₦airaland Forum

I'm grateful to God for the Gift of another year. Warm birthday greetings to all my birthday mates.

'Delighted to address the graduands of the Columbia University's School of Public Policy, SIPA, at their Commencement. Congratulations to the world's most global public policy school!

At hooding ceremony, doctoral graduates urged to solve the world’s “toughest challenges”

Development leader Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala MCP ’78, PhD ’81 encourages graduates to tackle pressing issues.

Peter Dizikes | MIT News Office

Former Nigerian Minister of Finance Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala MCP ’78, PhD ’81 urged MIT’s newly minted doctoral graduates to solve “the world’s toughest challenges,” in a keynote speech at the Institute’s 2016 Investiture of Doctoral Hoods on Thursday.

Okonjo-Iweala, a development economist and former high-ranking World Bank official, outlined a list of pressing global issues that will require a concerted public effort, now and in decades to come: sustaining economic growth, reducing economic inequality, limiting climate change, providing global access to water, tackling new health problems, and managing the global shift to a more urban-oriented society.

“They are real challenges,” Okonjo-Iweala said. However, she added, “Every challenge presents an opportunity.”

Okonjo-Iweala mixed serious observations about the state of the world with humorous asides, and reminisced about her own time as a graduate student at MIT, where she received a degree in regional economics and development from MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

The value of a doctorate from MIT, Okonjo-Iweala suggested, stems not only from the wealth of specific knowledge acquired about a particular field; additionally, “it confers a certain confidence in how to approach problems,” she remarked to the large audience gathered at the Johnson Athletic Center Ice Rink.

Discussing her own professional experiences, Okonjo-Iweala recalled thinking, “If I made it out of MIT with this degree, surely I have the ability to solve these problems.” She cited her own work helping tackle the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, and reducing domestic corruption as a government minister in Nigeria, as times when the intellectual tools and systematic analysis from her graduate study particularly helped her professionally.

MIT is awarding 646 doctoral degrees this spring, across all five schools of the Institute.

MIT Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart delivered a welcome address at the ceremony, congratulating MIT’s PhDs on their “journey to achieving the highest level of scholarship” and urging them luck in “solving humanity’s most pressing challenges.”

The event marked the second time MIT’s doctoral hooding ceremony has had a keynote speaker, a new annual tradition at the Institute. The speaker is chosen with input from MIT faculty and doctoral students.

Okonjo-Iweala received her MCP from MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and a PhD in regional economics and development. She served at the World Bank for 21 years, as a development economist, vice president, and corporate secretary, before becoming Nigeria’s finance minister in 2003. In 2007, Okonjo-Iweala returned to the World Bank as managing director. She served as Nigeria’s finance minister for a second time from 2011 to 2015, and is currently a senior advisor at Lazard, the global advisory and asset management firm.

The festive ceremony featured faculty wearing a colorful array of robes from the institutions (including MIT) where they themselves earned doctorates. After the remarks by Barnhart and Okonjo-Iweala, all doctoral graduates walked across stage to individually receive their doctoral hoods — a part of the doctoral robe ensemble — from Barnhart and their department or program heads.

MIT adopted the distinctive color scheme for its doctoral degree robe in 1995. The MIT design features a silver-gray robe with a cardinal red velvet front panel, and cardinal red velvet bars on the sleeves. Additional color markings denote whether graduates have received a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) or a Doctor of Science (ScD) degree.

“I just love the silver-gray,” Okonjo-Iweala observed during her speech, referring to the MIT robes. “We didn’t have that when I graduated.” Turning to Barnhart, she jokingly asked, “Can I have one too?”

SOURCE: http://news.mit.edu/2016/hooding-ceremony-doctoral-ngozi-okonjo-iweala-0602

[Photos] MIT PhD Hooding Ceremony

At the MIT Doctoral Hooding Ceremony 2016 Commencement. It's an honor and a privilege to give the keynote address to such a talented and forward looking community.

At the World Humanitarian Summit
- Instabul, Turkey

With Mohammed Beavogui, the Director General of the African Risk Capacity

Scenes at the WOMEN DELIVER Conference.
Women indeed deliver.

