A development expert, Dr
Kabir Usman, has advised the Federal Government to focus on infrastructure development to achieve the country’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Usman, Director-General of the Centre for Management Development (CMD) gave the advice in an interview with newsmen in Abuja, yesterday.
The Tide reports that the implementation of the SDGs commenced on Jan. 1, 2016, arising from the eight Millennium Development Goals that ended on Dec. 31, 2015.
The SDGs’ 17 goals and 169 targets are expected to wipe out poverty, fight inequality and tackle climate change over the next 15 years.
Usman said the areas of priority should be on social infrastructure, namely education, health, unemployment, poverty alleviation, access to potable water, partnership and collaboration with agencies.
He said it was also important to focus on agriculture as the driver of sufficiency in terms of food.
“Partnership is key; one of the areas I have discovered is the issue of collaboration and partnership.
“African nations can partner and work together to produce a common agenda.
“The nations can pull funding together to make sure they achieve a common agenda so that we can end hunger and insecurity and encourage free movement of trade in the region.
“In addition, environment should be given priority, focus on renewable energy and economy, try to create jobs and more importantly, build the institution.
‘ If you don’t have institution, it will be very difficult to effect any change and make the change sustainable,’’ he said.
The director-general said, however, that the centre had designed some training programmes to educate people and give them relevant skills on SDGs.
He said that the centre would build the capacity of Nigerians so that they could become part of the success story in terms of the implementation of the SDGs.
Usman said that collaboration and partnership were important to the development of any country, noting that it would improve the standard of living of citizens. “There are benefits in the long run because there are areas of comparative advantage for countries to explore.
“ If you take for example, the president went to China recently and the visit focused on infrastructural development.
“We have infrastructure master plan and we need to make sure we have good roads, railway system; these are elements of development.
“In terms of development, we are not receiving aids, we are working, based on partnership and that is very important, particularly in terms of energy, the price of oil has fallen.
“There is collaboration between Nigeria and South Arabia, so we are not collaborating on the basis of weakness because we are also the 6th largest producer of oil, according to OPEC.
“When you look at U.S., we collaborate with the country in the areas of energy, agriculture and security – it is also collaboration on the basis of strength not on weakness.