By Chioma Onuegbu

Uyo—AS the world moves from the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, to the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs,  from January 1, 2016, an Uyo- based non-governmental organisation, Policy Alert, has urged Akwa Ibom State Government to develop strategies aimed at ensuring  timely and successful implementation of the new initiative at the community level.

In a statement by Mr. Tijah Bolton-Akpan, Head of Programmes, in Uyo, yesterday, the group urged the state government to produce an end-line report to assess the state’s performance of the MDGs to enable a knowledge-based transition to SDGs.

Policy Alert attributed Nigeria’s failure to achieve all the Millennium Development Goals to the late take-off of the programme as well as dearth of capacity for mainstreaming the goals into government policies especially at the local government level.

It said, “As the new SDGs come into force this month, it is important that governments and stakeholders at the sub-national level hit the ground running because it is at those levels that some of the goals and targets can make the most meaning to the ordinary citizens.

“Local communities are where you find great number of the poor  in our society, so there is no way we can make any real progress on the social, environmental and economic fronts without activating the goals and targets at that level.”

The statement stressed the need for the state government and stakeholders to strengthen their  statistical systems to ensure effective monitoring of SDGs indicators at both state and local levels.