At African Development Bank Annual Meeting
#AfDBAM2016

In 1987, when I was five months pregnant with my youngest child Uchechi, doctors told me they were concerned that his head was not growing fast enough. It was one of the most frightening moments of my life. I couldn’t bear it, the sense of powerlessness in being able to do nothing but wait. It took two long months of fortnightly sonograms before we were finally given the all clear. Although Uchechi was fine in the end, the terrifying experience will remain with us forever.

Today, nearly three decades later, my heart goes out to the hundreds of thousands of pregnant women in Zika-infested countries who are going through the same agonising experience of not knowing the fate of their unborn child, or even worse those with confirmed cases of microcephaly. As world leaders, policymakers and young people come together in Copenhagen this week to discuss health, rights and well-being of women and girls as part of this year’s Women Deliver global conference, this epidemic is a reminder that a gender gap exists in health as well as education, economics and politics.

This gap is not simply due to the different medical needs of men and women. It exists because in poor countries in particular, where the gender gap is often already vast, whenever women’s rights are marginalised or ignored, then usually so too are their health needs. This can have profound consequences and is one reason why pregnant women and their unborn children are often some of the most vulnerable members of society. If we are to close this gap and work towards parity, we need to make protecting women’s health a priority and accept that this will sometimes mean having to go further and do more to redress the balance.

Pregnancy is a good example. For many women the very act of bringing life into this world means putting their own life at risk. In poor countries where women’s rights are often denied, we see even the most basic maternal support denied too. As a result, despite huge progress in reducing maternal mortality, 99 per cent of the 289,000 women that still die during child birth every year live in developing countries.

The really sad thing is that so many of these deaths could easily be prevented. The solutions are well understood. Simple interventions such as having regular antenatal care during pregnancy and a skilled attendant during birth can make all the difference. With the right political will and investment these basic interventions can and should be made available to all women wherever they live. And it’s not just pregnant women who stand to benefit; improving women’s access to quality antenatal services could also help reduce the 2.7m neonatal deaths that occur every year and the 2.6m stillborns.

Another example of where women in developing countries suffer disproportionately is with cervical cancer. The number of deaths caused by this horrific cancer has been steadily increasing to the point that 266,000 women die every year, putting it almost on a par with maternal deaths. Unless something is done to stop it, this figure is expected to rise to 416,000 deaths by 2035. Again, it is the poorest women who are most at risk, with 85 per cent of deaths occurring in developing countries because, unlike in wealthy countries, both screening and treatment are normally beyond their reach.

The good news is that we are tackling this, but it has meant having to go further. Since 2013, organisations like Unicef, the World Health Organisation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, of which I am the Board Chair, have worked hard to make human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines available in developing countries, providing girls with protection against the biggest causes of cervical cancer. To make this possible first involved negotiating huge price reductions of the vaccine and working with governments to find innovative ways to reach girls at the optimum age, which falls outside normal infant vaccine schedules. Nevertheless, such efforts have led to a sea change, with 1m girls already vaccinated with Gavi support, and a target of 30m to be reached in 40 countries by 2020.

With Zika, a vaccine is likely to be the best solution too, preventing infectious disease in the many to protect the few. We have already seen this with vaccinations against rubella (or German measles), another disease that can have terrible consequences when passed from mothers to unborn infants. But, even though manufacturers are now racing to develop Zika vaccines, development, testing and licensing will take some time.
So for pregnant women in affected countries all we can do for now is put in place mosquito prevention measures and do everything in our power to protect them and their unborn infants, while providing support for those families with confirmed cases of microcephaly. In the meantime, we need to turn our attention to wherever preventable health issues are still affecting women. Because wherever this is happening, it is a strong indication that women’s rights are being ignored.

Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is Board Chair at Gavi.

Abuja. May 23, 2016

NEWS RELEASE

“Missing” N30 Trillion: Okonjo-Iweala Rebuts SERAP, Takes Legal Action

Our attention has been drawn to media reports regarding a court judgment alleged to have been entered against the Federal Government of Nigeria and Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in respect of an action by the Socio-Economic Rights Agenda (SERAP) pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.

The High Court, according to the media reports, ordered the Federal government and Dr. Okonjo Iweala to provide information relating to N30 trillion Naira allegedly unaccounted for.

