The 4th Key Element of The 7 Point Agenda - Human Capital Development

4. Human Capital Development:

Training and development helps in empowering individuals. This, as an essential aspect of Human Capital development will continue to play a pivotal role in the development of Nigeria as a society; the government is committed to providing quality health care services, education and social protection to the citizenry. This is core to empowering the population not only in the area of improving productivity but in achieving sustainable national development. The provision of health, education and functional social safety nets are absolutely essential to achieving desirable human capital outcomes. Human capital outcomes in Nigeria lag behind other countries at similar stages of development. The country’s health system is ranked 191 out of 201 in the community of nations, according to the World Health Organization. Life expectancy is estimated at 45 years for males and 46 years for females according to UNDP Human Development Report, 2006. Infant mortality rate is 260 deaths/1000 live births in the North Western and North Eastern parts of Nigeria. This is one of the highest anywhere in the world. About 2.6 million or 4.4% of 15-49 year olds are living with HIV/AIDs. Treatment coverage for HIV/AIDs at 100,000 people is highly unacceptable and shall be expanded.
To tackle these disturbing scenarios, several policy options are required. One of the options would be to domesticate the sectoral transformation in order to model globally acceptable health transformation around our unique national culture and institutions. Structural transformation will emphasize on strengthening the management capacity of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHDA) to co-ordinate Primary Health Care (PHC) Policy, re-establishment or enthronement of the health referral system within 24 months in every state. It will also require improving human resources for tackling maternal and child mortality, and mobilizing additional resources to address funding gaps for health sector programs. In addition, all public funded health agencies should align their expenditure with key priorities that address basic health services, with effective pro-poor services at secondary and tertiary levels.

In the education sector, literacy level in the country is inherently unsteady. Less than 60% of primary-aged children attend school; estimated 40% or 7 million primary aged children are also not in school. This scenario is more pronounced in North-West and North-East of Nigeria than the other parts.

Considering the strategic importance of education in human development, a three-pronged coordinated approach is needed, namely: making Universal Basic Education (UBE) Program more result oriented, with intense monitoring, strengthening of secondary education by focusing on science and technology; and raising the standards of tertiary education. Government intervention measures shall address the issues of vocational education and the empowerment of women, especially in the northern parts of the country. The issues of teacher-student, classroom-student, science teacher-student and other critical ratios shall be squarely addressed at the three levels.