Economic Confidential

In order to accelerate the attainment of all the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which deadline is in two years, the federal government has put all needed infrastructures in place.
Vice President, Mohammed Namadi Sambo stated this in Abuja, during the stakeholders briefing on the Application of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Acceleration Frame Work (MAF) to Fast-Track Progress against the MDGs in Nigeria.

“In addition to what directly the MDGs Office is doing, it is recognised by this Administration, through Mr. President's Transformation Agenda, that in order to address the issue of poverty, we must put the infrastructure needed for creation of wealth and in this direction we identified the various factors that are militating against our growth.”

He noted that although Nigeria has made significant strides in reducing maternal mortality from figures that were above 1000/100,000 live births in 1990 to 545/100,000 live births in 2008, attainment of the health MDGs still remain a challenge in Nigeria.” He charged stakeholders to come up with relevant approaches that will reduce maternal death.

On the importance of the meeting, Sambo said there was need to conduct an increasingly deeper and contextual analysis of the key challenges impeding progress of the programme, while proffering likely solutions for accelerating progress.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDGs, Dr. Precious Gbeneol, emphasised that with less than one thousand days from the 2015 deadline, it has become urgent to identify bottlenecks and barriers that impede progress against the MDGs.

She explained that this became imperative to prioritise maternal mortality as first of the goals to be implemented in the acceleration process. Gbeneol said: “MDG 5 has been selected not only due to the large in-country divergence in progress, but also because of the ripple effects interventions in this goal can have on the other MDGs.”

Meanwhile, in order to improve access to potable water and attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Minister of Water Resources Mrs. Sarah Reng Ochekpe has solicited the support of development partners to repair 2,000 boreholes across the country in 2013.

Mrs. Ochekpe made this known at a meeting with the development partners in preparation for the forth coming Presidential Summit on Water tagged Innovative Funding of the Water Sector scheduled to hold onFebruary18 and 19 2013 in Abuja.

She said the Ministry repaired 1,000 dysfunctional boreholes in 18 states in 2012 and was seeking for support from the partners to continue with the project. According to her, the 1000 repaired boreholes have contributed drastically to reversing the scourge of water scarcity and prevalent water borne diseases in the affected states.

She explained that budgetary allocation for 2013 would not be sufficient to repair the 2000 boreholes so it was necessary to seek additional source of funding from development partners.