of about 300,000 and I DOTS treatment centre to
about 150, 000 people).Through the assistance of international
development partners, for instance, the number of LGAs with
DOTS services increased from 380 by end of 2002 to 548 by end
of 2005. From table 4.6 above also, the treatment success rate is
equally on the increase. It rose from 79% in 2004 to 80% in2009.
The table 4.6 above established that 19.1% of patients with
TB also have an underlying HIV infection (NASCPP Sentinel
Survey, 2001).Nigeria is currently undergoing a generalized HIV
epidemic, which is already affecting the TB epidemic. On a
general analysis, TB is a serious threat to public health in
Nigeria.
Enabling Policies:
AID; Overall, Nigeria’s health status is poor. However, while
starting from a low base, the civilian administration of the recent
years has provided an enabling environment in all fields of
health. In 2002, government of Nigeria was the first in sub –
Saharan Africa to commit to providing Anti- Retroviral Therapy to
74
10,000 adults and 5,000 children with its own resources, rising
to 69,000 people in 2006. Strong leadership and harmonization
throughout Government and donor efforts is one of the guiding
principles of the National strategic frame work for 2005-2009
developed by the National Action Committee on AIDS (NACA). In
2005, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity, in
collaboration with Government agencies, development partners
and civil society, launched a national response policy on HIV and
AIDS in the workplace.
The increasing prevalence in rural areas suggests the need
to proactively increase intervention efforts of the community
levels. VCT and PMTCT facilities should be expanded to local
communities. The vulnerability and incidence feature of the
pandemic show that women and unmarried youths are mostly
affected.
Malaria; In March 2005, a Ministerial Anti-malaria Policy
Transition Management committee was set up and the National
Policy on malaria was reviewed. Treatment Guidelines and case
Management Training manual was equally developed with a view
to managing malaria cases more effectively. Strategic Framework
for control of malaria in pregnancy (MIP), National Guidelines and
strategies for Home and Community Management of Malaria,
Revised Insecticide Treated Nets (ITN) Policy Guidelines, Draft
Integrated Vector Management Guideline for Nigeria and
Guideline for NGOs Participation in Roll Back Malaria Initiative
were also developed.
From 2000 to 2005, the National Malaria Control
Programme experienced a significant rise in funding and
75
technical support from partners. The Federal Government policy
on malaria control focuses on three main interventions:
Management of cases, prevention of malaria with ITNs, and use
of intermittent preventive treatment during pregnancy. Nigeria
has also been awarded US $120 million for the next rounds of the
Global fund for AIDS, T and, malaria.
Tuberculosis; Since 2003, there has been improvement in
the expansion of TB services across the country. Through the
assistance of international development partners, for instance,
DOTS strategy was extended to additional 108 LGAs in 17 states
In addition to 102 microscopic centres in 17 states, WHO also
trained 104 microscopists and laboratory technicians as well as
432 general health workers on DOTS strategy implementation.
Quality TB drugs were supplied to all TB patients using Global
Drug Facility (GDF).
Problems:
HIV/AIDS; One of the major challenges facing the
realization of this goal remains the stigmatization of people living
with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) by members of their immediate
community. Also, awareness efforts and treatment initiatives had
been largely concentrated in the urban centres which had made
the rural rate of infection to remain high and largely unchecked.
There is also the low level capacity building among the
existing health workers on the treatment and care of AIDS
patients as well as the need to increase the number of health
personnel generally.
Malaria; A major problem to malaria eradication in Nigeria
is the low level of reporting of malaria cases in the hospitals and
76
clinics. There is the common practice of self medication attempts
to use local herbs to treat malaria cases of home. There is also
the problem of sub-standard and adulterated drugs and the need
to get genuine drugs to the end users.
Tuberculosis; Awareness about the available opportunities
for TB treatment remains a major challenge to the control of TB
in Nigeria. Many TB patients do not avail themselves with the free
TB treatment due to lack of information.
Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
Level:
Nigeria is environmentally rich. It is endowed with diverse
and abundant natural resources that constitute the back bone of
the national economy. However, many factors are having a
punishing impact on this resource base. For example, a rapidly
growing population that is heavily reliant on fuel wood as an
energy source has exacerbated deforestation and desertification.
The level is a declining proportion of land area covered by forest
with concomitant effect on growth and development –of the
economy.
