| The United Nations is worried over the large number of Nigerians living in poverty, which it puts at 54.4 per cent of the entire country�s population.
The UN said the high rate of poverty could undermine the capacity of the African continent to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The MDGs are a set of time-bound and measurable eight goals and 18 targets for combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women. The Resident Coordinator of the United Nations System in Nigeria, Mr. Alberic Kacou, expressed the concern in Abuja on Wednesday while briefing newsmen on the 2006 UN Week, which began on Monday and ends on October 26. With eight years to 2015, Kacou expressed both optimism and doubts on the capacity of Nigeria to reduce the number of people living in poverty as targeted in the MDGs. Kacou said, �In truth, some progress has been made but not significant enough to arrest poverty�s relentless advance. The worst hit continent is sub-Sahara Africa, where most countries are unlikely to meet the 2015 target if present trend continues. �Nigeria is critical to Africa�s capacity to meet the MDGs. In fact, Africa cannot meet the goals without Nigeria. The reason for this is simple; Nigeria is Africa�s most populous country, with at least one in five Africans being Nigerian, while the 54.4 per cent of Nigerians living in poverty represents a staggering figure, not only for the country, but also for the continent.� He said the Nigerian government had shown commitment to reducing poverty but warned that more need to be done especially in emphasising and strengthening fiscal responsibility, building the capacity of all tiers of government to invest wisely and strengthening institutions for the delivery of social services. According to him, the connecting link for all the activities lined up for the UN Week is �an urgent call on the need to eliminate absolute poverty, reduce relative poverty and achieve the MDGs in Africa�s most populous and very strategic country.� Twelve heads of United Nation�s agencies also contributed to the press briefing for the UN Week with the theme, �Make poverty history � Achieving MDGs in Nigeria�. In his contribution, UNAIDS Coordinator, Mr. Pierre M�Pele, said that Nigeria had received grants of $168m to fight the scourge of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. He said although the nation had slightly reversed the scourge, it was time to scale up the fight as Nigeria still had the third largest population of people living with AIDS in the world after South Africa and India. According to him, 1.2m children in the country have been rendered orphans as a result of the syndrome. |
Oct192006