MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND IMPLEMENTATION OF POVERTY REDUCTION PROGRAMMES IN NIGERIA, 2003-2013

Abstract

The paper set out to assess the extent to which implementation of poverty reduction programmes between 2003 and 2013 have achieved the poverty and hunger reduction targets of MDG-1 in Nigeria. Thus, historical, thematic and content analysis was explored to achieve this objective. Utilizing secondary data, the study revealed a ‘gap’ between what was planned and what actually occurred as a result of programmes implementation. Some of these challenges include poor coordination, the absence of a comprehensive policy framework, excessive political interference, Ineffective targeting of the poor, leading to leakage of benefits to unintended beneficiaries, the unwieldy scope of programmes, which cause resources to be fluidly spread across to other projects, inconsistency or lack of continuity of programmes implementation to the latter and corruption in governance, among others. As the way out of this structural problem, the paper suggests that if Nigeria is ever going to escape the poverty trap as did many developed nations, it must put in place well designed and well implemented plan of action with a major scale-up of efforts in agricultural productivity, nutrition and market development. This will be in addition to instituting legal safeguards to ensure continuity in programme implementation to the latter as well as addressing the intractable problem of corruption in governance in Nigeria.