- targets to generate 165m jobs during Agenda period……Projects to reduce poverty from 83m in 2020 to 2.1m by 2050
From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
An emergency National Economic Council (NEC), presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has endorsed “Nigeria Agenda 2050” designed to take the country through to upper middle-income country and subsequently to the status of high-income countries.
According to Osinbajo’s spokesman, Laolu Akande, the Agenda 2050 was presented by the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning to State Governors and other members of NEC, including federal ministers.
Speaking after the presentation and discussion by Council members, Osinbajo observed that the plan “captures a lot of the expectations for Nigeria in the future and hopefully implementation which is key if effectively done.”
The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba, had earlier said the Federal Government has taken unprecedented steps in ensuring the operationalization of the plan, especially with the inauguration of the Steering Committee of the National Development Plan by the Osinbajo.
Highlights of the Nigeria Agenda 2050 as presented to NEC is as follows: “Nigeria Agenda 2050 is formulated against the backdrop of several subsisting development challenges in the country.
“These challenges include low, fragile, and non-inclusive economic growth; high population growth rate, pervasive insecurity, limited diversification, macroeconomic and social instability, low productivity and high import dependence.
“Nigeria Agenda 2050 is a perspective plan designed to transform the country into an “Upper-Middle Income Country”, with a significant improvement in per capita income.
“The plan aims to fully engage all resources, reduce poverty, achieve social and economic stability.
“It also targets developing a mechanism for achieving a sustainable environment consistent with global concerns about climate change.
“The plan therefore presents the road map for accelerated, sustained and broad-based growth and provides broad frameworks for reducing unemployment, poverty, inequality, and human deprivation.”
The council concluded that the
Agenda 2050 is to help Nigeria attain her desire to successfully join the group of upper middle-income countries and subsequently to high-income group.
It noted that this will require significant improvement in the country’s per capita GDP which will be powered by rapid and sustained economic growth.
It added that Nigeria’s long-term ambition is to improve its per capita GDP from about US$2,084.05 in 2020 to US$6,223.23 in 2030 and US$33,328.02 in 2050, with rapid and sustained economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction.
It added that the Agenda 2050 projects annual average real GDP growth of 7.0 percent.
The real growth rate of the GDP of the first medium-term NDP 2021-2025 on average will be 4.65 percent and this will increase to 8.01 percent in the second NDP; subsequently, it is expected to increase to 8.43 percent in the third.
It added that the number of full time jobs created will be roughly 165 million during the Agenda period to spur poverty reduction.
It projected that the number of people in poverty will decline from the roughly 83 million in 2020 to about 47.8 million in 2025 and to 2.1 million by 2050, thus taking a significant segment of the population out of poverty.