Measuring Society’s Progress on the SDGs (citizens report)

Nigeria faces a huge development challenge of epidemic proportions. With 87 million people in poverty, 13.2 million boys and girls out of school and lacking quality education, the widening gap between the rich and poor along with 4.1 million Nigerians occupying the middle class, the complexity of sustainable development problems faced by majority of Nigerians have become a priority that needs urgent forms of action enabled by new systems and models.

An era of a new global developmental framework is coming at a pivotal time in Nigeria’s quest to address its growing challenges. Three years ago, Member States of the United Nations including Nigeria adopted ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN 2030 Agenda)’, an integrated framework of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) spanning economic, environmental and social development. By achieving this Agenda, no Nigerian will be left behind.

While we are witnessing a growing momentum and signs of coalescence around the SDGs across Ministries and Agencies of Government, backing progress made so far with citizens driven evidence is at best weak: the aggregate impact of the SDGs at the national level does not focus on citizens’ priorities but input and remains largely underreported, mostly due to missing data and weak accountability systems.