25th August, 2015
The United Nations (UN) on Tuesday set a development agenda for President Muhammadu Buhari, with the management and development of human resources as a priority.
The Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on MDGs, Hajiya Amina Al-Zubair, gave the advice during an interactive session with newsmen in Abuja.
Al-Zubair explained that the development of human resources, especially women and girls, was key to driving national development goals.
She also recommended the strengthening of “inclusive governance’’ and better clarity of the funding and expenditure of the three tiers as adopted by the president to provide good governance.
Besides, Al-Zubair advised Buhari to provide basic functional social amenities and infrastructure to enhance the lives of citizens.
The aide also urged the president to curb corruption by ploughing all the “leaking pipes’’ and improve security.
According to her, Nigeria has crisis in the education sector in spite of the huge investments made by the government and development partners over years.
While attributing the challenge to lack of genuine commitment, facilities and infrastructure, she called for a new approach to achieve desirable results.
The UN, Al-Zubair said, would adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on Sept. 21, as a new approach to tackling global development issues.
She listed 17 goals that would drive the SDGs, including poverty eradication, climate change issues and their impact, human resource development, provision of quality infrastructure and social amenities.
Others are provision of sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, inclusive education, achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls as well as ensuring healthy lives for all at all ages.
Similarly, Al-Zubair disclosed that the SDGs would also seek to promote safe and habitable environment, provision of “affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all’’.
The SDGs, she added, would also seek to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition through agriculture and reduce inequality within and among countries.
The aide said other goals would promote peaceful and inclusive societies, access to justice, combat desertification and halt biodiversity.
“Furthermore, the SDGs will strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development,’’ said Al-Zubair.