This article is a sequel to last week’s, titled “Agenda 2063: the imperative for domestication at the national level,” which concluded by stating that “Unless Nigeria as a major economy in Africa commits to the implementation of Agenda 2063, its national development and the achievement of the continental development agenda will be seriously compromised.” The purpose of this article is to further drive home the urgent need for Nigeria, as a leading economy in Africa, to domesticate Agenda 2063 and use it as a template for development planning at the national, subnational, and local levels.
Read also: Agenda 2063: The imperative for domestication at the national level
The reasons Nigeria needs to domestic Agenda 2063 include the following: 1) The merging of the goals of Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the African Union and the United Nations into “One Framework, Two Agendas,” thereby enabling Nigeria and other African countries to achieve both global and continental agendas simultaneously; 2) the need for Nigeria and other African countries to adopt Agenda 2063’s Seven Aspirations and their corresponding Seven Moonshots in the Second Ten-Year Implementation Plan of Agenda 2063; 3) the need for Nigeria and other African countries to adopt Agenda 2063’s continental planning frameworks for sectoral development planning. These continental frameworks include the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP), the Programme for Infrastructural Development in Africa (PIDA), the African Mining Vision (AMV), the Science Technology Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA), Boosting Intra-African Trade (BIAT), and Accelerated Industrial Development for Africa (AIDA). These frameworks are meant to guide African countries in their national development planning efforts. Two examples of how this is to be done will suffice. CAADP requires African countries to prioritise agriculture and rural development and allocate at least 10 percent of their annual budgets to the sector. PIDA requires African countries to prioritise investment in four key infrastructure areas: energy, water, transport, and information and communication technologies. PIDA has sector-specific terms of reference for each of these infrastructure areas; and 4) Nigeria and other African countries are also expected to align their medium-term (5-yearly) national development plans (NDPs) with the 10-yearly implementation plans of Agenda 2063, which is in its Second Ten Year Implementation Plan (STYIP) now. The adoption by Nigeria and other African countries of the planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation templates of the STYIP will enable them to deliver their national development plans with better results.
“The adoption by Nigeria and other African countries of the planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation templates of the STYIP will enable them to deliver their national development plans with better results.”
It, however, needs to be re-emphasised that the domestication of Agenda 2063 and, by extension, “One Framework, Two Agendas” by Nigeria will necessarily require the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Administration and successive administrations to firmly commit to medium-term and long-term development planning. Since January 30, 2024, written ten articles in this column about medium- to long-term national development planning, including creating awareness about Africa’s continental long-term development plan (Agenda 2063). We have made a case for a formal blueprint for the economic reform programme of the Tinubu Administration. Understandably, this administration was engaged in an unavoidable economic firefight from its inception. It is noteworthy that considerable progress has been made in resetting the economy on the path of market-based economic reforms, which can only yield the expected economic and social benefits within the context of well-thought-out medium- to long-term national development plans that are well implemented within the framework of Agenda 2063 and the SDGs. On February 12, 2024, we advocated depoliticising economic planning and management in Nigeria by developing medium- to long-term plans through multi-party and broad-based stakeholder consultations, which will be enacted into law for implementation by present and successive governments at the national and subnational levels. On September 28 and October 3, 2024, we canvassed in a two-part article for a 30-year transformative perspective plan. We acknowledged the existence of Nigeria Agenda 2050, Nigeria’s 30-year long-term plan, but took the position that it was not sufficiently transformative. We proposed a Nigeria Agenda 2055 30-year transformative plan that will be bolder and more transformative than Nigeria Agenda 2050 and will take Nigeria very close to the realm of an industrialised nation.
Read also: A review of the second ten-year implementation plan for Agenda 2063 (2024-2033)
On October 7, 2024, we took a closer look at Nigeria Agenda 2050 (NA-2050) to create more awareness about the existence of the prospective plan. A close look at the 26 chapters of NA-2050 will show close parallels with, for example, the four critical infrastructure areas of Agenda 2063’s PIDA, but the other sectors addressed by Agenda 2063’s continental frameworks are not sufficiently incorporated.
Against the foregoing, we can only conclude that for Nigeria to effectively domesticate Agenda 2063/”One Framework, Two Agendas,” it has to necessarily go back to implementing its medium-term National Develop Plans and Nigeria Agenda 2050/55. This is an imperative for the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Administration and successive administrations if Nigeria is to achieve consistent, sustainable, and transformative development that mainstreams the SDGs and the goals of Agenda 2063, takes tens and hundreds of millions of Nigerians out of poverty, and orchestrates widespread prosperity as China has been able to achieve in a few short decades.
Unless Nigeria goes back to medium- to long-team development planning and domesticates Agenda 2063 and the SDGs, the African Union will not be able to sufficiently achieve the goals of Agenda 2063. This is because we are the most populated country in Africa, accounting for one out of six Africans. Secondly, Nigeria is the leading oil-producing country in Africa, also with the largest gas reserves, and until just about a year ago, we had the largest economy in Africa, a status we can easily reclaim with sound economic reform management, proper development planning, and disciplined implementation.
Mr Igbinoba is Team Lead/CEO at ProServe Options Consulting, Lagos.
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