By Chesa Chesa
State House Correspondent, Abuja

The committee will act as a platform for the quarterly monitoring and assessment of Federal Government’s efforts to achieve the eight-point MDGs by 2015.

The president detailed the new Senior Special Assistant on MDGs, Mrs. Amina Ibrahim, to coordinate the committee, which has three governors as members. They are Chimaroke Nnamani (Enugu), Bukola Saraki (Kwara), and Adamu Aliero (Kebbi). Ministers of Power and Steel, Education, Information, Water Resources, and Health, among other civil society groups and foreign NGOs are also included in the committee.

Although the chairman of the committee was not made known, Ibrahim will chair the steering committee, anchor the secretariat of the committee and make quarterly reports on the MDGs, according to Obasanjo who noted that the action indicated government’s unwavering commitment and faithfulness to the spirit and letter of the Millennium Declaration.

The declaration challenges every government to “spare no effort to free fellow men and women from the abject and dehumanising conditions of extreme poverty to which more than one billion of them are currently subjected”.

The president urged developing partners to consider seriously the issue of debt relief, as it would enable developing countries save enough money to achieve the MDGs.

He said the Federal Government has consistently demonstrated a strong resolve to frontally attack the scourge of poverty in the country through poverty reduction initiatives like the Universal Basic Education (UBE), National Economic Empowerment Development Strategies (NEEDS), National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), Water for Life, Water for All, and the Presidential Initiative on Cassava.

The millennium goals are to eradicate poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote equality and empower women, reduce child mortality and improve maternal health. Others are to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, and develop a global partnership for development, all by 2015.