Achieving competitiveness: Beyond NES 21, spotlight on NCCN

The 21st Nigerian Economic Summit (NES 21), organized by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) with the theme “Tough choices: Achieving competitiveness, inclusive growth and sustainability”, in its predictable fashion ended satiating attendees with optimism and hopefulness that after all, Nigeria is not unfixable. The eight plenary sessions, parallel breakout sessions according to geo-political zones and policy commissions and six design workshops were actively engaged by participants to produce recommendations believed to be solutions for repositioning the country as a globally competitive nation.

Nigeria, according to published Global Competitiveness Reports (GCR), still languishes at the base of the ranking of the most competitive nations in the world. While we seem to have mastered the art of growing our economy, evident from the 6-7 percent average GDP growth rate in the last 10 years, it is still obvious that we have not done much in learning how to compete from a position of strength in the global space, resulting in weak macroeconomic dynamics and economic contraction. Indeed, this year’s topic resonates with the current challenges of the country, and also very timely going by the release of 2015/2016 GCR in September, few weeks before the opening of the summit.

Nigeria in the newly released 2015/2016 report ranks 124th most competitive country out of 140 countries surveyed, deteriorating behind Mauritius, South Africa, Cote d’Ivoire and about 20 African countries. Nigeria in the 2014/2015 report ranked 127th out of 144 counties, showing that the country’s situation worsened on a relative analysis.

With the many consequences of lack of competitiveness which include low foreign and domestic patronage for locally-made goods and services, strain in economic diversification effort, low revenue and unfavourable balance of trade, the need to look into institutions driving the nation’s competitiveness agenda should be top priority. Specifically, issues around the right positioning of the National Competitiveness Council of Nigeria (NCCN) established in 2013 to deliver the nation’s competitiveness agenda.

For instance, NCCN, while preparing for their inauguration in 2013, invited Michael Porter, a professor and competitiveness expert from Harvard, to discuss pathways for achieving competitiveness. At the event held in Lagos, the professor shared some recommendations, one of which was the need to engage Regional Integration Approach as a strategy for competitiveness in Nigeria. Specifically, he posited that “regions are the most important economic unit for competitiveness in large countries like Nigeria”.

In his presentation, Porter mentioned that the many essential drivers of competitiveness reside at the regional level (geo-political zones), as regions specialise in different sets of clusters and cluster strength drives regional performance. The Council, though on a mission to develop and implement a clear competitiveness agenda with the aim of boosting collective prosperity, appears to be lacking in capacity and rocked with structural deficiencies dampening its capability to address the country’s competitiveness agenda, a failing which cannot be disconnected from the government and the leadership of the organization. The Council, in its grasp of its essence, came up with interesting initiatives, such as measuring states competitiveness and the proposed publication of a National Competitiveness Report. Without doubt, the Council set out vibrantly but appears cruising gloomily.

Since established, the Council is yet to publish the promised National Competitiveness Report and the Sub-National Competitiveness Index. As described on the Council’s website, the National Competitiveness Report, which will expand on the framework and methodology used in the World Economic Forum’s – Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), is expected to provide a more in-depth insight into the challenges to improved competitiveness in Nigeria, while the Sub-National Competitiveness Report, expanding on the Doing Business Report, will help stimulate competition amongst the states and identify opportunities for investment.

In my opinion, at this crucial time, our focus should be to find mechanisms to reposition the NCCN for effectiveness and improve delivery beyond the recommendations in the proposed “Green Book” from NES 21. Institutional efficiency should be prioritized, particularly now that the government seeks to block wastages and scale through these austere times. 

The country in the third consecutive year is shown to have weak capacity to operate in the global competitive space, leading to great socio-economic loss. Top five concerns revealed in the GCR impacting negatively on doing business include inadequate supply of infrastructure, corruption, access to financing, policy instability and inefficient government bureaucracy. For a start, the Council should consider convening dialogues around these key issues with a view to finding practical solutions.

Now this theme is rife and has been discussed extensively at the last economic summit, which ended on the 15th of October, I would expect that all stakeholders expedite actions on what needs to be done, starting from restructuring and re-thinking NCCN’s essence. Pursuing business competitiveness without strategically influencing dialogues around macroeconomic issues and policies is an effort in futility. All reports should be delivered in order to stir discussions.

Lastly, I would expect President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure that recommendations in the “Green Book” are reviewed and implemented where necessary. I am particularly interested in NCCN due to my convictions that results are better achieved when strong and accountable institutions are built around development processes. It is important that the dialogue on how we can be more competitive continues, not ending with the summit, and the NCCN in collaboration with the NESG should strive towards making this happen. In agreement with NES 21 theme, achieving competitiveness, inclusive growth and sustainability comes with making tough decisions from tough choices, and I am sure repositioning the country’s competitiveness council is a tough step in the right direction.

Adedotun Seyingbo