….Tasks Stakeholders On Synergizing Efforts For Results
The Statistician-General of the Federation and Chief Executive Officer of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Prince Adeyemi Adeniran, has described the key findings and recommendations in the 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index Survey as crucial to ongoing efforts to frontally tackle the worsening poverty level in the country, improving the socioeconomic well-being of the citizenry and the nation’s Gross Domestic Product rate on a sustainable basis.
The Statistician-General, who made this remark on Thursday at a forum with the theme ‘Stakeholders Technical Dialogue: Operationalization of the Multidimensional Poverty Index as a Policy Tool In Nigeria’, said the results of the survey represented the factual representation of the poverty level in Nigeria and what needed to be done to address it through policy measures.
Adeniran maintained that to achieve the desired goals of the current drives by national and sub-national governments of reducing the poverty level to the barest minimum all stakeholders must collectively work together in developing the required policies and ensuring that the implementation is a joint effort to create a win-win to change the current negative narratives about Nigeria being considered as the headquarters of the global poverty rating.
Recalling the primary reason for the NBS to conduct the 2022 MPI, the foremost statistician explained that the primary objective of the survey was to establish a robust poverty database to inform evidence-based policies and programs for short, medium, and long-term interventions, adding that the exercise is also aimed at providing a veritable tool to support budgeting and resource allocation across the different tiers of government in the federation.
According to him, through the survey, the Bureau provided empirical evidence that identified key factors contributing to the incidence of multidimensional poverty across the country, from the national level, disaggregated down to the Senatorial district level.
Adeniran listed the factors as ranging from lack of access to basic education, inadequate healthcare, poor living conditions, and limited access to clean water, sanitation, labour, among others.
With the results of the survey, he noted that policymakers now had access to valuable information that can inform them of the specific pattern of poverty and the specific factors that need to be tackled in their domain to reduce the incidence, stressing that this is the added advantage that the MPI brings to the table in the fight against poverty.
On translating the results of the survey to national benefits, the NBS’ CEO said: “For us at NBS, and by extension the National Statistical System (NSS), operationalizing the MPI is certainly a welcome development and one that is well overdue. This means going beyond making the necessary data and evidence available, to designing targeted programs and policies to address the issues identified within the data. Only when these two things align (the data and the interventions) that we will begin to see meaningful and sustainable changes in the lives of the citizens confronted with poverty.
“Therefore, we need to build on the success of the 2022 MPI survey by ensuring that the data is used for the benefit of the citizens.
“Additionally, and equally important too, is the need to continue to invest in continuous training and technical capacity building of personnel to be able to produce these results across the board. It also requires devoting the necessary and adequate resources to produce the data in a timely and sustainable manner, so that the government will have the appropriate tools to effectively monitor and track the impact of the interventions, and where necessary design new interventions to address any lapses. While this means more resources from the government side, it also necessitates, more donor support and assistance, both financially and technically”, he added.
Adeniran, who also thanked the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Sen. Abubakar Bagudu, development partners, the civil society organizations (CSOs), the organized private sector (OPS) and other stakeholders that supported the Bureau in the publication of the 2022 MPI Survey, solicited their continuous collaboration in the current drive by the statistics agency to use the survey findings as one of the critical tools for policy formulation and implementation on poverty alleviation in the country.
