Twenty-three states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have accessed N24,450,000,000.00 from the Conditional Grant Schemes.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Mrs. Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, announced this when she appeared on the weekly Ministerial Briefing organised by the Presidential Communications Team at the Presidential Villa yesterday in Abuja.
The presidential aide said the funds were meant to help the beneficiaries invest more of their resources into areas of national development priorities and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)/SDGs.
The Conditional Grant Schemes, disbursed from 2015 till date, were introduced in 2007 with a 50 per cent marching grant from the Federal Government and 50 per cent from the participating states.
Orelope-Adefulire said the grants were targeted at education, health, water and sanitation projects.
The presidential aide said they were “aimed at executing pro-poor projects in a consultative manner with the beneficiaries”.
She said the funds were spent on the implementation of 732 water and sanitation facilities; 494 health facilities (new facilities and renovation/rehabilitation); 616 education facilities (new construction, renovation/rehabilitation of block of classrooms; 1,150 women and men were empowered/trained in vocational skills, such as sewing, knitting, detergent and pomade making, among others).
According to her, there are special intervention projects across the geo-political zones aimed at strategic investment to fast-track the achievement of the SDGs in Nigeria.
Orelope-Adefulire said: “Between 2016 and 2021, a record number of projects have been implemented, aimed at providing essential services to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs, by ensuring no Nigerian is left behind.
“In the Education sector, 8,008 classrooms constructed and 305 renovated with furnishing to strengthen basic education across the country.
“A total of 4,845 desktop and laptop computers have also been supplied to schools across the country for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) training.
“In the Health sector, 195 health centres, comprising Primary Healthcare Centres (PHC) and Mother and Child Centres (MCC) were constructed, complemented with the supply of 199 intensive care and rural ambulances. About 257 incubators and 7,464 regular and automated hospital beds were supplied across tour health facilities.
“In other cross-cutting sectors, OSSAP-SDGs constructed 66 vocational and skills acquisition centres; supplied 1,294 transformers; provision of 19,266 solar-powered streetlights; 300 housing units for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Borno State; and 925 solar boreholes, in addition to several other interventions.”
The presidential aide said some findings from 2020 voluntarily national review showed that from Nigeria’s Second Voluntary National Review (VNR) 2020 on SDG-3, while the country faces challenges on health outcomes, such as high rates of maternal mortality, there have been significant reduction in the under-five mortality rates (from 157 to 132).
She explained that Nigeria’s current access to basic drinking water now stands at 64 per cent.
According to her, the review emphasised the need for more investment in public health and to ensure the most vulnerable people are reached through universal access to basic healthcare services.
Orelope-Adefulire said: “On SDG-4, a key challenge confronting the country has to do with Out-of-School-Children, a demographic challenge that relates to an interplay between employment (SDG-8), education (SDG-4), poverty (SDG-1) and the digital economy (SDG-17). With a population of approximately 200 million people, regional disparities are significant.
“On SDG-8, Nigeria’s informal economy is one of the largest on the continent – estimated at 53 per cent of the labour force and accounting for 65 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“It is estimated that 75 per cent of all new jobs are informal. Ensuring youths are well trained and able to transition to productive employment through the digital economy can help reduce poverty and help diversify growth away from oil and gas.
“In addition, the Nigerian government can dramatically shift to digitisation and strengthening its transition to e-government to facilitate its social protection to the poor and vulnerable population.”
On ending poverty in all its forms everywhere, reducing poverty and sharing prosperity under SDGs Goal 1, she said the Federal Government has maintained steady investment in expenditure in health, education, and other social services between 2015 and 2018 “because investments in these areas are essential and integral to addressing poverty”.