The first part of this article discussed medium- and long-term economic and social planning and took the position that the bane of Nigeria’s economic planning and development is the lack of coherent medium- and long-term planning. He called for a 30-year long-term plan or vision plan to take Nigeria into the realm of industrialized developed countries. The article notes that densely populated Asian countries such as Indonesia, India, and China are making irreversible progress in this direction, with China in particular seeing an economic growth in size from $306 billion in 1980 to 2024. It grew 61 times to $18,533 billion in 2014 (not in 2014, unfortunately, due to a typo, as mentioned in last week’s article). The purpose of this article is to briefly explain how this ambitious but achievable plan can be achieved.
Also read: What should Nigeria’s dream be? – Sanni
Indeed, Nigeria already has a 30-year long-term plan, the Nigeria Agenda 2050 (NA2050). ” The problem is that the brilliantly thought-out 242-page blueprint is literally dead on arrival. It’s not implemented. In addition, my view is that the NA 2050 doesn’t have enough transformative power because the engineers who created it were careful not to ruffle feathers too boldly. is.
The main goals of NA2050 include average real gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 7% and nominal GDP of $11.7 trillion by 2050. The plan was to be implemented through six five-year medium-term national development plans (MTNDP).
This planning document has 25 chapters dealing with economic and social sectors/issues and provides general policy guidelines to achieve the overall goals and objectives of the plan, including funding for education, health, medical care, etc. Political leadership cannot be exercised over international and regional standards for procurement. It is about achieving sustainable and rapid development that can deliver a decisive blow to poverty and rapidly transform the Nigerian economy to achieve ambitious growth targets. For example, planning documents state that Nigeria’s adult literacy rate is 62 percent, which is lower than the sub-Saharan African average of 66 percent, and that Nigeria’s per capita electricity consumption in 2019 was 144 kilowatt-hours. In contrast, Ghana’s output is 351 kilowatt hours and Ghana’s output is 4,200 kilowatt hours. 6,022kwh from South Africa and the EU did not recommend an intensive and aggressive strategy to change the situation. Overall, NA2050 was the result of a brilliant and commendable effort by national planning technocrats who invested thousands of professional man-hours. However, the lack of political commitment to plan implementation is also evident in the planning document, with the Nigeria Development Plan 2021-2025 literally gathering dust on the shelf, three or four years after the launch of NA2050. This explains why. The first of six five-year plans, it had never been implemented before.
“Overall, NA2050 was the result of a brilliant and commendable effort by national planning technocrats who invested thousands of professional man-hours.”
The above is the basis for proposing a “30-year Transformative Vision Plan” that will make Nigeria not only an upper-middle income country but also a truly industrialized economy. The vision plan from NA2050 to NA2055 will need to be reviewed and updated, with a focus not only on GDP growth but also on transforming lives and mainstreaming the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a clear political focus on the plan. It is necessary to include public commitments. For example, it is a document that all levels of government in Nigeria will allocate a minimum of 20 percent of their annual budget to education over a period of time, as the Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) have done. The UNESCO standard is 26 percent. Additionally, all three tiers of government in Nigeria have adopted the Abuja on Health Act, which requires African governments to allocate 15 percent of their annual budgets to the health sector and commits to 10 percent of their budget allocations to agriculture. Efforts should also be made to implement the Declaration. Recommended by the African Union’s Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP). NA2055 is driven by focused and clear economic policy reforms with a focus on privatization and deregulation, particularly reform of the oil and gas and power sectors, and broad and far-reaching adoption of digital technologies, especially the Fourth Industrial Revolution. should be done. We will apply artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain technology, etc. to various sectors of the Nigerian economy to catapult the economy into the 21st century economy. Nigeria should also adopt the Chinese model of special economic zones (SEZs).
Also read: Solving Nigeria’s security crisis requires a region-specific approach
Chapter 20 of the NA2050 document deals extensively with issues such as environmental degradation, climate change, the challenge of net zero emissions and renewable energy, and recommends a number of innovative improvement strategies. Further steps will be taken to write political commitments into the amendment/update draft NA2055 for the implementation of these strategies, together with the resolutions of the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai and subsequent climate change conferences. Should. NA 2055 must also be closely aligned with the key objectives of Agenda 2063, the African Union’s 50-year vision plan for Africa, which ends in 2063.
The overall purpose of this article is not to discredit NA2050, but to draw attention to its existence, update it, and embed political commitment in its implementation by all three tiers of government. Political reforms will be needed to institutionalize good governance, as clearly and fully detailed in NA2050. Without political reforms to ensure good governance, accountability and transparency, it will be difficult to secure the political commitment needed to drive the realization of the ambitious vision of the proposed Nigeria Agenda 2055. It will be. Lead Nigeria into the club of developed nations by 2055. As an inspiration, most of the development that turned Dubai into a global commercial center and bustling metropolis began in the 1980s and 1990s.
Mr. Igbinova is the Team Leader/CEO of ProServe Options Consulting in Lagos.