Gas flaring, the practice of burning gas in the extraction of
crude oil, has been reducing, a direct result of legislation and
government intervention, and thus it is an example of how
government can improve the environment in Nigeria.
The Housing Construction Index (HCI) for cites, an increase
in residential housing construction, has been on the increase
since 1999. Most of the recent housing units, however, are
ramshackle and insecure, or priced out of range of the poor, thus
pointing to the inequality in incomes described in GOAL I. The
77
housing market is supplying the rich, but marginalizing the poor.
Settlement planning is relatively poor in many parts of the
country thereby promoting the growth slums. However the
present sale of government houses to willing buyers is expected
to have a positive impact on the proportion of people with access
to secure tenure.
Data on the proportion of total population with access to
safe drinking water is conflicting. Official statistics shows that
about 60% had access to safe drinking water as at December,
2005 (MDGs Report, 2005:53). Evidence shows that states with
least access include Bayelsa, Taraba, Cross River, Enugu,
Adamawa, Nassarawa and Gombe while those with highest
access include Lagos, Kaduna, Kwara and Osun (NBS, 2006).
Access to sanitation still remains very low (38%).
Enabling Policies:
The line between poverty and environmental degradation is
inextricable. The government has recognized that it must design
policies to address issues of sustainable development. There are
examples of good practice.
For example, gas-flaring, resulting in the emission of air
pollutants, a serious environmental threat is being addressed by
the federal government through the introduction of Elimination of
Gas flaring by oil companies. The use of gas-fired electricity
power plants was approved for construction in 2005, furthering
the effort to limit gas flaring. Similarly, reforestation programmes
and forest reserve upgrades are government’s strategies to move
towards achieving Goal 7. About 2,000 kilometer of a shelterbelt
of green wall has established in the desert prone region of the
78
country while private and communal wood lots were also
encouraged.
Government has since initiated programmes to supply water
to urban and rural communities through new and rehabilitated
dams, tube to wells, borides and hand – dug wells under the
National Water Supply and Sanitation policy which encourages
private-sector driven response to achieving its targets.
Community – based waste management project was piloted in
2005. This effort has been successful following sustainable
access to safe water figures rising to 60% in 2005.
There is concerted effort by the Federal and state
Governments to upgrade slums. The Federal Government has
planned that substantial part of debt relief gains would be
allocated to catalyze efforts in this area. Consolidation in the
banking sector and mortgage sector reform is also expected to
help deliver affordable housing for the poor.
Problems:
Nigeria’s environmental problems are diverse, reflecting the
country’s varied topography. They include oil spillages in the
Niger Delta region which pollute the water and damage the
ecosystem within the area, and soil erosion in the Sahel driven by
deforestation. These factors have profound impact on the health
of all families in Nigeria, but with a disproportionate burden on
the poor. Economic sabotage (including vandalization) is a major
challenge deserving urgent attention of all stakeholders.
Sadly, many of these problems are man-made .Activities
such as petroleum exploration, vandalization and heavy
population pressure are examples of the vehicles of
79
environmental degradation in Nigeria. Capacity and funding gaps
in Nigeria’s environmental management also drive environmental
degradation
In addition, housing for the poor remains a challenge to
Government. Affordable housing finance is not readily available
due to the weak structure of the banking sector, appropriate local
building materials are not readily available, and the rate of rural
urban migration limits the ability of government to restrain the
expansion of urban slums.
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development.
Level and Direction:
In the NPC Report (2005:58), recent consensus on achieving
the MDGs calls for developing countries to improve governance
and policies aimed at economic growth and reducing poverty, and
for high – income countries to provide more and better aid and
greater access to their markets. It further highlighted that, many
developing countries are unlikely to achieve the MDGs without a
significant increase in overseas development assistance, hence it
addresses the existing financing gaps preventing MDGs
attainment.
Nigeria has enjoyed the benefits of progressive partnerships
with the international community, particularly with respect to the
resolution of the external debt forgiveness and exit from the Paris
club of creditors, allowing the country to spend an additional US
$1 billion a year on development rather than debt servicing.
Effective management of the debt relief will provide Nigeria with
opportunities to build infrastructure.
