FINANCING DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL

1. A FINANCING PROPOSAL FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT TO CURB RURAL- URBAN MIGRATION TOWARDS
ATTAIMENT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
Typical school situation in rural setting
Background:
The world leaders of more than 150 countries adopted the 2030 Agenda themed as “Sustainable
Developmentgoals.”(SDGs) The laudable goals are super amplified over the Millennium Development
goals winning up with the year 2015. The goals as summarized by the UN document are:
(1)Nopoverty;(2)ZeroHunger(3)Good health and Well being (4)Quality education (5)Gender equality
(6)Clean water (7)Affordable and clean energy (8)Decent work and economy growth (9)Industry,

2. innovation and infrastructure (10)Reduced inequalities (11)Sustainable cities and communities
(12)Responsible consumption and production (13)Climate action (14)Life below water (15)Life on land
(16)Peace, justice and strong institutions (17)Partnership for the goals.
Financingthese goalsisexamined intermsof how itisapplicable towardsrural development in Nigeria.
The focus on the rural development is because the goals cannot be realized if rural communities are
excluded. Moreover, the resourcesfromrural areasneed to be tapped as a way of mobilizing domestic
resources vital to the attainment of SDGs. Barde notes that the number of jobs to be created towards
fulfillingSDGs goals goes beyond civil servant jobs but more with the privates. The rural development
programme will go a long way in providing such jobs. For example Afolabi (2007) in Ofoku (2012)
observes that Urban-Rural migration in Asian countries including China has improved their economic
productivity. It is with this background that this work is relevant.
Rural-Urban/Urban-Rural Issues:
Rural Urban migrationismore pronouncedin Nigeria. This has some drawback for economic and social
life of migrants.Onone hand,mostmigrants are the active participant of a community thereby leaving
the elderly ones in poverty, on the other hands, many of the migrants are not able to fit into the
economicandsocial challengesincitiestheyoftenendupinslum. Eliasm(2015) in hislecture notesthat
about 60% of humanity are living in cities, this often overstretch the resources and infrastructure of
cities. In the same vain Abdullah submits that due to skewed planning and development in favor of
Urban, migrationismore fromrural to urban. He notesthatsuch migration often outstrips services and
infrastructure inthe urbanareas.If thistrendcontinuesitmaybe difficulttorealize the SDGsgoals. This
iscorroboratedin Ofoku(2012) whenhe hammeredthatUrban-Rural migrationisanimportantmove to
development.
Objectives:
This work is aimed at identifying some key sectors towards rural development and suggesting agency
that may be responsible for financing what in line with the course “Financing Sustainable Goals”. The
objectives are:
(1)Key areas for development in rural areas
(2) Identifying agencies that should be responsible for what in term of financing
(3)Returns expected towards SDGs
The firstaspect of the proposeddevelopmentis the infrastructure asananchor to other developments.
Governmentshoulduse publicresourcesthroughmobilization of Domestic resources. Loan can also be
obtainedfromOfficialDevelopment Assistance (ODA) either from multilateral and bilateral donors, or
from domestic saving in sovereign wealth purse, capital market or Insurance resources.
Education &Literacy:

3. While governmentshouldbe responsibleforeducationpoliciesandmaintaining of standards, financing
it shouldbe done in partnership.We shouldhave publicfinancingschoolsespeciallythe BasicEducation.
We shouldalsohave Public–Private participationandentirelyprivate ownedschools.Private individual
shouldbe encouraged toestablishtertiaryinstitution in rural settings as this always draws a large work
force. The issue of renovation of schools and sponsoring of adult literacy could be source for from
philanthropy private individuals.
Agriculture Development:
Policies thatpromote agricultureshouldbe made bygovernment however private participation should
be facilitated.The landownershould be made responsible in-termsof providing land for dams, laying of
pipesetcfor irrigationpurpose.Private individualsshould be encouraged to site agriculture processing
firms in rural areas where they will readily get their raw materials. The government should work out
concessions that will facilitate a good return for such ventures. Grants should also be sourced from
Agriculture Development Banks for Agriculture Research Institutions towards production of improved
seedlings to be sold to farmers at subsidize rate. Especially planting of economic trees to reduce
desertification and thereby promoting good climate.
Industrialization:
This should be left in the hands of private establishment. Government should create an enabling
environmentintermsof acquisitionof land,tax policyadministrationandstabilityinfiscal policysoasto
give confidence to investors. The investors also could source for resources from capital market.
Returns towards SDGs:
By the time resources are mobilized towards rural areas. Many productive people will migrate to the
rural areas this will decongest the cities thereby reduce pressure on the infrastructure and socials
service in the cities. By this good quality life is enhanced. More importantly economic activities in the
rural Areaswill helptounlock Tax payable togovernment. This will improve the Gross national income
making money available for financing sustainable Development goals.
References
Badre, B (2015); Lecture titled ‘The Framework for financing Development in Cousera Financing SDGs
course.
Eliasim, J (2015); Lecture transcript titled “What is Development” in Cousera Financing SDGs’’ course
week 1 lecture 1pg 3 par2 line2.
Ofoku A.U. (2012); Urban-Rural migration in Delta state Nigeria. Global Journal of science frontier
Research, Agriculture and Veterinary science vol12, issue6 version1.0 April2012. https//global
journals.org/GJSFR 09/12/2015 5.03am

4. UN doc. http://www.undp.org/content/undp/press centre//press releases/2015/24/undp-welcome-
ado. sited on 9/12/2015 6.15 a.m.