World Economic Forum slams Nigeria over poor governance
Written by Gbola Subair, Abuja, with Agency Report Friday, 05 November 2010
Addressing newsmen at the opening of a workshop on National Competitiveness, in Abuja, the Chief Economist, World Economic Forum, Dr Jennifer Blanke, said that it was the poor results recorded in the identified performance indicators that led to the downgrading of Nigeria to 127 out of 139 countries.
Stating that the deterioration began since last year in the areas of financing and governance, the World Bank Chief Economist, said that there was decay in education and infrastructure while corruption was also on the high side.
To record significant progress in the global ranking, she advised Nigeria to take those issues seriously.
The deterioration notwithstanding, she said that Nigeria had the opportunity to grow up in the ranking, given the sophistication of businesses and Nigeria’s large market which companies could benefit from.
Apart from the poor governance and weak infrastructure financing, the chief economist also rated Nigeria low in its currency institution, disclosing that if Nigeria focused on the issues with a view to improving them, there was no reason it would not grow in productivity.
She said: “We do see some areas we should focus on in order to improve Nigeria’s competitiveness further. The first is the issue of governance and strong currency institutions. Another area is education. We are at the moment rating basic education quite low, but the qualitative education is quite good. Unfortunately, it is not reaching enough students. Finally is improving infrastructure in the country. If Nigeria focuses on these key areas, there is no reason that Nigeria will not become much more productive and grow much faster in the future.”
“I don’t know if there is any fast track. There are also issues that you definitely focus on that have to deal with government, corruption. These are issues that have to be addressed. And I also would say that in the educational realm, there are efforts to get more children in school. If you look at some of the schemes that have been used in Mexico and other countries in Latin America, like Brazil, they give families money to get them back to school,” she said, adding that the step had made amazing strides in those countries in terms of getting back children to school.
Speaking earlier, the Minister of State for Finance, Hajia Yabawa Lawan Wabi, said that countries all over the world were becoming increasingly guided by the global competitiveness ranking of other countries, as compiled and rendered by worldwide risk rating agencies such as Fitch, Standard and Poor’s, as well as Goldman Sachs.
According to her, “as we are all aware, several factors, ranging from key economic indices, political stability and democratic ideals, social infrastructure to security are given significant weight in the determination of a country’s sovereign risk rating and global competitiveness ranking by these agencies.”
Meanwhile, Nigeria, ranked 142 out of 169 least prosperous countries in the world, according to a UN data released on Thursday in New York.
The country was grouped among 41 countries considered to have the “least human development” in the 2010 Human Development Report, compiled by UN Development Programme (UNDP).
The UN correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that Zimbabwe, ranked 169, according the study.
The report assessed countries in terms of their education, wealth and life expectancy, measured through what it called Human Development Index (HDI).
The 2010 report, entitled, “The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development,” examined progress in health, education and income over the past 40 years.
In addition to the 40 years trend analysis and refined HDI, the 2010 report introduced three new indices for poverty, inequality and gender.
According to the report, Nigeria’s wealth —as defined by gross domestic product per head—has slipped, while its educational ranking has failed to keep up with that of other countries.
The GDP per head in Nigeria is a mere 1,224 dollars, compared to 9,812 dollars in South Africa, 1,628 dollars in Kenya and 2,197 dollars in Cameroon.
In 2010, Nigeria’s life expectancy was 48.4 years on average, below that of Ghana (57.1.), Cameroon (51.7), Benin Republic (62.3), Uganda (54.1) and Lesotho, at 46 years, has sub-Saharan Africa lowest life expectancy, while the Comoros Islands leads the region at 66 years.
The 2010 HDI, which featured some technical adjustments of its traditional indicators for health, education and income, illustrated the wide range of development achievements among 37 countries analysed in the region.
The report said Ethiopia was 11th in HDI improvement since 1970, Botswana 14, Benin 18 and Burkina Faso 21, among the world 25 “top movers”.
Mauritius ranked highest among sub-Saharan states — number 72 in the world — in the “high human development” category, followed by Gabon, 93 and Botswana, 98.
“This year’s report of the HDI should not be compared to the HDI that appeared in previous editions of the Human Development Report due to the use of different indicators and calculations,” a statement from the UNDP said.
According to the 2010 report, Norway is the best country to live in, followed by Australia, New Zealand, U.S, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Japan, Korea Republic, Switzerland, France, Israel, Finland, Iceland, Belgium, Denmark and Spain.
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