Please note the following:

- Dr Okonjo-Iweala hastens to state that she was never served with any court processes in relation to the said matter. She has not read the judgment and would therefore defer any comments on the matter.

- However from the media reports, the case was instituted in February 2015 but was not served until July 2015 after Dr Okonjo-Iweala had already ceased to be the Minister of Finance.

- By the date the said papers were purportedly served Dr Okonjo-Iweala was no longer a public officer and could therefore not be the subject of a request for production of any documents or information under the Freedom of information Act.

- The Court processes must have been served on others because the attention of Dr Okonjo-Iweala was never drawn to the matter in which she appears to have been sued personally. She therefore did not engage any lawyer to act for her in the matter.

- The decision of SERAP to anchor its case on a baseless and unsubstantiated allegation by former CBN governor, Professor Charles Soludo that N30 trillion – about seven times the total annual budget during the Jonathan administration – is missing confirms SERAP’s dubious motives and its role as a tool for politically motivated actors.

- It is curious that the first time Dr Okonjo-Iweala is being made aware of a matter filed against her in court is in news reports reporting the delivery of judgment. She has instructed her lawyers to take steps to set aside the judgment as it affects her.


Paul C Nwabuikwu
Media Adviser to Dr Okonjo-Iweala

By Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Ertharin Cousin

The world is at a critical juncture.

We are experiencing the highest level of humanitarian need since the Second World War brought on by conflict, climate change, rapid urbanisation and, in part, the legacy of a rigid development model.

In this interconnected world, our problems are shared and so must our solutions be. In that spirit Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, is convening the first World Humanitarian Summit on 23 and 24 May in Istanbul.

During this seminal meeting, 5000 leaders from government, business and humanitarian organisations will gather to map a way forward.

In our respective roles at the African Risk Capacity (ARC) and the World Food Programme (WFP), the Secretary General’s main call to action – to work differently towards ending need – is at the heart of what we do.

We are working to support the African continent as the region finds ways to manage the effects of extreme climate events and competing demands for limited humanitarian dollars.

ARC was established as a specialised agency of the African Union (AU) to help African states develop risk management systems to cope better with natural disasters including drought, floods and tropical cyclones. The concept was to establish the first sovereign insurance pool on the continent.

This new approach has challenged the status quo of how natural disaster response should be managed.

Countries that previously had been forced to seek outside help in the face of a disaster now receive dedicated resources in the event of a payout. They put the funds into action through pre-certified plans.

There are many advantages. Assistance can be delivered more quickly through ARC than waiting for the international donor system to react. At the same time, the reliance of African governments’ on external emergency aid is reduced, and their self-sufficiency increased.

ARC is a prime example of how donors, African governments, humanitarian organisations and the private sector can cooperate to move the continent away from the traditional system of handouts.

First envisaged and then nurtured by the World Food Programme, the ARC was quickly embraced by the AU, which saw a chance for the continent to help itself manage climate risk in a cost effective manner.

The Rockefeller Foundation provided initial funding to research and assess the concept, before other donors, including Sweden, Switzerland, the US, Saudi Arabia, IFAD and Rockefeller provided ongoing financial support for ARC's operations. The United Kingdom and Germany have committed more than $200m in returnable risk capital to ARC Ltd – the scheme’s mutual insurance company – to ensure its commercial viability.

The first couple of years have been very encouraging.

To date, 32 African countries have become members of ARC, and seven have joined the insurance pool. Those seven have paid premiums of $42m, demonstrating the commitment by sovereign treasuries towards managing their climate risk.

ARC is demonstrating that reacting rapidly to extreme weather situations saves lives and protects livelihoods.

In 2014, payouts totaling $26.3m were made within weeks to Mauritania, Niger and Senegal following poor rainfall in the Sahel. Those funds were used to support the livelihoods of more than 1.3 million people through delivery of livestock fodder, food and cash to affected populations based on pre-approved contingency plans.

But the coverage supplied by ARC has so far only provided 10 percent to 30 percent of total disaster funding requirements. Now, ARC is working with humanitarian partners to launch Replica Coverage.

This will see international organisations and NGOs replicate ARC member states’ insurance policies, thereby effectively doubling coverage available for vulnerable populations.

WFP and the Start Network – a global coalition of NGOs – have agreed to act as replica partners for ARC members. At a stroke this could double the $180m of drought coverage that countries were able to purchase last year on their own.

