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Nigeria faces six-year delay in achieving SDGs – IMF

*’We are losing the fight against poverty. Global poverty is significantly increasing’

THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said Nigeria faces a six-year delay in achieving Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs.

Managing Director of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, disclosed this yesterday in a statement titled ‘UN high level political forum on sustainable-development’.

She said as countries worked to beat the Covid-19 pandemic and ensure recovery, they must also work to give everyone a fair shot at the future that is sustainable, more resilient, and more inclusive, which would march toward the Sustainable Development Goals.

“Our staff recently presented new research on how the crisis has set back the path to the SDGs,” Georgieva said.

“We analysed the financing gaps to achieve the SDGs in five key sectors: education, health, roads, electricity, and water and sanitation.

“And we applied this framework to four country case studies – Rwanda, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Cambodia. Not surprisingly, achieving the SDGs will be even more challenging after the pandemic.

“To be more specific, what we are assessing is that the financing needs of the SDGs will increase by an average annual two and a half percentage points of Gross Domestic Product, or almost $60bn per year for all low income countries.

“In other words, the road to travel has become tougher. Enormous challenges are faced by all countries with high vulnerabilities.

“In Nigeria, for instance, because of the pandemic, the country faces a six-year delay in achieving its SDGs. In Rwanda, it is five years.”

She stated that the IMF raised its global growth forecast to six per cent in 2021 and four per cent in 2022, adding that it recognised the exceptional and synchronised fiscal and monetary actions by policymakers around the world to cushion the impact of the crisis.

Without them, she said, the recession in 2020 would have been three times worse which would have been another great depression.

“But the overall positive growth picture masks dangerously uneven developments. After a crisis like no other comes a recovery like no other,” she said.

“Countries with strong capacity to support their economies and high rates of vaccinations are seeing bright prospects and are powering ahead. Those with limited policy space and delayed vaccinations are still in the shade. They are falling behind.”

She said for the first time in 20 years, the unthinkable was happening.

The IMF boss further lamented that, “We are losing the fight against poverty. Global poverty is significantly increasing.”

According to Georgieva, it was an economic calamity and a human tragedy.

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