Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
With about 11 years to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved, the Federal Government yesterday, said it is considering making it compulsory for its Ministries, Departments and Agencies ( MDAs) to be involved in statistics production to easily monitor and track SDGs.
Some of the sustainable development goals include ending poverty, hunger, ensuring good health, ensuring equitable and quality education and achieving gender equality and empowerment of all women by 2030.
Speaking at the high level dialogue on data bond and supply responsibility framework for the SDGs, in Abuja, yesterday, Special Assistant to the President on SDGs, Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire said that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development envisions a present and a future that is economically sustainable, socially inclusive and environmentally resilient.
“This is expressed through the framing of its 17 SDGs, 169 targets and 230 key performance indicators. Thus, it is needless to say that an effective implementation of the SDGs requires sustained production of statistical information by all the relevant stakeholders” she said.
The presidential aide however, observed that production of statistics has some challenges, a reason government is putting in place enabling environment to guarantee continuous production of statistics for tracking and monitoring the implementation of the SDGs in Nigeria.
In his remarks, the chairman, Governing Board, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Dr Kabiru Nakaura, called for collaboration of statistics producers at both national and subnational levels. According to him the formulation of policies and implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals cannot achieve the desired results if attention is not paid to the production and usage of robust and reliable statistics. “This is a collective effort that we must all agree to pursue,” he said.
