• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Nigeria’s capacity to tap demographic dividend hangs on quality education, strong policy – experts

demographic dividend

For Nigeria to reap the benefits of demographic dividend, population experts say that the country must provide quality education for its young people, strong policy and ensure reduction in its maternal and infant mortality rates.
The experts spoke at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) at 50 High Impact Private Sector Summit held in Lagos, Tuesday.
“For Nigeria to benefit from demographic dividend, we need to have a significant reduction in maternal and infant mortality, improvement in the quality of education for our young people to have the skills to deliver and provide good policies to promote the growth of the private sector,” Eugene Kongnyuy, acting resident representative, UNFPA Nigeria, said.

“We need to have more working age people, and when this happens, the country will begin to reap demography dividend,” Kongnyuy said.
He defined demographic dividend as a long-term economic and population policy that ensured that the population of any nation was structured and in line with policies that create more working age people in its society.
He noted that since Nigeria launched its demographic dividend in 2017, the country was yet to record any benefit from it, saying the move had shifted government’s focus on young people and also created interventions in health and education.
He urged the government to do more in health and education so that the country could begin to experience the benefits of demographic dividend.

Speaking also, Isaiah Owolabi, director of Hacey Health Initiatives, called on the government to see demographic dividend as a major opportunity for the country owing to its large youth population size, while urging them to take advantage of it by investing in young people for a life-time economic returns.
“Statistics and facts have shown that when a country invests in young people there will be increase in productivity and improve healthcare for all,” Owolabi said.
“Also, we need to realise that the rate we are growing, we may not be able to cater for it in the future. So, it is important that for us to sustainable grow our population we need to watch the fertility and birth rate in the country.

“We need to get more people educated, especially our girls, because when girls are educated, pregnancy is being delayed for them to go through school,” he said.
He called for multi-sectorial approach to drive policies sustainably that would make Nigeria benefit from its large population size.
“Everybody has to come together to deliver sustainable solutions and drive development that is inclusive that will be find useful in the next 50years to come,” he said.

Omobolanle Victor Olaniyan, head of sustainability, Access Bank plc, in a call to action, urged the private sector to partner civic society organisations to provide synchronisation between the company’s activities and the achievement of sustainable development goals.
Also, Olaniyan urged them to recognise the potential of young people and harness their strength towards sustainable development through mentoring and more internship development.
“Any organisation that operates in a community is not in isolation and should intervene in social issues in the community in which they operate,” she said.