Buhari's aide, Tonye Cole to speak at Sustainable Development Goals workshop

The Senior Special Assistant to President

According to Pulse findings, Orelope-Adefulire will be speaking at the forum for private sector to create awareness on collaborations which intends to yield results that will inform a new UN global report on business and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) being prepared by the UN Sustainable Development Goals Fund (SDG-F).

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Organised by Sahara Group in conjunction with Nigeria’s government, the United Nations, the workshop tagged: Business Contribution to a Universal Sustainable Development Agenda; is billed to hold on July 14, 2016 at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, Nigeria.

Speaking on the workshop, Orelope-Adefulire said it will highlight how businesses can effectively contribute towards achieving the SDGs in Nigeria through mobilisation of financing for the United Nations SDG Fund initiative.

In her words, “The desired aim would be to work closely with the private sector to develop initiatives that would address the peculiarities of nationalizing the SDGs in Nigeria in line with the Universality Agenda. Ultimately we hope to set a strong foundation for developing a framework for further discussions scheduled for the last quarter of the 2016.”

Director, SDG-F, Paloma Duran, who highlighted that for it is necessary for all hands to be on deck for SDGs to be achieved by 2030, commended the collaboration of the Nigerian Government.

“This workshop is a good example of how governments, businesses and the UN can work together for achieving SDGs.Nigeria is spearheading efforts to achieve SDGs. For that reason, I am convinced that the African regional workshop taking place on Thursday in Abuja will provide valuable insight and best practices from the Nigerian government and businesses for a new report on SDGs and universality to be launched by the SDG Fund at the UN headquarters in New York later this year,” Duran said.

On his part, Tonye Cole believes that achieving multi-sectoral collaboration in the private sector remained a critical requirement for driving the SDGs in Nigeria, hence, it was imperative for the private sector in Nigeria to coalesce efforts geared towards the SDGs to enhance scale, impact and sustainability of the various initiatives across the nation. “Private businesses in Nigeria have really been doing a lot to promote the SDGs in Nigeria. However, when you consider the ground we need to cover, a collaborative approach becomes the only sustainable solution. We will be exploring this approach at the workshop and I am confident that the outcomes will launch us further in our quest for attaining the SDGs through shared ideas, resources and platforms,” he said.

Cole however noted that Sahara was eagerly looking forward to Nigeria’s private sector heeding the clarion call to spearhead a continent-wide movement to institutionalise and implement the SDGs in Africa through collaboration.