Replica partners will receive matching payouts when the policy triggers. This is a win-win. In time the fund is intended to become self-sustaining.

We are bringing the Replica programme to the world’s attention in Istanbul, though we anticipate that full replication of ARC’s growing portfolio will take several years.

Transforming how aid is delivered will not happen overnight, but we must not shy away from taking bold steps. At the same time we can increase the power of humanitarian dollars allocated for natural disasters in Africa.

By 2020, ARC aims to reach 30 countries with $1.5bn in coverage. Including the Replica scheme, ARC will indirectly insure more than 150 million Africans. This represents half the G7’s global target under the InsuResilience initiative, which aims to generate coverage for 400 million vulnerable people.

ARC and the Replica initiative reflect the vision of the World Humanitarian Summit that the world needs to be bettered prepared for natural disaster and more resilient to climate shocks that impoverish vulnerable populations and distress their nations’ economies.

It is a model whose time has come. Through the ARC, African governments have chosen to help themselves. Through Replica, donors and humanitarian organisations can join these nations to see what a collaborative, innovative approach to humanitarian financing could mean for the world’s most vulnerable.

- Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is chair of the ARC Agency Governing Board

- Ertharin Cousin is executive director of the World Food Programme

Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on The Power of Development Finance to Change Economies and Save Lives at the recently concluded World Economic Forum held in Kigali, Rwanda

https://www.facebook.com/worldeconomicforum/videos/10153470009246479/

In Copenhagen at Women Deliver with Graca Machel and Baroness Valerie Amos.

At the Women Deliver conference in Copenhagen with Helen Clark UNDP Administrator and Julia Gillard former Prime Minister of Australia. For the World to deliver for humanity it needs to deliver for girls and women!

COPENHAGEN – During the last century, the battle to secure equality for women and girls has been fought in the classroom, in the voting booth, and in the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies. But if gender inequality is ever to be abolished, we can no longer afford to neglect one of its major causes and consequences: malnutrition.

Right now, a staggering 1.6 billion people worldwide suffer from anemia, a condition strongly connected to iron deficiency – and one of the symptoms of a global nutrition crisis that disproportionally affects women. Indeed, anemia afflicts twice as many women as men – nearly one in three women and girls worldwide – and contributes to one-fifth of all maternal deaths.

In 2012, the World Health Assembly endorsed a target to reduce the rate of anemia by 50% by 2025. But, at the current rate of progress, this target will not be reached until 2124. Despite hard-won gains for women, we remain a century behind schedule on an issue that is key to their health and development – and to that of their children.

But there is hope. If we invest in better nutrition now, we can ensure a brighter future for girls and women everywhere – for the next hundred years and beyond.

We can no longer treat gender discrimination and malnutrition as separate issues. The two are inextricably linked; they reinforce each another in a pattern that touches women at every stage of their lives. Malnutrition – in all of its forms – is both a cause and an effect of the profound power imbalance between men and women.

Gender inequality begins in the womb. Every year, 16 million adolescent girls give birth, most in low- and middle-income countries. If a mother lives in an area where stunting rates are high and she is in her mid-teens, her child is more likely to be stunted – and thus more susceptible to disease and largely irreversible cognitive underdevelopment, adversely affecting their ability to benefit from education and reach their full potential.

These children will usually go on to earn less, which increases their likelihood of living in poverty, being malnourished, and, as a result, facing a higher risk of developing chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension later in life. And, given the societal and economic biases against women in most countries, these early life circumstances place girls at an even more severe disadvantage. The cycle then repeats itself; these disempowered and malnourished women give birth to stunted babies, perpetuating the cycle of inequality.

To improve nutrition outcomes for girls and women, we need to scale up proven nutrition interventions and ensure that other development programs take nutrition into account. It is critical, for example, that we promote early and immediate breastfeeding – an incredibly powerful tool against both stunting and obesity.

Development policies and programs must also take gender imbalances into consideration. Social protection programs that improve women’s control of income transfers, for example, are linked to better nutrition outcomes for them and their families.

