Mrs Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals, says the Federal Government is capable of surmounting the challenges facing the goals in Nigeria.
Orelope-Adefulire gave the assurance on Monday at the 9th annual Ibadan Sustainable Development Summit organized by the Centre for Sustainable Development of the University of Ibadan.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the CESDEV organized the summit in collaboration with the African Sustainable Development Network and Sustainable Development Solutions Network-Nigeria.
The event was entitled: “Mega Trends that will Shape National and Global Prosperity by 2030.’’
Orelope-Adefulire, represented by Alhaji Hamza Yahyah, said crucial data deficit had been addressed by conducting a mapping of existing SDGs statistics followed by the determination of 126 baseline SDGs indicators.
She said that these steps were taken in close collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme and the National Bureau of Statistics.
“Nigeria faces many challenges in her efforts to meet the SDGs.
“Some of these are high prevalence of poverty, insecurity, youth unemployment, low level of social justice and inclusive growth.
“Some other challenges are gender inequality, limited funding and prevalent weak institutional capacities.
“The question to ask is; what remains?
“If I may answer what remains is for each and every one of us across the board to buy into ownership and galvanize necessary human and material resources in order to unleash the required synergy quintessential to quantum leap.
“We all envisage achieving this by 2030 and beyond, socially and economically,” the presidential aide said.
Also speaking, the Director, CESDEV, Professor Olanrewaju Olaniyan, said that the summit was held to identify the obstacles encountered in creating structures, provision and conditions to facilitate development and implementation of sustainable development policies and practices.
Olaniyan said that the event was to bring together eminent development policy scholars and practitioners from around the world.
In his remarks, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Prof. Idowu Olayinka, said that the university had continued to provide researchers and practitioners a forum to convene and discuss activities that encourage sustainable development at the national, regional and global level.
“The centre has since 2010 been addressing various dimensions of sustainable development and the way they shaped humanity and the planet that we inhabit,’’ Olayinka said.
NAN
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