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‘MDGs record 80 per cent success in intervention programmes’

By Anthony Otaru, Abuja
09 June 2015   |   12:27 am
A former Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Dr. Hajo Sanni at the weekend, said that the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs], put in place by government for several interventions programmes in Nigeria, have so far recorded not less than 80 per cent success achievement on targets.
Dr. Hajo Sanni

Dr. Hajo Sanni

A former Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Dr. Hajo Sanni at the weekend, said that the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs], put in place by government for several interventions programmes in Nigeria, have so far recorded not less than 80 per cent success achievement on targets.

“The MDGs have proven to be an important tool for building global coordination capacity between states and other development actors, bringing together public, private and political support for global poverty reduction and provided an effective tool for stimulating the production of new poverty-related data and additional commitments,” she said.

The former minister stated this in her speech to the third community voice policy forum organized by the ‘’Learn and Share Network’’ held in Abuja.

The forum, which brought together all intervention partners of the various MDGs programmes in the country, re-examined the performances of the MDG programmes over the years. “Sustainable development is best served if the private sector positions itself to foster inclusive growth.

There is no doubt that the private sector has the potential to lift people out of poverty and income deprivation.

Evidence suggests that about 90 per cent of jobs in developing countries are created by the private sector, but only about one quarter of the working-age population in developing countries is engaged in productive and decent employment’’, she noted.

She explained that “Micro, Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs)-the backbone of Nigeria’s industry, have definitely contributed to job creation.

However, over 60 per cent of the workforce in Nigeria remains trapped in informal sector jobs, with little social protection or other social benefits,” she affirmed.’’

According to her, young women and men from remote areas in Nigeria are becoming social entrepreneurs through the use of smartphones and other digital technologies, just as she argued that the development calls for a proactive strategy to engage and develop social enterprises, which could address critical needs, such as funding of micro social enterprises, particularly those created and run by disadvantaged youth in the country.

The Chief Executive Officer of CTP International, Kachi Okezie frowned at the huge debt owned SMEs to the tune of N3.5 billion in unpaid contracts for a variety of goods supplied and services rendered.

According to him, “businesses, especially MSMEs are in dire straits with no incentive, no social protection, zero security, non-existent infrastructure, banks that can but won’t lend, stifling bureaucracy and red-tape, all conspiring to extinguish the sector.

And to all that, add the ugliest monster of all; the unpaid debts owned to MSMEs by government agencies and MDAs.”

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