80
Private investment increased steadily or appreciably in
2005. For instance, foreign direct investment rose by 21.7% to
N303.3 billion in 2005 particularly due to banking consolidation
and privatization programme of government. Arising from the
stable macroeconomic environment, the IMF – backed policy
support instrument was developed to support the country home
grown economic reform programmes.
Although official Development Assistance (ODA) to
Nigeria has risen in recent years, it still falls far below the
average proportion of ODA in other Sub- Saharan African
Countries. The recent financing for Development in Africa
Conference, (Abuja, 2006), noted the commitment of the
international community to increase donor assistance to Africa,
including Nigeria, behind long – term sector plans, demonstrating
a policy environment that is conducive for the effective utilization
of the additional resources. Nigeria now has plans in many
sectors, as has been reflected in much of this research project
(work), and these plans and recommendations should be backed
with external resources.
Enabling Policy Framework:
More generally, the Extractive Industry Transparency
Initiative, with supporting legislation approved by the National
Assembly, has launched audits of the oil sector and will promote
better practice in reporting of oil revenue earnings and improve
the environment and terms of future partnerships with the
international community in this sector. The deregulation of the
downstream petroleum sector has already clawed back over $1
81
billion in the last few years with the phase out of subsidies on
petroleum products (MDGs Report, 2005:60).
Export incentives provided to some sectors as a way to
boost export capacity and increase the revenue base of the
economy. Also, the ongoing public sector reforms will strengthen
institutions and promote sound policies and regulation towards
building an enabling policy environment that develop
partnerships with the international community.
The new Telecommunications Acts signed into law in 2003
allows the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) executes
regulatory oversight on ICT activities in Nigeria. NCC conducts
the ongoing projects to ensure that Nigerian ICT activities are
consistent with worldwide standards and practices.
Problems:
Access to markets in industrialized countries remains a
problem that will only be overcome with the advancement of
negotiations with industrialized countries, as well as
improvement in local production and export structures, physical
infrastructure, technological capacity, legal and regulatory
frameworks. The barriers to trade and poor agricultural subsidies
in the industrialized world is also a crucial challenge to the
achievement of the required growth levels and development
needed for these MDGs.
4.4 Findings on each of the Goals
Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty
From the available data and research, the progress towards
achieving Goal 1 is currently slow. However, the supportive
environment is fair and based on current levels and the projected
82
impact of reforms, Nigeria can potentially achieve this goal by
2015 if it intensifies current efforts and reinforces good
governance.
Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education
Following the above development made known, the progress
geared towards achieving Goal 2 is varied; some indicators are
improving rapidly, and others walks slowly. The enabling policy
framework is fair for attaining Universal primary education in
Nigeria. Therefore if the current trend and status are maintained,
Nigeria can potentially realize this goal, come 2015
Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Women
Empowerment
Progress towards this goal is improving moderately. The
supportive policy framework is fair for achieving the goal and
Nigeria can attain this goal by 2015 if current efforts at the
federal level and a few states are intensified and replicated at all
state and local government levels.
Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality
A close examination revealed that Nigeria is unlikely to
achieve this goal by 2015.However, if efforts are geared up,
significant progress can be made. The supportive policy
environment is fair but each tier of government must place
emphasis on child health and the promotion of community
behavioural change and sound referral system.
Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health
Sadly enough, it is unlikely that Nigeria will achieve MDG5.
83
The enabling environment is weak, although improving. Again,
there is no specific policy on this goal. Rather, there is a general
state policy to improve health care delivery system in Nigeria.
In other words, given the current stance of government on
the health environment, its policies of adopting the National
Health Insurance scheme (NHIS) and Health Sector Reform
Programme (HSRP) for children and women, 2006-2009, there is
every likelihood that the desired impact of reducing mortality rate
in the Nigeria will be achievable if only these reforms and policies
can b implemented.
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other Diseases
The supportive environment is fair for combating the spread
of HIV, malaria and other diseases. Recent data seems to indicate
strong progress towards the achievement of this goal in Nigeria.
However, further evidence is needed before this can be stated
with any confidence. The challenge of malaria continues to be
significant across the country.
Findings revealed that the most crucial challenges in this
area include infrastructural gaps, low level availability of skilled
personnel, low level of awareness of existing facilities, poverty,
fake drugs, and the general tendency towards self medication.
Even so, the possibility of achieving the targets are far-fetched,
especially HIV/AIDS.
Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
Investigation indicated that, there is insufficient data to
determine whether Nigeria will achieve this goal by 2015. The
legal framework supporting this policy is not only weak but it has
not also been enforced. The elements of monitoring and
84
evaluation of most of the components of environmental resources
are far from adequate.
The possibilities of meeting most of these environmental
factors are quite high given the current development of activities
in these areas. The realization of this goal may not be by 2015.
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development.
The researcher observed that the current level of
partnership between the Federal Government and International
Agencies and the domestic private sector is minimal and should
increase to an appreciable level. Statistics on private sector
investments and other activities are almost non-existent. Based
on the current trends and projected impact of reforms, there is
no serious problem that may forestall the achievement of this
goal within the stated time frame.
85
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
Summary;
The conceptualization of the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) as a community/rural development policy aimed at
addressing problem relating to poverty, education, gender
equality, health, the environment and global partnership in the
developing countries came into existence from the resolution of
the United Nations Summit in September 2000. The Summit
resolved to pursue Eight (8) time-bounded development goals,
eighteen (18) targets, and forty-eight (48) indicators to be achieved
by the year 2015.
The Federal Government of Nigeria has through the National
Planning Commission (NPC) conducted three studies in years
2004, 2005 and 2006 to monitor and evaluate the efforts of the
country in achieving the MDGs policy, come 2015. The national
level study therefore became a spring board for the
investigation of the progress of achievement of the MDGs in
Nigeria which formed the preoccupation of this research work.
Analysis in the studies focused on the current levels and
directions of the goals and target; the enabling policy
environment; the challenges; findings on each of the MDG goals
that requires Government, Donor Agencies and Development
Partners' assistance in Nigeria.
5.2 Recommendations
The recommendation here are based on the information
obtained from the data analysis and findings
86
Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
In Nigeria in particular, government and development
partners needs to acknowledge the fact that income in isolation
is not the most appropriate measure for development. However,
there is the need for improved market access and promotion of
trade to boost national production and exports, foreign
exchange earning and economic diversification. Foreign direct
investments should be in the areas of infrastructures,
manufacturing, tourism and agriculture which will create
jobs/employment opportunities as well as boosting economic
growth.
Technical and financial assistance in the establishment of
skill acquisition centres where interested adults, youths and
women could be trained in certain vocations that would be
viable source of income would also be required. Assistance
could equally be in the form of granting access to cheap capital
in terms of concessional loans and overseas development
assistance as well as establishment of micro credit schemes to
improve access to credit by the people in need, especially in the
rural areas.
Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education
Government and development partners should provide more
infrastructures like classrooms and toilet facilities, as well as the
completion of on going and rehabilitation of existing ones. To
also be included are the provision of computers, libraries,
laboratory equipments and text books. Nigeria will also need
assistance in the form of training and retraining of teachers, in
order to strengthen and up-date their capacity in modern method
87
of teaching. Most importantly, empowerment of the State
Ministries of Education, State Universal Basic Education Boards
(SUBEB) and Local Government Education Authorities
(LGEAs) is necessary from the government and development
partners to deepen effective and efficient management of the
educational system, monitoring and supervision.
Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Women Empowerment
Development initiative for the attainment of gender equality
in Nigeria and other development programme aimed at
empowering women should focus on capacity for gender
mainstreaming in all departments at the states and local
government levels. This will go along way to enhance
capacities of ministries and agencies saddled with data
generation responsibility to have timely and sex-disaggregated
data required by decision and policy makers.
There should be establishment of skill acquisition centres
where interested adults especially women could be trained in
certain vocations that will be a source of income, as well as the
establishment of micro credit facilities by women precisely in
the rural settings.
Female students should be given scholarship priorities to
encourage their school completion rates and access to education.
Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality
Provision of portable water for the people is needed in order
to avoid or prevent water borne disease. Health sectoral
institutions should be provided with modern facilities and
equipments. Intervention is also needed in the training and
retraining of health workers as well as advocacy and
88
sensitization to stimulate parents to bring out their children for
immunization. Parents also need to he educated on how to take
good care of children in terms of the required nutrition, and
other support and protection that will ensure child survival
and total development. There should be initiation of programmes
aimed at encouraging mothers to attend antenatal and post natal
cares regularly for their health and that of their children.
