Politics of the MDGs and Nigeria, The

Preface

"Despite rapid advances by some countries that show that Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are achievable, most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa including the populous nation of Nigeria are yet to mobilise resources, political and financial support to meet specific global challenges, especially the fight against HIV/AIDS and weak fragile economies. A 2003 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) review of sub-Saharan Africa’s social development indicators provides a bleak picture of the region’s progress towards MDGs. The number of Africans living on less that $1 a day is increasing. It is also true that while most of the world made significant progress in the fight against hunger during the 1990s, the prevalence of underweight children remained at nearly 50% in South-Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, which is averse to development in an era of global overproduction of food.

With an annual per capita income of barely $300, Nigeria is one of the 20 poorest countries in the world. It should therefore be an HIPC-eligible country—deserving of deep debt reduction. Nigeria’s debt overhang is considered severe in the context of its development challenges. Currently, about 70% of Nigerians live in absolute poverty (about 84 million people). It requires an annual GDP growth rate of 7-8% in order to halve the number of people in poverty by 2015, and this translates to an investment rate of more than 30% per annum. Currently, the country grows at about 3 percent and the national savings rate is about 15 percent. In addition, the country faces daunting challenges of re-building a country badly damaged by decades of military misrule and a fragile democracy. There is tremendous pressure on the government to deliver some ‘democracy dividends’. Furthermore, there are the threats of diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis.

The MDGs include a 50% reduction in poverty and hunger, universal primary education, reduction of child mortality by two-thirds, cutbacks in maternal mortality by three-quarters, promotion of gender equality, and reversal of the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. A Millennium Summit of 189 world leaders in September 2000 pledged to meet all of these goals by 2015. A UN summit in September 2005 reviewed progress towards the goals and set the development agenda for the next decade.

Of particular importance to this research report is Goal Eight, outlining Northern governments’ commitment to a global partnership for development - a late addition to the MDGs. Goal Eight relates to issues of – debt cancellation, trade justice, equitable governance in global institutions, and political, social and economic rights for the poor – as an indispensable foundation for a politics that will enable sustained progress to end poverty in the South. It is an important goal for holding developed countries accountable in advancing the
MDGs. This goal is particularly significant, as it requires richer countries to reform their policies and actions to contribute to the fight against poverty. The lack of basic rights in poor countries stems from and reinforces highly unequal power, within and between countries, which marginalize poor people’s needs and priorities.

This research report is an attempt to provoke debate towards an answer. It argues that what is overdue is a viable global partnership that enables African countries to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through having a lasting solution to their debt overhang, better and effective aid delivery, diversification and access to markets in the North for their primary commodity produce as well as fair trade. We draw from the Nigerian experiences to suggest that a “development marshal plan” requires both a viable national agenda and fundamental global action to be sustainable. We take an international perspective, although Nigeria is the primary focus of analysis.

The report is therefore organized as follows: Section I briefly examines the nature and severity of Nigeria’s development challenges. Section II looks at the national plans and strategies put in place to attain the Millennium Development Goals. Section III evaluates the relationships between Debt on the one hand and the challenge to attain the Millennium Development Goals on the other.

Empirical evidence suggests that debt badly deprives Nigeria its prospects for a full-fledged democracy and equitable social service provision to its populous nation. Section IV focuses on the aid delivery and its impact on Nigeria’s potential to attain the MDGs, while section V addresses issues of trade and investment which are vital to the attainment of the MDGs. Section VI speaks to the existing and potential roles that key stakeholders can play to make MDGs attainable and Section VII gives precise recommendations to pull Nigeria out of its current economic quagmire and daunting poverty.

There is a growing global consensus that the old approaches to debt, trade and aid have not worked. The current global trading regime and aid delivery system appears to be reinforcing than alleviating Nigeria’s economic wretchedness. Official Development Assistance (ODA) seems to have a way of returning to the donor nations without effecting development. Much of the ODA inflows by-pass national budgets, and thus are not within the control of national policymakers. The structure of Nigeria’s debt indicates that its growth has been mainly from the accumulation of unpaid arrears and less out of new borrowing. The fact of entrapment and accumulation of arrears is symptomatic of inherent difficulties in servicing the debt. It is crystal-clear that the debt incurred did not serve its intended purpose. The research findings indicate that the development problems confronting Nigeria are so huge and overwhelming that Nigerians alone would not overcome them. It takes both national and international cooperation to bring them to an end. Nigeria, on
its own, will not attain its MDGs by 2015.

It is true that aid is not a lifetime entitlement, hence a national strategy and international reform of development financing taking care of the trade and debt problems is urgently needed. The activities of the international civil society movement including AFRODAD should be able to continuously remind the world of the need for fundamental changes in Debt, aid and trade if MDGs are to be attainable."

From recommendations

The Report suggests that Nigeria should pursue vigorously all the options for debt relief, including outright cancellation especially with the Paris Club, although unilateral repudiation of the debt is an option. The report gives recommendations for Government, Civil Society Organisations and the Donor Community. These are some of the recommendations for Civil Society Organisations:

• Participation of civil society in formulating community development plans needs to be enhanced in order to create more people-centered development. Strategies must be put in place so as to create
  space for people’s struggles for re-instating social justice, recognising the specific and different
  contexts of marginalised groups.
• There is need for social activists to persuade/pressurise the government to undertake an audit (review) of each of the projects/programmes for which the loans were incurred. Two reasons
  warrant such an audit. First, it would enable the government to truly verify the genuineness or
  otherwise of the debts that we are servicing. Second, the responsible officers who contracted the
  odious loans and/or those who expended them should be prosecuted. This action would help to
  signal the seriousness of the government about accountability as well as heal the country’s battered
  image.