FG backs Implementation
FG backs Implementation of OGP to Reduce
Poverty
The Minister of State Budget and National Planning,
Prince Clem Agba, has pledged his support to encourage members,
government institutions, and non- state actors to implement their
Open Government Partnership (OGP) commitments, while stressing that
it has the potential to create jobs and reduce poverty.
Prince Agba made this pledge recently in Abuja during
a courtesy visit of the OGP Global Delegation to Nigeria
Agba stated that the Government of Nigeria is aware of
the need for high level political support for the successful
operationalization of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) in
Nigeria which informed the choice of him acting as the State
Actor’s Co – Chair of Nigeria’s Multi Stakeholders Forum on Open
Government Partnership (OGP).
He added that he will ensure that issues related
to the operations of the OGP activities in Nigeria will be
prioritized by the Executive and also uphold OGP values and
principles.
The Minister assured the ministry’s commitment to
working with OGP to achieve strategic objective, contribute fund,
legal and ethical oversight when necessary.
According to the Minister, ‘’ our determination
is to provide for our nation an enviable economic growth path, like
the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), a medium term plan
with which Nigeria existed recession in the second quarter of 2017,
which is constructed on solid policies, strategies and reform
programmes that accommodates the participation of non- state actors
and development partners both in design and implementation. We are
moving towards the actualization of the national vision of being
among the top economies in the world, which is evidenced in
Nigeria’s OGP second National Plan (NAP2) that is expected to be
signed by Mr. President this month. The National Monitoring and
Evaluation department which is domiciled in our ministry is being
reinforced to carry out its mandate of monitoring and evaluating
both existing and new government policies, projects and
programmes’’.
Mr. Sanjay Pradhan, OGP Global Chief Executive Officer
(CEO) who spoke on behalf of the Delegation at the meeting, said
that the choice of their visit to Nigeria is informed because they
considered Nigeria as priority nation amongst the 79 other OGP
countries, and also stated that OGP can be a game changer for
Nigeria both domestically and internationally.
He listed the objectives of OGP to include; empowering
citizens, promoting transparency, fight corruption and harness new
technologies to strengthen governance.