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Nigeria has 150 million people, 70 million are poor. 20% of all Africans are Nigerians. There are the milenium development goals. MDG, 8 goals. First erradicate poverty, 2 universal primary educations, 3 gener equality, reduce child mortality, improving maternal health, combat hiv, aids, malaria, sustainable environment, lastly a global partnership for development.
in 2000 20% of children died in Nigeria before reaching 5 mostly of malaria. schoold had 100 kids in a class, half of Nigerians had no access to clean water, on top of this huge government corruption. In all this President Obasanjo got debt relief. Saved $1bn per year and used it for MDG. Amina Az Zubair was put in charge. She used that money to build results based partnership. Great auditing job as there is tremendous corruption but she argues they succeeded mostly. That most help went to those who needed it.
Amina gives a great deal of statistics that show how infant mortality has fallen and goes MDG one by one and how they are addressing them in Nigeria, she paints an optimistic vision of what is going on in Nigeria but she recognizes that there are still a lot of goals not achieved.
She argues that corruption is on the decline, that democracy is strengthened and that Nigeria is on track to achieve MDG by 2015.
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Barbara Cochran on March 14, 2011 ·
I was very happy to see that someone in Nigeria really cares about the people there. I am a poverty activist in Canada and I know a few people in Nigeria and know how hard it is to get anywhere there. Jobs for uneducated people either don’t exist or the pay is so poor that it won’t support one person let alone a family. It is also hard to get an education there as you have to pay to go to school and that is the only way children have of escaping poverty. A lot of the children and teens are in soccer camps with the hopes of becoming pro soccer players. I have a young man there that I have taken under my wing and adore his courage. He is in the Junior Milan Football Club in Lagos and he is having a hard time to live and feed himself. I cry myself to sleep thinking about him almost starving to death. Maybe you could look into soccer camps and somehow help them out with a grant so they could eat there. This is another way for children to get out of poverty.Education is number one for the children but soccer is another thing to look at. I just hope you can really help children and young people get out of the depressing poverty these people live in. You could also look into the oil spills that get my temper boiling. Thank you, Barb