Poverty Eradication And Vision 2020

Statistics released recently by the United Nations (UN) paints a gloomy picture of backwardness among sub-Saharan African countries, their improved rates of economic growth notwithstanding. In clear terms, the region lags far behind in the global race to reduce poverty and hunger by half in 2015

 That challenge is the first of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by UN member-countries in 2000.

It is, however, worrisome that Nigeria which was believed to be pursuing some semblances of these goals in her long-touted Vision 2000 (later known as Vision 2010 and now, Vision 20:2020) project, could not even be singled out as being ahead of her regional peers in the achievement of any one of these MDGs.

Equally disturbing is the apparent indication that, with only five years remaining, Nigeria has already seen herself as being incapable of attaining the MDGs within the stipulated time frame and has instead redirected her effort and scarce resources at pursuing a rather ambitious project which will hopefully situate her among the 20 most developed economies of the world by 2020. She calls it Vision 20: 2020.

Another fear being entertained here is that if, as is already being speculated, the UN goes ahead to adopt the eight MDGs as its global measures of development for the new Millennium, then it means that Nigeria and countries which are currently passive in the pursuit of these goals will most certainly rank lowly on a revised list classifying the nations of the world.

There is no doubt that poverty, defined in whichever context and measured by whatever yardstick, remains central in the character of a developing economy. Fighting poverty requires strong political will on the part of the leaders, ethical re-orientation of the populace, mass education and skills acquisition, capital formation, security, provision and maintenance of infrastructure, among others.

In a country where the average daily expenditure per person is less than N200, the ability to afford the three basic human needs of food, clothing and shelter becomes less than meagre. Again, with the average daily calorie intake per capita falling below 2,900, malnutrition looms large.

Ordinarily, the Federal Government would be seen as taking the fight against poverty very seriously. To the undiscerning, there can be no better indication of this seriousness than the establishment of such poverty fighting institutions like the defunct Peoples Bank of Nigeria,  MDG office, National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), Micro-Finance Banks, Nigerian Agricultural Cooperative and Rural Development Bank (NACRDB), etc. But that is as far as it gets.

Budgetary allocations to some of these institutions do sometimes cast doubts on our leaders’ sincerity of purpose. The case of NAPEP readily lends itself for study. Only recently, the national coordinator, Dr. Magnus Kpakol, while appearing on a weekly personality interview programme, The Tide Roundtable, revealed that NAPEP has since inception received a fixed N1.3 billion budgetary allocation for capital expenditure and, for 2010, only N500 million is available for lending as micro-credit. A breakdown of this amount shows that each state of the federation gets a N13.5 million fund from NAPEP for the fight against poverty. At the local government level, a state like Kano, with its 44 councils, will disburse only N25,000 monthly as micro-credit from NAPEP.

We believe that this amount is rather too paltry and obviously laughable, especially coming from a programme that is run directly from The Presidency.

Available statistics show that from 28 per cent in 1980, the poverty rate in Nigeria rose to 70 per cent in 1999 and fell to a little less than 54 per cent in 2005. Economists say it is now somewhere between 50 and 52 per cent. Howbeit, these figures serve to prove that the nation’s poverty rate has not shown a consistent downward trend in the last few decades and given the recent daily hike in commodity prices, it means that inflation continues to erode whatever gains that may have resulted from the widely acknowledged recent improvements in economic growth rate.

In view of the fact that Vision 20:2020 is barely 10 years away and not much has been achieved in the task of attaining poverty reduction The Tide suggests a review of the strategies currently being employed by the agencies spearheading the war against poverty, hunger and malnutrition.

If Vision 2020 fails, then it means that the country will have failed to realise, yet again, some lofty ideas she visualised in the 1990s and Nigerians will, as usual, be persuaded that the solution lies in yet another 10 years. God forbid that this happens!