Achieving Environmental Sustainability (MDG7) in Nigeria: Progress so Far, Challenges and Prospects

Abstract

The Millennium Development Goal Declaration was adopted by 147 Heads of States in September 2000. The member countries were expected to domesticate the global agenda based on the peculiar situation in each country. This was complied with by Nigeria. The country has taken lots of initiatives towards achieving all the eight goals with varying degrees of achievement. This paper focuses on Goal 7 which is “Ensuring environmental sustainability”. It examines the progress made so far and reveals that the rate of the relevant targets has been slow, especially with respect to achieving environmental sustainability. Various challenges are identified in the course of achieving the goal. These include population explosion, high incidence of poverty, policy inconsistency, among others. The paper also observes some prospects towards achieving the goal. These include some aspects of the policy environment with respect to the relevant sectors, resource availability, among others. Based on all these, the way forward in the course of achieving the goal is discussed. This is discussed in line with the Pressure-State-Response (PRS) model.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n6p47