The National Economic Council, initiated to offer economic advise to the President, has endorsed the Nigeria Agenda 2050, on Thursday, in Abuja.
The 2050 agenda is target at
increasing real Gross Domestic Product growth by seven percent.
It also aims at creating 165 million employment and reducing the number of people living in poverty from the 83 million estimated in 2020 to to 2.1 million in 2050.
The Council has the mandate to “advise the President concerning the economic affairs of the Federation, and in particular on measures necessary for the coordination of the economic planning efforts or economic programmes of the various Governments of the Federation.”
The Punch reported that the endorsement comes 29 months after the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), established the National Steering Committee in order to prepare the Nigeria Agenda 2050 and the Medium-Term National Development Plan for 2021 to 2025.
This is an ambitious goal to move Nigeria to an Upper Middle-Income Country and later to a
High-Income country.
According to The Punch, the Council endorsed
the agenda after its first 2023 meeting headed by the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN.
The Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, disclosed this information in a statement signed in the late hours of Tuesday.
The statement is titled “National Economic Council endorses Nigeria Agenda 2050.”
After the presentation made and a dialogue by Council members, Osinbajo said the plan “captures a lot of the expectations for Nigeria in the future and hopefully implementation which is key if effectively done.”
The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, said the Federal Government had taken unprecedented steps in ensuring the operationalisation of the plan, especially with the inauguration of the Steering Committee of the National Development Plan by the VP.
Earlier on Tuesday, Osinbajo had unveiled the Steering Committee of the National Development Plan 2021 – 2025.
According to him, the Steering Committee will “provide the necessary policy guidance and leadership for effective and successful implementation of the plan.”
The launching comes 14 months after the President unveiled the National Development Plan on December 22, 2021.
About two years earlier, on September 9, 2020, Buhari unveiled the National Steering Committee for the preparation of the Medium-Term National Development Plan 2021 – 2025 and Nigeria Agenda 2050.
The Nigeria Agenda 2050 is formulated against the backdrop of several subsisting development challenges in the country.
The minister of state for budget and national planning, Clem Agba, said that the Federal Government has taken ground-breaking measures to ensure the operationalization of the plan, particularly with the inauguration of the National Development Plan Steering Committee by the Vice President.
The Nigeria Agenda 2050 was created in response to the nation’s ongoing development concerns such as poor economic growth, poverty, inflation, dependence on import and so on.
With quick and sustained economic growth, job creation, and poverty reduction, the plan seeks to achieve Nigeria’s long-term goal of increasing its per capita Gross Domestic Product from around US$2,084.05 in 2020 to US$6,223.23 in 2030 and US$33,328.02 in 2050.
According to the statement, “the projects annual average real GDP growth of 7.0 per cent.”
It further reads, “The real growth rate of the GDP of the first medium-term NDP 2021-2025 on average will be 4.65 per cent and this will increase to 8.01 per cent in the second NDP; subsequently, it is expected to increase to 8.43 per cent in the third.
“Consequently, the number of full time jobs created will be roughly 165 million during the Agenda period to spur poverty reduction.
“The number of people in poverty will decline from the roughly 83 million in 2020 to about 47.8 million in 2025 and to 2.1 million by 2050, thus taking a significant segment of the population out of poverty.”
