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Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, New York
The Federal Government disclosed yesterday that it was developing a successor plan for Nigeria’s Vision 20: 2020 and the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) 2017 – 2020, both of which are due to terminate in December 2020.
Minister of State for Finance, Budget and National Planning, Prince Clement Agba, made this disclosure during a high level side event on Integrated Sustainable Development Goals (ISDGs) implementation in Nigeria at the sidelines of the ongoing 74th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
According to him, the ISDGs domestication is very timely as it will also be used alongside other models to determine the size and scope of programmes and projects in the plan.
“In furtherance of this, we have already integrated the main areas of concerns to the SDGs in the implementation of the ERGP and the next level effort is to mainstream the 17 SDGs in the Medium and Long-term plans that are in the pipeline.
“The essence is to ensure that full attention is given to the implementation of the SDGs programmes and projects in the course of implementing the plans.”
Speaking on the domestication and customisation of the ISDGs Simulation Model to suit Nigeria’s peculiar context, which he observed other nations were yet to achieve, the minister attributed the measure of success to the support of President Muhammadu Buhari who presided over the New York event.
The Minister stated: “In March 2017, Nigeria took a bold step on the journey to domesticating the ISDGs simulation model with the engagement of the Millennium Institute (MI), Washington, United States and the support of the United Nations Development Programme, Nigeria office.
“Our idea and strategy for domestication of the Model was to build local capacity by exposing the staff of key relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) whose activities fall within the 17 SDGs to the use and operationalisation of the Model.
“However, this was achieved only when the ISDGs simulation model had been customised to Nigeria’s unique peculiarities through the technical assistance from the Millennium Institute.”
Agba assured of the commitment of the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning to judiciously utilise the planning tool, along with other existing tools, “as we aim to revert to our well-known tradition of long-term National Development Planning.”
He noted that the domestication of the model to the sub-national levels of government would be hastened to ensure that their SDGs programmes and projects were properly fed into the National Development Plan.
“This we note would come with a huge cost in view of the size of the population and land mass. We therefore solicit the cooperation and support of Development Partners to facilitate early coverage,” he observed.
Agba, however, expressed concerned about the sustainability of the domestication, adding: “There is therefore the need to build institutional capacity to train Nigerians locally on system dynamics. To this end, it would be a positive effort for international agencies to partner with Nigerian local institutions to mount short term programmes on the fundamentals of system dynamics and other related excel-based models so as to continually build the capacity of the MDAs and other private sector organisations that need such skills in the future.
