Challenges and Prospects of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) in Nigeria

Abstract

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is one significant break through in development policy. Nigeria’s quest for sustainable development and its subsequent endorsement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in September, 2000 indicates a concerted and pragmatic attempt on the part of government and international agencies, to align with a major development agenda. A critical examination of the number of years of implementing the MDGs goals and targets by various implementing agencies – the Federal, States and Local Governments and the attendant low level of progress (based on the available MDGs progress evaluation report) adds weight to this study. The study, which is purely descriptive, indepthly assesses and examines the prospects, challenges and implications of attaining the MDGs in Nigeria, even with very few years to the target year. The specific objective of this paper is to justify the status of sustainable development in Nigeria vis-a-vis MDGs related programmes and projects. The paper notes some inherent dysfunctions and constraints on Nigeria’s MDGs, and proffers useful recommendations on how some of these goals could be partially achieved – in terms of good governance, public private sector partnerships, pro-poor social policies and effective development cooperation between donor and partnering organizations and different tiers of government in the country.

Keywords: UN Millennium Summit; Development Cooperation; Accountability and Transparency; Progress Reports, Human Development