Economy-Nigeria - By 2015- four years from now- developing countries are expected to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce poverty and provide basic education, among others. In this interview, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDGs Hajiya Amina Az-Zubair says Nigeria is on the way to achieving the targets.

What will you say are the achievements of the MDGs so far?

The achievements come in different ways. The first achievement is that Nigeria actually signed on to achieving the MDGs in the year 2000 when it first became the commitment of the global community. Another achievement is that we dedicated debt relief towards the achievement of the MDGs in 2005 and that began in 2006. Third, we decided that the MDGs will become the baseline for development. We reintegrated that into all our plans starting from NEEDS, SEEDS, Seven Point Agenda and Vision 202020. Another achievement is that the parliament has created a standing committee in the House of Representatives which is a success story for the MDGs and we also have a Senate adhoc committee for the MDGs. The National Assembly has also put in place a result centre for the MDGs. The goals of MDGs cover poverty, access to free education, health and so on. In each of those goals, there have been significant achievements, like reduction in poverty and other things.

What percentage of reduction?

The percentages for us in 2010 and 2011 are difficult. If you wait till the middle of this year you will see the latest figure.

Recently, the Governor of Central Bank said 70 percent of Nigerians are poor. What do you have to say about this?

I think that he was wrong. I think that what he was talking about was that 70 percent are living under $2 a day. We have been talking about people living on less than $1 a day which was 54.5 percent and now that it has increased to $2, it should change. What is important on the policy goals is that there are more people now having access to economic empowerment with some of the schemes that we have put in place for micro-credit, like the Conditional Grants Scheme. Over 80, 000 families have benefitted from the Conditional Grants Scheme. We gave money to house-holds to do three things - One, the initial supplement they get every month helps them to survive; secondly, it helps them to put their children in school and to go for immunization; third, we gave them skill acquisition. We gave them skills they learn and at the end of six to nine months, there is a saving we gave them to go out and start a business.

How much?

It depends, from about N70, 000. There is a range, depends on what they want to do. We helped the families to survive; we encourage them to invest in human development by going to school and going for immunization. Finally, after giving them skills we gave them capital. There are more people having access to economic empowerment. Some people will say 80, 000 is a drop in the ocean in a country of over 140 million people. There are still more to be done. This administration has done a lot in putting infrastructure down and in trying to create an enabling environment for people.

According to the MDG, countries are expected to halve poverty by 2015. Based on the achievements you have talked about, do you think Nigeria is anywhere close?

I was telling you that by 2010, the progress we made was quite substantial and much more needed to be done. At the trajectory we have now, if we continue to do these investments by the three tiers of government and put more money down, we will achieve the target put down by the MDGs by 2015. I am very clear about the poverty policy and I do believe that we will achieve the poverty level by 2015. Nigerians are more ambitious than that and I think that the targets of the Vision 202020 will address that. On the MDGs, I think by the way we are going and if we continue like this we will meet the target.

What achievements have you made on the health sector?

I think that is where there have been really good news. That is one of the toughest sectors to address. This is because the health MDGs are been addressed by the local governments and the states and when the local governments and the states are not working as they should, then intervention from the Federal Government is quite hard, you can go and build a health care centre but the functioning of that primary health care centre which is what saves the woman's life depends on the local governments and states. We have put intervention scheme in place that makes that happens. The 4, 000 midwives in place; the ambulance in place to connect primary health care centre to general hospital; the continuing funding of immunization; the reforms of the core chain to ensure that we get new vaccines and reach more people; the eradication of polio are all successes of the MDGs health sector. We have reduced the maternal mortality by 30 percent; we have seen the reduction in child mortality rate even though not as much as we will have wanted, it has gone down from 150 to 105. Incidences of HIV/AIDS have reduced. In the case of malaria we are trying to get malaria treated nets for all the house-holds in line with UN declaration. The TB centre in the country has come to be the regional centre.

What achievements have you made in the education sector?

The education sector is giving us concern; the goal itself is not very ambitious. It requires putting through school all children of school age. The challenge has not been putting through education the entire children in Nigeria because we are on track to doing that. The challenge is the quality of the education. Are the children going into education and coming out with the correct education? The initial thing we did was the funding and retraining over 400, 000 teachers in the system. We put in over 111, 000 teachers into the federal teachers' corps to increase the numbers of teachers going to the rural areas and these have improved the quality of education. We have been able to reduce the number of students, per class; we have been able to increase the skills of teachers. We are supporting the federal Ministry of Education to reduce the size of curriculum in the primary school which is very high. We are reducing it from 13 subjects to six subjects and it now makes sense. We are also investing in those marginalized groups - the Nomads, the fishermen, the farmers that travel. We are also looking at illiteracy, we have over 50 million people who are illiterate in Nigeria and we are starting a radio programme on illiteracy. We are about to start a three year pogramme for that.

What is the relationship between the MDG projects and the constituency projects?

The MDGs was set up to invest through the sectors at the local level. When we came up with the challenges that the Executive was asked by the National Assembly to take on these projects, what we did was to sit down with the National Assembly and did a framework around it. We said that if you are going to do a project, let it benefit your constituency and the aim of MDGs, so that you should not be taking the MDGs money and people would not understand why it has gone there. The framework we put around them made it work for the MDGs and when you go across the country you would see MDGs projects. We did it for two years - 2008 and 2009. We did it for schools, primary healthcare, and bore-Whole. In 2008, the performance was over 90 percent; in 2009, we had about 50 to 55 percent, because of delay is starting.

Now, what are those things that you are yet to achieve?

The greatest challenge we have is on the poverty goal, we have to increase the investment for poor house-holds to have access to credit.The next things we have to do is look at the education sector. We have to make sure that the girl-child goes to school and not just going to school but to ensure that they don't drop out. We have new challenges in Almajiris, the young boys that are out of school. In terms of the health goal, it is very important that states and local governments form the recruitment of midwives and community health workers so that services can be delivered. That is the recurrent expenditure they must do. That is a challenge.

In 2010, N110 billion was appropriated for MDGs, how was it expended?

We did not receive all the 2010 appropriation. Because of the cash flow situation, many ministries did not receive their entire budget, and we have not gotten the final figure. What we received was in the region of N60 billion. That has been able to perform. It went into the training of teachers, midwives, immunization campaign. We implemented to the tune of about 80 percent of what we received.

How much have you received and spent since the inception of MDGs?

Between 2006-2009, we received N434.16 billion and spent N305 billion. 2010 was not included because the budget implementation was extended.

Any other thing you may like to tell the readers?

I think it is better to communicate that our partnership with the states through the conditional grants scheme has worked beyond expectations. That has had a lot of source.

2015 is almost here, what happens if you are not able to meet the MDGs target?

The world would not come to an end.

Thinking of extension?

There would be a new set of development goals. You review in 2015 where you are and then forge ahead.

How have you ensured accountability in the MDGs projects?

When we came on board the first thing we did was to ask how we put this money into use to convince Nigerians that we have actually used it. We put in place Monitoring and Evaluation Unit to the field to tell us what they see. The supervision of contractors which has not happened at the local level for a long time was done and it helped us. The contracts or those that have absconded with their mobilization fees were terminated and we make sure that they made returns.

Idris Ahmed

Daily Trust/30/03/2011