The National Planning Commission (NPC) is setting to host the 12th plenary session of the 63 member – countries of the Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development on Friday January 17th, 2014 at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.
According to sources in the NPC, the presidency of the Leading Group which resides in the NPC has the Minister/Deputy Chairman of the National Planning Commission as the Coordinating/Presiding Chairman of the group for the period that ended in December, 2013.
“Nigeria through the National Planning Commission was elected president of the Leading Group at the end of the 11th Plenary held in Helsinki in Finland on the 6th of February, 2013. The ten months tenure of Nigeria’s presidency of the group lasted from March 1 – December 31, 2013,” the report said.
It further indicated that the coming 12th plenary to be hosted in Nigeria accord significance to the practice of the Group which prescribes that the possessor of the Presidency should be responsible for hosting of the plenary in a particular year to signify the end of its tenure.
The Supervising Minister of National Planning, Bashir Yuguda in his speech at the occasion said that the Leading Group commenced the hosting of the platform with 63 member countries at different levels of development, alongside international organisations and NGOs to promote the implementation and re-definition of innovative financing mechanisms around the world.
Bashir Yuguda also explained that the aim of the Group is to fill the widening gap between the financial mobilisation mechanism, provision towards the attainment of the MDGs and the actual resources available through the traditional funding sources. He further pointed out that the group aims to establish predictable and stable mechanisms for raising funds for development to complement the Official Development Assistance (ODA).
While highlighting the activities conducted by the group in the past eight months under the Nigerian presidency, Bashir Yuguda indicated that the group has been engaging global promotion of the instrumentality of innovative financing for development in line with the transformation agenda and the Nigerian Vision 20:2020.
He further revealed that Nigeria has ventured to re-energise the Group to make it exercise stronger influence on the post-2015 MDGs activities of the United Nations as well as other regional and economic blocs.
The Supervising Minister added that the same understanding prompted the staging of two high- level side events on innovative financing at the TICAD V in Japan in June 2013 and at the 68th UN General Assembly in New York in September, 2013. Other activities recorded under Nigeria’s Presidency, he explained includes the production of a draft resolution on innovative financing which was presented to the 68th UN General Assembly.
Yuguda averred that although the resolution has not yet been adopted, the presidency located in Nigeria is working towards a subsequent adoption of the resolution on financing for development by the UN. He identified some of Nigeria’s innovative financing mechanisms already adopted to include the air ticket tax and effective management of aid under a newly reviewed Official Development Assistance (ODA) policy; saying this is in line with Government Transformation Agenda and Nigeria’s Vision 2020.
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