UNICEF is currently supporting Accelerated child survival and
Development, Monitoring and Supportive Supervision in some
state. This type of support should be extended to other states
and Local Governments of the Federation.
Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health Care
Development of the state health sector by the government
and development partners should focus on capacity building for
all cadres of health workers on Life Saving Scheme (LSS) as well
the provision of obstetrics equipments to Primary Healthcare
Centres (PHCs) across the country
In addition, there should be scaling-up of the UNICEF
training activities to all the LGAs in the nation and the WHO
sponsored Making Motherhood Safer (MMS) initiative. To also
be stirred up includes the technical and financial assistance
of the Federal Ministry of Health and evaluation capabilities of
the relevant national agencies should be enhanced in order to
strengthen the feed back mechanism for policy makers.
Goal 6: Combating HIV and AIDS, Malaria and other Diseases
Attention in the area of HIV/AIDS should focus basically on
scaling up the existing support and assistance by ensuring that
the rural areas are effectively covered. Capacity building of health
89
workers and care givers as well as technical support should be
scaled up for proper implementation.
Further more, specific attention should be given to
preventive measures by the Ministry of Health and Health related
Agencies in disease control such as intensifying the distribution
and use of Insecticide Treated Nets (ITN) and the end users.
Advocacy and health education priorities should emphasize
healthy environmental sanitation practices to prevent disease
infection.
Goal 7: Achieve Environmental Sustainability
In order to preserve the nation’s forest, there should be
development and establishment of artificial plantations as well
as the strengthening of legal framework for the maintenance of
the environment.
The importance of a, healthy environment is often
undermined by economically weak Countries, such as Nigeria
due to resource gap. Therefore, sensitization exercise in
needed to create the right attitude towards the environment,
tree planting and usage of the available waste disposal facilities
provided across the federation. More so, the government,
development partners and private sector should designate and
open new residential areas with the provision of facilities like
roads, water, power, clinics and schools. Also to be included
is the mobilization of foreign investment in building materials to
reduce cost.
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development.
The rate of poverty and underdevelopment in the
area of critical infrastructure in Nigeria is high particularly the
90
Northern Geo-political zone, Hausa Fulani speaking zone).
Therefore, the State requires development in agriculture, food
security and farm land development including FADAMA (dry
season farming) projects and provision of modern farming tools
and equipment. Others include development of fishery, provision
of improved seeds, seedlings and agro-allied chemicals.
There should be focus on educational sectors, particularly
the institutions that are meant to teach children with physical
disabilities. These educational institutions need to be equipped
with teaching and hearing aids/materials, such as brail machines
in order to enable them learn and to acquire skills that can
qualify them for gainful employment. This will go along way in
stalling the rate of street begging in our society.
More over, child and maternal mortality rates are
unbearably high in Nigeria particularly in the rural areas. There
fore, attention and intervention is needed in terms of advocacy and
sensitization focusing traditional rulers, religious leaders and
parents on the safety and efficacy of immunization, breast
feeding, family planning and proper child upbringing in terms
of nutrition, portable water and good personal hygiene and
environmental sanitation.
Finally, portable water is lacking in many parts of the state
and local government in Nigeria. Consequently, there should be
provision of bore holes, surface water, water treatment
chemicals and rigs. Construction of feeder roads and
establishment of rural electrification projects are other sectors
that need attention by the government and development partners.
91
5.3 Conclusion
There exist great potentials in Nigeria to achieve some of
the Development Goals with a proviso that the spate of activities
in the respective sectors, areas are not relaxed and genuine
efforts are made to tackle some existing inadequacies pointed out
in the body of the research. The goals that are likely to be
achieved under the above scenario are not far-fetched.
They include:
Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education.
Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health.
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development.
In another development, given the enormity of the situations,
the enabling policy environment coupled with the level of sectoral
activities, the achievement of the following MDGs will not be
possible within the speculated time frame-year 2015. These are;
Goal 1: Eradication Extreme Poverty and Hunger,
Goal 3: Promote of Gender Equality and Women Empowerment,
Goal 4: Reducing Child Mortality and,
Goal 6: Combating HIV/ AIDS, Malaria, and other diseases.
Goal 7: Ensuring Environmental Sustainability.
92
Bibliography
Adamolekun, L (1983) Public Administrations: A Nigerian and
Comparative Perspective. New York Longman Inc.
