Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire: Senior Special Assistant to the President on SDGs

The Federal Government has integrated the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into its Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), an official said on Tuesday in Abuja.

Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on SDGs stated this at a public function marking the 2017 United Nations Day.

Orelope-Adefulire also said the integration into the plan by the Ministry of Budget and National Planning was to ensure that SDGs occupy prominent place in the implementation of ERGP.

She said the SDGs, in partnership with the UNDP and the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, was conducting a need assessment and costing.

The presidential aide said the idea was to establish a reliable and predictable financing channel that would guarantee adequate resourcing of the SDGs.

Orelope-Adefulire said her office was collaborating with the UN Country Team to implement the 2030 agenda.

“Nigeria has laid down an evidence-informed implementation pathway for the SDGs and to achieve this, lessons were drawn from the MDGs End Point Report and Country Transition Strategy to the SDGs.

“Nigeria has addressed the prevalent data deficit by conducting mapping of existing the SDGs statistics.

“This is followed by the determination of 126 baseline SDGs indicators to benchmark progress with technical backstopping from the UN Country Team,” she said.

Mr Laoye Jaiyeola, the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group, said the theme for the 2017 UN Day celebration, “Concrete Action for SDGs” was timely.

He said the challenges of social economic inequality, lack of inclusiveness and the North-East humanitarian crisis necessitated the call for rethinking national development framework.

A local advisory group has been set up in Nigeria, through the Office of the SDGs, in response to the challenges and quest to ensure a rethink of nation’s development agenda, according to him.

He said focus was for the group to play strategic role in mainstreaming the SDGs.

“Since the inception of this private Sector Advisory Group, it has been able to develop 10 working clusters with the 17 SDG initiatives, aligned toward achieving the targets.

“The group is in the process of establishing a framework for monitoring and evaluation in order to provide quarterly progress report to stakeholders.

“Programmes are also currently being developed to increase targeted impact investment and funding around SDGs strategic area,” he said.