Sustainable development has been defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Therefore, Sustainable development calls for concerted efforts towards building an inclusive, sustainable and resilient future for people and planet.
The Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs which was adopted by world leaders in September 2015 at an historic UN Summit is to build on the success of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and aim to go further to end all forms of poverty.
The objectives of the SDGs are not different from what the MDGs seek to achieve but the SDGs calls for action by government at all levels to promote prosperity while protecting the planet by recognizing that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and addresses a range of social needs including education, health, social protection, and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection.
The shift from the MDGs to the SDGs is huge. The Sustainable Development Goals are universal, integrated, indivisible and mutually re-enforcing therefore, before any serious process” of implementation and building on the performance of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) can take place, we will have to assess what the MDGs have achieved in the state under the past administrations. We need to measure the progress of the MDGs across the state to see if the objective was achieved through monitoring and evaluation.
So, the tour was to track the progress of program implementation against pre-set targets and objectives; did the MDGs Translated objectives into performance and were the sets targets met? We went round to obtain information on whether the MDGs program or project is at any given time (or over time) relative to respective targets and outcomes. Because monitoring focuses in particular on efficiency, and the use of resources, it was our responsibilities to go round to see whether the document submitted to us translates to what we will see on the field.
Aside monitoring the performance of the MDGs, part of our tour was to identify various areas that urgently need the attention of the government as directed by His Excellency, Alh Yahaya Bello, the governor of kogi state in line with his NewDirection agenda where rural transformation is at the top burner. We have toured round the 21 LGAs of the state where administrator and Assembly member of each local government formed part of our team to enable us get first hand information in each of the LGAs. Another reason why we involved the administrator and Assembly member in each of the LGA in participating in the tour was to give them an opportunity to identify the basic need of their communities and to influence the design and execution of community development projects when necessary. Furthermore, by providing feedback on whether programs are achieving aims in line with community needs and desires when execution begins.
Three major project areas; Health, Water and sanitation and Education/schools were inspected.
At the end of our tour, the report on the MDGs projects in kogi state has an uneasy dichotomy; while some projects listed to be completed in the documents on one hand were not found on the field, those that were found on the other hand were all done below standard with inferior materials, making some of them not useful to the communities where they exist. Over inflated contract sum, uncompleted projects, ghost projects, misplacement of projects; lack of priority in project allocations and sittings were bound; It was also discovered that the distribution of MDGs projects was uneven; a situation where a particular senatorial district was grossly marginalised as fund allocated for projects in such a district went into private pockets. This situation was what we met in Kogi East senatorial district of the state.
The goal 7 of the MDGs which is to ensure environmental sustainability was aimed at expanding access to portable water for all. Almost all the water projects executed by the MDGs in kogi state were disasters; There were three surface water projects constructed at Onicha-Igo,in Ofu LGA, Egume and Emewe-Opada in Dekina LGA at the cost of N210m in 2015 but to our greatest disbelieve, these communities still lack drinking water as none of these projects said to have been completed could bring out a cup of water. Problems of submersible and pumping machines were recurrent decimals in almost all the places whereS MDGs sank boreholes.
In the area of health; Some of the interventions designed to improve human capacity and make the health sector more resilient in addition to the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency are implementation of programmes such as the Midwives Services Scheme, Community Health Extension Workers initiative, the Village Health Workers Scheme, the Saving One Million Lives Initiative and the United Nations MDGs Acceleration Framework (MAF), among others. These programmes which were to assist health facilities to initiate and manage health promotion and awareness creation activities and to also serving as vanguards of advocacy campaigns, mobilization of individuals, households and communities, provide data management and baseline inventory of households on health related issues amongst other services were said to be launched in kogi state with huge allocated fund but healthcare centres are bereft of their services.
There were communities where MDGs clinics built in 2014/2015 have already collapsed even while not yet in use by the communities. E.g. the MDGs clinics at Emekutu and Onyakoji have lost their ceilings already, so many others in same condition. In some communities, inadequate manpower as some health centres are under lock and keyed and poor facilities were common challenges; while some lack basic drugs others lack beddings and other essential materials. There were clinic buildings without equipments but those we found equipments in them were handed over to the communities for use.
In education; the government holds the opinion that education is the vehicle for acquisition of knowledge, values, attitudes, competence and skills necessary for survival in the increasingly complex global environment. It is also generally accepted and proven that education is a major vehicle for lifting people out of poverty. Therefore, no child should be denied education regardless of his or her social or economic circumstances. The goal 2 of the MDGs was to attain universal primary education with emphasis on total eradication of illiteracy, awaken the individual for all round development of their potentials, prepare the child for a life of self-dependent and self-support and enhance its ability to contribute to national development. As I speak to you, there are so many communities where pupils seat under the trees for classes; is it not deceptive and wickedness to say that goal 2 of the MDGs has been achieved in kogi state? The performance of the MDGs in education is simply abysmal, there are lots of classroom blocks without desks and table and other instructural materials, massive infrastructural decay, inadequate manpower still prevalence in our primary schools in kogi.
During the tour, we also discovered so many communities that are currently under severe threat of ecological problems; in Ankpa local government for example, communities such as Olufofo, Enjema, Afo-gamgam, Ofugo, Ojoku, Anupi, Ankpa suburb and others are been ravaged by gully erosion. We took assessment of all these and have submitted our report to the government for quick action.
The governor of kogi state, His Excellency, Alh Yahaya Bello has provided us with the political will to ensure that all the processes required for meeting the goals in the state are not hindered and his major target is to achieve rapid rural development which we are currently working toward at the moment.
– Hon Ahmed Abdulmumeen Okara
Special Adviser to the Governor on SDGs