Anderson, J.E. (1979). Public Policy-Making 2nd Edition. New
York: Holt, Rinechart and Winston
Akpan, N.U (2000) “Policy Making and Implementation process
in Government” Paper delivered at Akwa Ibom State
Executive Council Retreat, Uyo, Nigeria, Nov.
Abdulsalam, I. (1998) “Public Policy; Concept, Approaches and
Processes” Ibadan, Sam. Bookman Publishers.
Adebayo, A (1981). Principles and Practice of Public
Administration in Nigeria, New York: John Willy and sons.
Abba et al (2004). The Nigeria Economic: Crisis Causes and
Solutions, Zaria: Gaskiya Corporation Ltd.
Bolt, N. (1991) Libraries, Public Policy and Economic
Development: Literacy Administration and Management Vol.
5 no 2 Pp 1-5
Bodawi, G.A. (2004) Libraries as Tools for promoting Education
in the Society, An Analysis of Library utilization by Women
in Kano State. NLA 42nd Conference Held at Akure.
Brockmann M.E. (2008) “World Leaders’ Pledge to Reinvigorate
Global Partnership of Equals” Being an Address Delivered at
the UN General Assembly. http.//www.un.org
/News/Press/does/2008/ga 10748.doc.htm
Ban Ki-Moon (2008) Fears of Achieving the M.D. Goals by African
Countries”. An Address Delivered at the UN General
Assembly. http://www.un.org/New/press/docs/2008/ga
10748.doc.htm
93
Ban-ki-Moon (2009). Delivering on the Global Partnership for
Achieving the MDGs. www.mdgafrica.org
Dye.T (1981). Understanding Public Policy. Englewood Cliffs, New
Jessey: Prentice Hall.
Ekaete, U.J. (2001) Concepts of Public Policy formulation. “The
Nigeria Guardian, 30th & 31st August, p 15
Edwards G.C (1980). “Implementing Public Policy” Washington:
Congressional Quarterly Press.
Ezeani, E.O.(2005). The Nigeria Civil Service and National
Development Since Independence: An Appraisal African.
Journal of Political and Administration Studies Vol. 2 No 1.
p6
Egonmwan, J.A (1991) Public Policy Analysis : Concepts and
Applications, Benin City. S.M.O Aka & Brothers Press.
Gitu, K.W. (2001) Strengthen the Link Between Policy Research
and Implementation”. Occasional Paper No 1 of the Kenya
Institute for public Policy Research and Analysis, May 2.
Honadle, G. (1979) Implementation Analysis: The Case for An
Early Dose of Realism in Development Administration. New
York: Praeger.
Hellriegel, D and Slocum, J. (1996) “Management” 8th Ed. Ohio.
South Western Publishing
Igbuzor, J.I.s (2005). Achieving the Millennium Development
Goals by 2015; Can Nigeria Make It? Nigerian Institute of
Social and Economic Research Ibadan: NISER Pp 2-6.
Jones, O. C (1970) An Introduction to the Study of Public Policy
Belmot, Califonia: Words Worth.
Kikwete, J.M (2005) Delivering on the Global Partnership for
94
Achieving the MDGs. www.mdgafrica Org.
Millennium Development Goals Report (2005) Wikipedia, the Free
Encyclopedia. http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Millennium
Development Goals
Millennium Development Goals Report (2009). Wikipedia The free
Encyclopedia. http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Millennium
Development Goals.
National Bureau of Statistics, (2007). Nigerian Poverty
Assessment. Dec.
Nwosu, H (1980) The Theory of Decision Making. The Nigerian
Journal of Economic Social Studies. Pp 34-35
Ogunsola, L.A. (2004) Adequate Library Facilities in Nigeria. A
Key Contributor to Sustainable Distance Education System.
Journal of Social Science, P 9
Orewa, G.O. (1997). We Are All Guilty. The Nigeria Crisis.
Ibadan: Spectrum Books Ltd.
Taiwo, M. (2005) Problems of Policy Implementation in
Developing Nations: The Nigeria Experience: Journal of
Social Science: II (1) pp 7-10.
Suberu, S.T (1999). “Public Policies and National Utility in
Nigeria” Development Policy Centre Research Report N0 19,
Ibadan, Nigeria pp 5-8.
Recommended