In many countries, women eat last in the family, reducing their chances of getting the right nutrition. Maternity and breastfeeding provisions are also weak, making it difficult for women to nurse their children. Behavior-change programs, communication, and role modeling can all be helpful in weakening the grip of harmful social norms concerning nutrition and gender.

Accomplishing this will require a blueprint for political action. On June 14, the 2016 Global Nutrition Report will launch globally. The report aims to assess progress, improve accountability for meeting global commitments, and recommend actions for government and key stakeholders to end all forms of malnutrition by 2030.

The conversation must begin today. This week, the Women Deliver 2016 Conference – the largest meeting of girls’ and women’s advocates in a decade – is taking place in Copenhagen. More than 5,000 global leaders, policymakers, and advocates from 150 countries are convening to discuss, among other issues, how to break the cycle of poverty and gender inequality that undermines women’s health. The call for action to sever the link between nutrition and gender inequality must be loud enough to echo around the world.

We must eliminate all factors that perpetuate gender inequality. And that starts with better nutrition for all. The next century of progress depends on it.

It has come to our attention that an audio recording of a woman pretending to be Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been circulating on various online platforms.

In the contrived audio, the impostor makes several claims and expresses certain views which have absolutely nothing to do with Dr Okonjo-Iweala. Anyone familiar with the former Finance Minister can confirm that the voice, the diction and the views are not hers.

The Nigerian public and media should take note and avoid being deceived by this inept and ridiculous gimmick. Thank you.

Paul C Nwabuikwu
Media Adviser to Dr Okonjo-Iweala

Photos of the Session on Growth Beyond Commodities (Part 2)
- World Economic Forum

World Economic Forum: At the Session on Growth Beyond Commodity (Part 1)

With Donald Kaberuka, former president African development Bank at the World Economic Forum

World Economic Forum on Africa
Great to meet Laura Lane of @UPS & @KellerRinaudo at #af16 with @GAVImarieange http://ow.ly/RQR130089bq #partnerships

'At the World Economic Forum, Kigali. GAVI partners the Rwandan Government, UPS, and Zipline in using drones to deliver medicines.

'Really excited to read about the 42 young Africans who are changing the game through innovation on @VenturesAfrica especially at a World Economic Forum in Africa dedicated to innovation on the continent.

http://venturesafrica.com/innovators/

Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala - Senior Advisor, Lazard; Chair Elect of GAVI; B Team Leader Nigeria, Africa

STATEMENT

Citizens deserve procurement that delivers the services and infrastructure they need

Globally, governments purchase goods and services from the private sector at a rate of around US$9.5 trillion a year. These goods and services are central to governments being able to deliver on their core obligations to citizens: to build schools, health clinics, roads and bridges; to deliver critical social services such as access to clean water; to have the technology to open up government to citizens; to provide access to energy for citizens and business. It is also one of the most significant areas of corruption-risk. Enforcement data from the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention shows that 57% of bribes were paid in order to secure public contracts. This process can rob citizens of their national resources, but also has led to more disastrous consequences: collapsing schools, fake medicine and medical equipment that killed patients.

Preventing corruption in public procurement is central to achieving the sustainable development goals, and there is a promising way to do so: open contracting.

Governments at the London Summit should commit to making public procurement open by default. This would mean encouraging full public disclosure of information across the entire process of government deal-making; from planning, to tender, to award, to the contract itself, through implementation to project closure. Governments should share this information as open data, by using the Open Contracting Data Standard, and open up the process to ensure business and civic engagement at appropriate points along the public procurement cycle. This will encourage fairness and help the public monitor the use of their funds.

Countries, provinces and cities have started to try open contracting and the results speak for themselves: better services, at lower costs, delivered more efficiently, with more competitive markets, and greater access for smaller and medium enterprises.

Governments can show not only their strong position against corruption, but also their real commitment to achieving the sustainable development goals by committing to making public procurement open by default at the London Summit.

SOURCE: http://anticorruption-manifesto.org/statement.php?i=31&name=dr-ngozi-okonjo-iweala

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former managing director of the World Bank, has served twice as Nigeria’s Finance Minister. She is now a senior adviser at Lazard Ltd. The following is adapted from her statement to Ministers of Finance on April 14, 2016:

I am delighted to see so many ministers and officials around the table. How over the last two years did this come about, you many wonder.

