NAN-HE-19
Training
By Cecilia Ologunagba
Abuja, June 20, 2017 (NAN) The Federal Government has commenced the training of officials of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to build their capacity on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reporting formats and standards.
The Statistician-General of the Federation, Dr Yemi Kale, at the opening of the two-day Capacity Training Workshop on Tuesday in Abuja, said the training was critical to the monitoring and reporting of SDGs.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the training is being done by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Kale was represented by Dr Isiaka Olarewaju, the Director of Real Sector and Household Department in NBS.
SDGs comprising 17 goals, 169 targets and 230 indicators was launched and adopted by the 193 Heads of Governments including Nigeria in September 2015.
The SDGs is a successor framework for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to foster inclusive development while addressing the economic, environmental and social aspects of Sustainable Development.
Kale said that the experience from the MDGs implementation in Nigeria pointed to critical challenges posed by lack of comprehensive and harmonised data to monitor progress of the goals.
“This could be attributed to weak capacity of the agencies responsible for the provision of the required statistical information.
“Thus, to avoid the mistakes of the past, Office of the Special Assistant to the President on SDG (OSSAP-SDG) in collaboration with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and NBS decided to take participants through the standards and formats for reporting on SDGs.’’
“The aim of the workshop is to ensure the production of data monitoring of the SDGs indicators both at the national and sub-national levels.’’
According to him, the bureau is making efforts to strengthen the System of Administrative Statistics in the MDAs and other agencies in charge of statistical production.
The statistician-general opined that statistical activities within the MDAs would help to enrich the existing databases and provide baseline data for new studies and monitoring tools, including the SDGs.
“As the coordinator of the National Statistical System in Nigeria (NSS), NBS takes great strides in ensuring that all data producers meet globally acceptable standards for producing and managing statistics.
“In effect, there is always need to share new methodologies for improved statistical reporting and innovations in data collection and improve data quality,’’ he said.
Kale, however, urged participants to pay attention to the training in order for them to learn new ideas.
Mrs Patricia Eweama, the Head of Department, Demographic and Social Statistics, NBS, said it was imperative for the stakeholders to acquire the skills to report SDGs.
Eweama said that one of the major problems identified in the MDGs was lack of data for measurement of progress.
“As a matter of fact, I consider this training very important and critical as it afford participants the opportunity to acquaint themselves with standardised SDGs reporting,’’ she said.
Also speaking, Mrs Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on SDGs, said that the office had continued to collaborate with the NBS to implement the SDGs.
Orelope-Adefulire, represented by Mr Jenefaa Gillis-Harry, the Head of Sectors in the office, said the SDGs office would continue to partner with the bureau to ensure effective reporting of the SDGs.
She said that the workshop was important as the country had commenced implementation of the SDGs.
The official, however, urged the participants to work in collaboration with other MDAs to implement the SDGs.
Mr Julius Ogungbange, a resource person who made a presentation on Sustainable Development Indicators- a Mapping Exercise, said the SDGs reporting were administrative statistics.
Ogungbange told participants to see reporting of the goals as taking the country out of national embarrassment of “saying no data’’.
“If we do our work very well, we will not experience national disgrace and once the SDGs succeeds, Nigeria will be great,’’ he said.
No fewer than 169 participants from state bureaus of statistics, MDAs and NBS are attending the workshop. (NAN)
CIA/MOL/EEE
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Edited by Mustapha Lamidi/Ese E. Ekama