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Minister inaugurates committee for economic summit

By BusinessNews Staff on February 23, 2014

The Supervising Minister, National Planning Commission, Ambassador Bashir Yuguda, has inaugurated a joint planning committee for the 20th Nigerian Economic Summit, which is scheduled to hold next month.

The summit, held annually to stimulate policy direction for the government and private sector, is organised by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group and the National Planning Commission.

Yuguda, while inaugurating the 20th NES in Lagos, said this year’s summit was particularly special because it marked the 21st year of hosting the summit.

According to him, the summit has grown to become the largest annual economic forum for policymakers and captains of industries from the public and private sector, as well as representatives of the academic, civil society organisations and development partners.

He said the summit would provide an opportunity for participants to discuss key issues and challenges facing the nation’s economy, with a view to evolving a common strategy and policy framework to address them.

Yuguda said, “The PPP arrangement has been adopted for the summit process over the years. This has yielded results. In particular, the introduction of Transformation Agenda and the Vision 20:2020 are living testimonies of this collaboration.”

The minister commended the NESG for the 19th summit held last year, noting that it was successful as some of its recommendations were currently being implemented.

This, he said, was consistent with the decision reached at a recent Federal Executive Council.

He, however, declared that this year’s summit would focus on education, which he described as a vital sector in transforming the national economy to compete well at the global level.

The minister said, “Let me reiterate that the present administration is committed to improving the education sector with a view to ensuring that Nigerian pupils and students can compete in the global market place.

“The key objective of the summit is to strive towards having permanent structural changes that would allow the development of 21st century skills in Nigerian children. We require new ways of building capacities and capabilities in the education and learning space to ensure Nigeria has a labour force that is highly skilled, innovative and globally competitive.”

The Director-General, NESG, Mr. Frank Nweke, said the decision to hold the summit on education was taken to redress the decline in a sector critical to the economic development.

He said, “The Nigerian education sector is in dire straits and requires the intervention of both public and private stakeholders if it is to fulfil its functions of preparing Nigerian to compete in the global market place.

“At present, our adult literacy rate of 61 per cent as well as the low level of tertiary enrolment, which was 10 per cent in 2010, portends a threat to the ability of Nigeria to become the 20th largest economy in the world by 2020. To compare, Kenya has an adult literacy rate of 87 per cent, Egypt of 72 per cent and Ghana has a rate of 67 per cent.”

The Chairman, NESG, Dr. Foluso Phillips, said the summit would take a cue from the success recorded in the last summit in the agricultural sector to create awareness around the education sector.

He said, “We want to create awareness around the sector and allow people and key stakeholders to focus on it. We believe this is possible. A lot of investment has been made in the agriculture sector as a result of the last summit.”

[Punch]

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