Nigeria’s 2020 Voluntary National Review (VNR) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) focuses on the key issues of poverty (SDG-1) and an inclusive economy (SDG-8), health and wellbeing (SDG-3), Education (SDG-4), Gender equality (SDG-5), and the enabling environment of peace and security (SDG-16), and partnerships (SDG-17). This focus is based on Nigeria’s current development priorities and the development objectives of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. This VNR is being developed while facing huge challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic testing Nigeria’s public health systems, and of the collapse in oil prices, for an economy still getting 86% of public revenue from oil and gas.

Nigeria’s 2017 VNR outlined the institutional dimensions for creating an enabling policy environment for the implementation of the SDGs through its Economic and Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP) (2017-2020). The ERGP’s focus on economic, social and environmental dimensions of development makes it consistent with the aspirations of the SDGs.

SDG3-Health and Wellbeing: While Nigeria has some poor health outcomes, such as high rates of maternal mortality, there have been improvements in the under-five mortality rates (from 157 to 132). COVID-19 has challenged our public health 2 | Page system. A key lesson in protecting the public in times of such pandemics is hygiene and the need to prioritize universal access to clean water and soap. Nigeria’s current access to basic drinking water stands at 64%. There must be more investment in public health and to ensure the most vulnerable are reached through universal access to essential services.

SDG4-Education: 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, with 78% of South Western children able to read full or part sentences, while only 17% of North Eastern children can. With only 1.6% of GDP devoted to education, the country needs to increase the resources to provide quality education.

SDG8-Inclusive Economy: In terms of inclusive economy (SDG-8), Nigeria’s informal economy is one of the largest on the continent - estimated at 53% of the Labour force and accounting for 65% of GDP. It is estimated that 75% of all new jobs are informal. Youth have a combined unemployment and under-employment rate of 55.4% or 24.5 million1. This is the youth bulge that needs to be building the required skills to move into secure and less precarious forms of employment. Ensuring youth are well-educated and able to transition to productive employment through the digital economy can help reduce poverty (SDG-1) and help diversify growth beyond dependence on oil and gas. The Generation Unlimited intervention, which targets employment for 20 million youth is another good example. The banking sector can play an important role in supporting the country’s efforts to leverage greater private sector-led growth by providing access to finance, particularly for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). In addition, the Nigerian government can dramatically shift to digitization and strengthening its transition to e-government to facilitate its social protection to the poor and vulnerable population.

Alignment of national planning to SDGs: Good strides have been made in the domestication process of the SDGs in Nigeria. First, there is an ongoing realignment of the National Statistical System (NSS) with the requirements and Indicators of the SDGs. Second, Nigeria has developed its home-grown ‘Integrated Sustainable Development Goals (iSDG Model) - an analytical framework for assessing how policy making can better address the indivisible nature of the SDGs. Third, the Nigeria’s 2020 VNR report has drawn on past evaluations across the Seven priority SDGs and has an ongoing evaluation of the country’s performance in SDG 3&4. This attempt to systematically use evaluations is an innovation in the VNR context. Nigeria should strengthen the evidencebased planning and accountability mechanisms at State level for accelerating the SDG decade of action. The post-ERGP National Development Plan (2021-2030) will be pivotal in advancing the achievement of the SDGs in Nigeria.

This report provides information on progress and status of implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)in Nigeria. It highlights key policy, institutional and regulatory measures put in place to create necessary enabling environment for mainstreaming of SDGs in national policies, plans and programmes, and its coherent coordination.

The report is the outcome of wide and in-depth consultations organized by the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on SDGs (OSSAP-SDGs) with a wide array of stakeholders drawn from line ministries, civil society organizations, organized private sector, academia, development partners, youth groups, women organizations, persons with disability and media organizations.

i. Establishment of multi.layer and multi-cluster institutional frameworks for enhanced coordination and SDGs mainstreaming process

a, The President has appointed a Senior Special Assistant to the President (SSAP) on SDGs whose office is responsible for ensuring horizontal and vertical coherence between development policies, plans and strategies. Similarly, an Inter-Ministerial Committee on the SDGs has been established and operational guidelines for the same developed to guide the coordinated engagement with Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). Similar structures being established at the sub-national (State) level.

b, To fully harness the resources and ideas of, and effectively engage other stakeholders, a Private Sector Advisory Group (PSAG) and a Donors' Forum on the SDGs have recently been inaugurated. The CSOs Group on SDGs are already working towards some SDGs targets, with giant stride on inclusive education, in collaboration with the Joint Association of Persons with Disability (JONAPWD) and Women 2030 in Nigeria.

C, To enhance the legislative and oversight roles of Parliamentarians on SDGs implementation process, two select committees on SDGs have been established in the Senate and House of Representatives.

d, As part of the national SDGs advocacy and campaign programme, the OSSAP-SDGs has entered into partnership with the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to train graduating youths to become SDGs champions in their local communities and areas of national service they are deployed upon graduation.

ii. Existence of good policy and planning framework: The recently-launched Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), on which the current medium- and short- terms budgeting frameworks are based is, to a large extent, aligned to the SDGs. Similarly, many of the current State Development Plans (SDPs), including the Benue, Taraba, Yobe, Kaduna, Ebonyi, Kano, Jigawa, Anambra, Delta, to mention but a few, are aligned to the SDGs. The alignment aid planning, monitoring and evaluation of SDG implementation, an SDGs data mapping exercise has been concluded and a data supply responsibility framework agreed upon.

iii. Upscaling the Conditional Grants Scheme (CGS): The CGS, a counterpart contributory mechanism which incentivizes subnational governments to mobilize resources to accelerate progress in SDGs core areas and is acclaimed as a best practice in implementing the global development agenda is currently being up scaled.

iv. Identifying and targeting the poor and vulnerable people: This has been achieved through establishment of a "National Social Register" for poor and vulnerable households. There is a monthly conditional cash transfer of five thousand naira (N5,000) to such households as part of a national social safety net programme.

i. Technology-based, open and transparent progress tracking and reporting systems for nationally agreed targets against set benchmarks is critical for the success of the SDGs implementation.

ii. It is necessary to devise innovative and adaptive practices and programme delivery mechanisms to overcome bureaucratic bottlenecks often associated with the implementation of national policies and programmes.

III. Without necessarily downplaying the role of official development assistance and debt financing through debt relief gains, domestic resource mobilization and new sources of financing, are critical to successful resourcing of SDGs implementation in the country. Effective global and national partnerships are therefore, vital for the SDGs implementation process.

i. Reliance on oil and gas sector; dwindling agricultural production and productivity; and limited value addition in the agricultural sector to grow the economy, create jobs, address poverty and ensure food security remain critical challenges. Dwindling in agricultural productivity is mainly due to climate change; desertification; natural and manmade disasters; unresponsive land tenure and a general low utilization of mechanized farming.

ii. Infrastructural deficit and technological gaps: A major challenge to SDGs attainment is infrastructural deficit and technology gaps, which hinder service provision and application of science, technology and innovation in many spheres of life.

iii. The economic recession and humanitarian crises: Economic recession in the country due to fluctuating oil price in the international market and the humanitarian crisis in the North East of the country present unique challenges to achieving the SDGs.

i. Given the current economic recession, the country will need support in mobilizing adequate financial and other resources, including from domestic sources, and through traditional (North - South, South - South and triangular cooperation) partnerships.

However, the country has advanced on curbing illicit financial flow and asset recovery which will enhance effort on resource mobilization for implementation of the SDGs. ii. Technology transfer and capacity building on inter alia, data, information and performance management will be needed to support SDGs implementation.