The idea first came to me in 2013, when I became Nigeria’s Minister of Finance for a second time. I had grown tired, quite candidly, of the phrase “gender mainstreaming.” It wasn’t getting us anywhere fast enough. Yet here I was, Minister of Finance, with so many tools at my disposal—what excuse could I give for not moving forward on this? So I sat down with my team and asked, “What can we do? What incentives can we offer through the budget—that’s the big tool we have—that would really empower women and move us toward gender equality?” It took us some time, but we realized we had this powerful instrument and we needed to use it.

Budget incentive

The President was supportive. We came up with the idea to work with the World Bank Group and the UK aid agency, DFID. And we designed a system whereby, through the budget, if a Ministry delivered certain additional results for girls and women—over and above its targets—it would receive additional budget as an incentive.

We offered this to the Cabinet on a voluntary basis and five ministries initially signed up: Agriculture, Health, Water, Communication Technology, and Public Works. The Ministry of Women's Affairs agreed to monitor and evaluate progress, and our colleagues, partners, and the donor community agreed to support our initiative.

We kicked off with a small amount, US$21 million dollars, to see if this would work. When the President announced it in Parliament, he was booed by male parliamentarians and cheered by female MPs, but it passed. It stayed in the budget and achieved excellent results:

Our Ministry of Agriculture was eager to boost productivity from a very low level, subsistence, to a high level. And if 70 percent of your workforce is in agriculture, and most of them are women, then women surely need access to the right inputs. Very quickly, the Minister of Agriculture, who is now President of the African Development Bank, designed a system of electronic wallets—getting the middleman out of the graft-prone distribution of inputs such as fertilizer and pesticides. We said, “If you get an additional number of women to use these wallets, your ministry will get additional budget.” The results were spectacular: 2.5 million women began using electronic wallets, far more than anticipated.

Our Health Ministry was concerned about vesico-vaginal fistula, a debilitating and degrading condition we weren’t able to address quickly or widely enough. Our initiative prompted an additional 3,000 surgeries to repair it. Our Ministry of Water Resources developed a system for women to manage health and sanitation centers in their communities, which just won a prize in the 2016 World Water Exhibition. Our Ministry of Public Works began to train women as subcontractors in procurement. This was critical and absolutely unprecedented.

Those are just a few examples of how we were able to leverage the budget to advance gender equality. If you incentivize fellow ministers, they will deliver. This will empower more women and get more resources into their hands.

Support for entrepreneurs

Secondly, we developed a program for women entrepreneurs. A World Bank team supported us, and again we achieved spectacular results. We used a portion of the budget to incentivize young entrepreneurs, 40 and younger, who would register their businesses, get peer learning and mentoring, and a grant if they won a business planning competition.

In the first round, only 17 percent of the applicants were women. But more than 50 percent of small and medium-sized firms in Nigeria are run by women. So we held a second round just for women, setting aside about US$8 million dollars. About 64,000 thousand people applied. We ultimately selected 1,200 women to receive grants of US$10,000 to US$90,000—and they created about 10,000 new jobs.

These programs are helping women and men at the grassroots. They’re targeting our poorest and most vulnerable people. Our results in Nigeria should remind everyone what a vital role Finance Ministers can play to level the playing field and create truly equal opportunity for all.

SOURCE: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/speech/2016/05/05/why-should-finance-ministers-care-about-gender-equality

Last week, the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) urged President Muhammadu Buhari to approve the sharing of the $2.259bn in the Excess Crude Account (ECA) among the three tiers of government in order to improve the liquidity position of the states. The governors, during a meeting with the president at the Presidential Villa, hinged their call on the current economic crisis facing the states, which had culminated in the inability of majority of them to pay workers’ salaries.

Chairman of the Forum, Governor Abdulaziz Yari, said: “We are looking at loan restructuring, bailout and the ECA. We are asking for an 18-month moratorium before we can start paying, so that we will able to strategise.”

Yari cleverly avoided saying that his call was hinged on the slight rise in the price of oil from the benchmarked $38 to $44 which enabled payment into the ECA by the current Federal Government only once since it got into power.

