Leadership (Abuja)
17 October 2007
The executive vice chairman/CEO, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Engr. Ernest Ndukwe, last week in Lagos said that all hands must be on deck to ensure that Nigeria not only achieved the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 but must strive to attain its 2020 goal.
Speaking at the 8th Champion Better Society Lecture with the theme: ICTs as a tool for achieving the Millennium Development Goals in Nigeria, the NCC boss while giving a contextual backdrop of the topic, disclosed that the MDGs of the United Nations Millennium Declaration were signed by world leaders in September 2000 which in the Nigerian context included:
• Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger
• Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than one U.S dollar a day
• Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
•Achievement of universal primary education
• Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling
• Increased enrolment must be accompanied by efforts to ensure that all children remain in school and receive a high-quality education.
•Promote gender equality and women empowerment
•Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.
• Promote gender equity and women empowerment in the spheres of education, economy, work, politics and society in general.
• Reduce child mortality
• Reduce the mortality rate among children under five by two thirds.
•Improve maternal health
•Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio.
•Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases.
•Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.
•Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources.
• Reduce by half the population of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.
•Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020.
•Develop a global partnership for development
• Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory. This includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction nationally and internationally.
• Address the least developed countries' special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction.
• Address the special needs of landlocked and small island developing states.
• In cooperation with the developing countries, develop decent and productive work for youth.
• In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries.
The MDGs represent a shared commitment by all countries of the world through a global partnership to fight hunger, disease, gender inequality, degradation of the environment, illiteracy and poor access to basic infrastructure.
The goals set specific targets to be achieved by 2015. As we are now at the mid way point of the 15-year target date, it is necessary for each country to assess how possible it is to meet the target.
From available statistical data, for sub-Saharan Africa, the United Nations has declared that "Sub-Saharan Africa is not on track to achieve any of the goals," says the report. The report further states that "although there have been major gains in several areas and the goals remain achievable in most African nations, even the best governed counties on the continent have not been able to make sufficient progress in reducing extreme poverty in its many forms," Engr. Ndukwe emphasised.
Ndukwe further observed that it has been widely established that the economic development of a nation can be accelerated by improvements in a country's ICT infrastructure, adding that the power of ICTs can most effectively be harnessed through the participation and cooperation of all stakeholders in all sectors of society, government, civil society and private sector.
Speaking earlier, executive chairman, Champion Newspapers Limited, Chief (Dr.) Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, while going down memory lane said the 8th Champion Better Society Lecture (CBSL) started in 1998 at a time Nigeria was under dictatorship. He opined that CBSL has a mission of creating a better society for Nigerians tasking them to always count their blessings and not only losses all the time. He eulogised the administration of President Musa Yar'Adua for tackling the power situation and promised that the situation will change for the better before the next annual Champion better society lecture.
Chairman of the occasion and former Head of Interim National Government (ING), Chief Ernest Shonekan, said the theme of the lecture was not only apt but timely, disclosing that the telecoms sector has witnessed an appreciable increase from 32 million lines in 2006 to 38 million lines, stressing however, the need for operators to strategise their lines of technology for the benefit of Nigerians. "ICT is indeed an important sector," he said, adding that Champion Newspapers must be applauded for taking interest in the affairs of Nigerians.
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