The Federal Government has assured Nigerians that it is committed to facilitating a private sector-driven process of inclusive and participatory national development plan.
The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, said this during the virtual inauguration of the Central Working Group for the development of Nigeria Agenda 2050 and the Medium-Term National development Plans (2021-2025) and (2026-2030).
The CWG is chaired by a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and Special Adviser to the President on Finance and Economy, Sarah Alade, while the Special Adviser to the President on Economic Matters, Office of the Vice President, Adeyemi Dipeolu, is to serve as the Deputy Chair.
The minister said, “This plan will be a truly national development plan, led by the organised private sector and enabled by Government.
“The planning process will be inclusive and participatory with full involvement of the sub-nationals (State and Local Governments), three major political parties, the National Assembly, youth and women organisations, physically-challenged and other relevant stakeholders.”
He added, “The governance structure has three levels with Technical Working Groups as the base where all technical works will be carried out before escalation to the Central Working Group, which has oversight functions on the TWGs.
“At the top is the Steering Committee, which has oversight on all the planning process and this is chaired by Mr Atedo Peterside and co-chaired by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Dr (Mrs) Zainab Ahmed.”
The minister explained that the initiatives were designed to be successor plans to Nigeria’s Vision 20:2020 and the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan 2017-2020.
He pointed out that the plans were to address development challenges in all aspects of the country’s national life within the agreed time-frame.
He noted that the CWG would, among other terms of reference, coordinate sectoral approaches to highlight cross-cutting interventions for joint implementation.
He added that the adopted approach must address anticipated challenges of preparing an evidence-based national development plan and long-term vision document.
He tasked the CWG to produce and submit a final draft of the MTNDP 2021-2025 to the Steering Committee, not later than September 30, 2020, and the second MTNDP 2026-2030, in February 2021, while the final report for the Nigeria Agenda 2050, should be submitted in July 2021.
Agba explained that, given the important role that Nigeria played in the global economy, the plan must, as a matter of conscious effort, be comprehensive and have the capacity to accelerate the attainment of various regional and global agenda.
Responding, Alade expressed the commitment of the group’s members to delivering a well-articulated and robust national plan for the stability of the Nigerian economy.
She said the Nigerian development agenda would be guaranteed by the sustainability of the plans, adding that for the set-out goals to be achieved, there must be seamless delivery process and ascertained source of fund raising.