The governors’ call came against the backdrop of the allegation made by President Muhammadu Buhari and several senior officials of his administration in countless local and international fora that the failure of the immediate past administration to save for the rainy day was responsible for the country’s current economic woes, and the counter claim by the immediate past Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, that it was the state governors who lacked the discipline and political will to save. To all intents and purposes, however, the current call derives from a callous indifference to the raison d’etre of the ECA, and a desire to continue with the unchecked profligacy that has made a mess of the country’s liquidity profile.

The ECA, a national account meant to save oil revenues above a base amount derived from a defined benchmark price, is a visionary economic instrument established by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration in 2004 with the primary objective of protecting approved budgets against shortfalls due to volatile crude oil prices, thereby insulating the Nigerian economy from perennial external shocks.

Crude oil price being well above $100 per barrel at the time, the then President Obasanjo laudably spared a thought for the future, although the constitutionality of the ECA was called into question. In 2011, the Goodluck Jonathan administration enacted the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority Act as a complement to the ECA. Under it, the Sovereign Wealth Fund was founded, with an initial $1 billion in seed capital, for the purpose of investing part of the savings gained on the difference between the budgeted and actual market prices of oil, with its returns meant to benefit present and future generations of Nigerians.

For far too long, the ECA has been subject to the whims and caprices of the governors. In 2008, the NGF instituted a suit against the Umaru Yar’Adua administration calling for the sharing of the $15billion then in the ECA. By 2009, the administration opted for an out of court settlement, consequently sharing a whopping $8.5billion, leaving only $6.5billion as outstanding from the initial $15 billion accumulated in the account. The same pressure, coupled with litigation, was mounted on the Jonathan administration and in January 2010, Jonathan acceded to the governors’ request and shared $2 billion from the ECA. In August 2010, another $3 billion was withdrawn from the Excess Crude Account, leaving behind a meagre $460 million. The tug of war between the then Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and the governors, then led by Mr Rotimi Amaechi, currently the Minister of Transport, considerably heated up the polity.

Indeed, in 2013, the position of the (NGF) was clearly articulated by the National Leader of the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Tinubu noted that “the accumulation of money by the Federal Government is a misplaced objective for these times. Our driving purpose must be to channel idle human and material capacity into productive streams that furnish jobs and manufacture tangible goods bettering the living conditions of every citizen. To say we are saving money for a rainy day while everyone is already drenched and wading through flood waters makes little sense to me.”

In our view, such a reductionist view of national savings anchored on momentary felt needs is mortally fractured by the nature of human existence. Saving for the rainy day is, we believe, the product of a disciplined consciousness. Has there ever been any point in history when there were no pressing needs?

We believe that it is time the National Assembly enacted a bill institutionalising compulsory savings as part of the national culture. Since the governors have proven time and again that they are not interested in saving for the rainy day, it is time to compel them to do so.

It is a proven fact of history that successful nations do not joke with savings, and that they do not do so because of a surfeit of funds or the absence of critical needs. Rather, they do so in the full realisation of the indispensability of savings to wealth generation, national stability and national security. Besides, the current economic situation is in a large measure the product of the scandalous spending profile and unceasing profligacy of Nigerian governments at all times and at all levels. In any case, the current sorry state of infrastructure in the country coupled with the astounding debt profile of both the federal and state governments put a lie to the claim by the governors who ceaselessly harassed the Yar’Adua and Jonathan governments because they claimed to be in need of funds to prosecute core developmental programmes whose results fall far short of the resources claimed to have been poured on them. And this visible failure applies to successive federal governments too.

Those who cannot manage scarcity and difficult situations have no business being in the Government House in the first place. Given the foregoing, we categorically reject the NGF’s call for the sharing of ECA funds. We consequently call on the National Assembly to come up with an Act that would institutionalise national savings.

It is our suggestion that the proposed law should allow withdrawal in a fiscal year from the ECA to the maximum of twenty five percent (25%) of what has been accumulated in a preceding year to augment budgetary shortfall in that year. Where on the balance crude oil sold above the budgetary benchmark for the year, no withdrawal will take place. Another 25 per cent of the ECA account balance of the preceding year will statutorily be sent to the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) to boost its capital base. Returns on investment of the SWF should be made available as part of the distributable funds in the Federation Account.

