Nigeria and Sustainable Development Goal 3: Impediments to Realistic Implementation

Abstract

Nigeria’s bitter experience with implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has left the country in severe health crises. Consequently, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were reinvented to surmount the challenges of the MDGs and deliver the vulnerable low-income countries, Nigeria inclusive, to the set goals by 2030. With six years of implementation and barely nine years to termination, Nigeria is ripe for an assessment of its efforts in achieving the SDGs. This study leverages the social ecological model and the push-pull theory to examine factors affecting Nigeria’s performance concerning goal 3 of the SGDs. Secondary data were utilized and content analysis was employed for analysis. With maternal mortality rate at 917/100,000 live births; neonatal mortality at 36/1000 live births; under 5 mortality rate at 117/1000 live births; infant mortality rate at 74/1000 live births; the study found a reverse in the gains of the MDGs. This was due to insecurity, poor funding, brain drain of medical professionals, and certain cultural practices. It, therefore, concludes that without drastic efforts in place, the achievement of SDG 3 in Nigeria may just add to the number of unfulfilled dreams. The paper recommends strengthening Nigeria’s security architecture for effective protection of lives and properties;improved funding of the health sector to cater for human capital needs and infrastructural deficits plaguing the sector.