Nigeria’s Conditional Grants Scheme in the Light of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Lessons and Policy Options in a Post-2015 Era

Abstract

Scholars (like Kenny and Sumner, 2011) have contended that one of the immense benefits of the MDGs period (i.e. 2000 – 2015) was that this period saw the drive for creation of institutions, programmes and policies aimed at assisting the achievement of the development goals. The flagship of such programmes in Nigeria unarguably was the Conditional Grants Scheme (CGS) which was clearly designed by way of making freed financial grants (from debt relief gains of 2005) available to Federal, States and Local Governments in a clearly designed conditional partnership agreement to provide necessary social infrastructures covering sectors of education, health, water and sanitation, and agriculture. Since the MDGs ended in 2015, there appear questions raised as to what should happen to this programme? This study examined the CGS under the prism of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) situating probable options for maintaining the momentum gained during MDGs implementation. Using qualitative research methodology and descriptive statistics, the study answers the overall research question of what lessons and options are available for the CGS in a post-2015 environment in Nigeria. One conclusion which this paper reaches is that the CGS should not be discarded rather reviewed to work under the ambits of the SDGs which like the MDGs is time-bound, thus the need for quick action(s).