The balance of 50 per cent must be kept for a time of extreme national emergency such as war. And that statutory balance in the ECA, in the face of an extreme national emergency, can only be drawn down by a resolution supported by two-thirds of all members in each of the two chambers of the National Assembly. This is what the unfortunate economic situation of the country and the reality of the unrepentant profligacy of Nigeria’s political elite demand.

CREDIT: http://tribuneonlineng.com/institutionalising-savings

Delivering results overrides personal ego

#Africans and charities

Happy Workers' Day Friends. May your endeavours be rewarded with good success.

Addis Ababa, where Barack Obama will travel Monday, July 27, recently hosted the UN Conference on Financing for Development. The former Finance Minister of Nigeria, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala her vision on the development of Africa and its solutions for more inclusive growth.

Q: The Third United Nations Conference on Financing for Development in mid-July in Addis Ababa, ended without strong ad. What conclusions do you draw?

If you compare this conference on Financing for Development to previous, it was a success on a way point. It took place before the adoption of sustainable development goals (SDGs) in September in New York.

Last time, it was done in the opposite direction: we have adopted targets for the Millennium and we wondered how we would fund, making the process much more difficult! Moreover, it has made good progress on the issue of costs. How much will cost such as infrastructure development? The study published in late June by experts from New Climate Economy shows that 80% of the resources required for ODD will be on infrastructure and it will be 5 billion to 6 billion dollars per year. The study also concluded that 50 to 80% of these funds will have to come from domestic sources, public and private.

It is imperative to reform tax systems to increase domestic revenue, even if the international financial system and the private sector should also participate in this fundraiser.

Q: This mobilization of international finance for development can it succeed without this double contribution, public and private?

No! One source will absolutely not be sufficient to fund the ODD. It must be a combination of public, private contributions and interventions of international finance.

If there are so many actors of multilateralism - World Bank, EBRD, African Development Bank, etc. - Is because the international community recognizes that multilateral banks have an important role to play. They have a dual mission. The first is to increase their own funding: they have announced that in the next three years, they would inject $ 400 billion. The second is to use the money to attract thousands of billions of dollars from the private sector.

Q: Major economies emerging in Africa, Asia, Latin America. North-South inequalities remain one of the main challenges of financing for development?

Inequality is still a major problem in today's world. Inequalities within countries, between rich, poor and middle class. And inequalities between countries, between those who are getting richer and those who are lagging behind in development.

The goal of SDO is really to find an answer to this critical question. If we fail to eradicate poverty, we are not going to end situations of instability. Nigeria has increased quite rapidly this decade, but inequalities are growing too. We must build a better growth. This is what economists claim as Thomas Piketty or Joseph Stiglitz. How to move towards a better, more inclusive world, do not let anyone on the roadside.

Q: How to move precisely to this company more "inclusive"?

By encouraging the growth of sectors that create jobs. In Africa, people do not want donations or even state aid. For them, the most important thing is to find a real job.

To improve the quality of growth, we must turn to the most promising sectors. To the agricultural sector for example. But not subsistence farming, modern agriculture, high value added. This is also true for the industrial sector. It is impossible to consider economic development without wave of industrialization. We cannot all export, it must also develop the domestic market to create sustainable jobs.

Q: UN negotiations are based on the principle of "common but differentiated responsibility", which requires an extra effort from developed countries. Is this a good prism to address these problems?

Each of us has a responsibility. The states of the South, who have the responsibility to find new domestic resources to finance ODD. Northern donors have a responsibility. Many of them have promised to allocate 0.7% of their gross national income to official development assistance (ODA) and have not honored this promise, except the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian countries. France, in particular, must make an effort to increase its ODA level, which is currently only 0.36%.

Q: What arguments could convince developed countries to increase official aid?

These are not the African countries that have asked to make such a commitment, it is not for us to convince them to do more in terms of ADP, it is for them to respect their promise! They must be up for several reasons.

The first is related to climate change, which requires a global responsibility. If you do not take the necessary steps, you will be hit by the effects of global warming. Some countries are faced with large pollution problems. But the pollution of air or water are not contained in one place, they cross borders. The question also applies to health.

SOURCE: http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2015/07/24/il-faut-eradiquer-la-pauvrete-pour-mettre-fin-aux-situations-d-instabilite_4697451_3212.html

#Nigerians are interesting people

#Africa on the Rise