The United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Regional Director for Africa, Ms. Ahunna Eziakonwa, has advised the Nigerian government to increase its investment in youth, women and creative industry in order to build sustainable wealth.
She emphasized the urgency in seizing critical opportunities to accelerate Nigeria’s sustainable development in a statement issued on Friday at the end of an eight-day official visit to Nigeria.
Eziakonwa met with President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, and other senior leaders at both Federal and State Government level – emphasizing the importance of leveraging wealth creation through the private sector.
The mission included a multi-city visit to the northeast, Abuja, Owerri and Lagos.
While visiting Buhari, she reinforced the UNDP’s support to Nigeria’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and its plans to speed up sustainable development in the Decade of Action – focused on climate change, wealth creation, youth employment, and women’s participation in politics.
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“Nigerian authorities and people have immediately responded to the pandemic and we are proud to have supported the procurement of 40 percent of the equipment needed for the response as a ‘One UN’ effort,” highlighted Eziakonwa.
“However, the pandemic is not over yet, and we must now redouble efforts to address the global inequality evident in vaccine famine. Vaccines must be available to all those who wish to take it.”
Eziakonwa commended the Federal Government for launching the National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy (NPRGS), mandated to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in the next 10 years.
The Assistant-Secretary General witnessed firsthand the impact that Federal Government and Borno State – led stabilization efforts have had on the most vulnerable people in north-east Nigeria.
Eziakonwa inaugurated infrastructure serving borderland communities in the Lake Chad Basin ( both in Cameroon and in Nigeria), such as a police station, barracks and new immigration and border control offices as well as housing for immigration officers.
“Stabilization efforts are working. I was in Banki less than a year ago and being there again last week I was struck by the transformation the town and people living there have undergone,” explained UNDP’s Regional Director.
“Police and customs officers were proud to be back to serve people in the community, who, in turn, have expressed they now feel more secured. Through our joint stabilization work, we can reduce needs and strengthen support to humanitarian action.”
In Lagos, Eziakonwa inaugurated an Accelerator Lab, which will offer opportunities for young people to accelerate and scale up home – grown solutions to Nigeria’s development challenges.
With the private sector, she witnessed a renewed commitment to support youth entrepreneurship and empowerment including through the Jubilee Fellowships Programme.
