TheCable

Youths from Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, have been granted the rare opportunity to define the United Nations (UN) post-2015 development goals.

In 2000, the UN set goals generally referred to as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were to be achieved in 15 years.

They are eight international development goals adopted based on the United Nations Millennium Declaration to include poverty alleviation, combating HIV/AIDS, universal primary education, environmental sustainability, among others.

The goals have recorded relative success around the world, and are expected to expire by the end of 2015.

For the next 15 years (2016-2030), the United Nations plans to set up new goals that been tagged Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This time around, the United Nations is planning to build up goals for the next 15 years from youths around the world — to include Nigeria.

In Nigeria, a UN group, the Copenhagen Consensus and Dynamics impact, a Nigeria-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) are setting up youth forums across the country to get Nigerian youths to define the UN’s most important policy document for 15 years.

The first of the forum held on Saturday, at the nation’s premier university, the University of Ibadan, while subsequent ones would hold at different locations across the country.

Gbemisola Osadua (pictured), chief executive officer of Dynamics Impact, spoke at one of the forums, making a case for a national youth forum that would encapsulate the yearnings of the Nigerian youth with respect to the post-2015 goals.

“The youth forum in Nigeria would be taking place in 10 different locations in Nigeria, and then we would have a national youth forum subsequently in May,” she said.

“The Millennium Development Goals have been one of the most successful programmes in UN history. From 2000-2015, they will have focused about US$500 billion of aid to smart targets.

“The process for replacing the MDGs, when they expire in 2015, is currently underway. The final list, to be agreed at the UN General Assembly in September 2015, will address the world’s biggest problems.”

Osadua went on to say that some of the youths who participate in the Forum stand a chance to be invited the UN headquarters in New York, where the goals would be presented to the UN general assembly in September.