To meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’S) in Sub-saharan African by 2030, countries in the region need to strive for improvements in the areas of data aggregation, developmental techniques and empowerment of people, according to a partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG),TOLU Oyekan.
Oyekan made the call recently while highlighting the challenges that are hindering development in SSA countries and proffering possible solutions to address the numerous problems in the region.
“The UN has set a target of 2030 to reach the SDG’S goals and in effect, eliminate the developmental obstacles to growth and minimum livelihoods that hold back SSA and other countries around the world. For SSA, that is an ambitious deadline,” he said.
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He, however, suggested that various governments and citizens in the region must gather more and better data and utilize them more effectively to enable SSA countries to meet the set target.
He added that the governments must also increase and adjust the developmental techniques they employ to ensure they sufficiently address local concerns and issues while taking advantage of existing best practices, even from other disciplines. Oyekan also explained that SSA must enlarge the tent to bring a wider and more diverse group of people into the design and implementation process.
The BCG Partner emphasized that when effectively used, data, developmental techniques and human capital can help SSA countries achieve meaningful developmental gains, thereby making the region more competitive.
According to Oyekan, statistics reflect that the region has an alarming poverty rate as about 40 percent of subSaharan Africa, or over 400 million people, live on less than $1.90 a day, defined as the extreme poverty line.
He however stressed that good data from the SSA region is mandatory as that would enable the people to understand the prevailing challenges and conditions; and can also be used as a yardstick in comparing SSA countries with other countries of the world.
