Description
Let me begin with brief comments on the two operative concepts in the title of this paper, the concepts of
sustainability and growth. Sustainability is one idea that we can all relate to, if only because the quality of life of our future generations depends on it. I know some people don’t really care about the generations coming after them. I heard the other day that one grumpy old man asked: “Why should I care for future generations? What have they ever done for me?” What we know is that sustainability is the quality of being able to make a good thing endure, to be able to maintain it at a certain rate or level over a period of time. Many wise people know that this is a very important idea.
The other operative concept is growth. For this, we start with the notion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of an economy. This is a reference to a measure of the total production of a country’s economy. In particular, it refers to the total monetary value of all goods and services that a country such as Nigeria produces in a specific period of time. It is from GDP that we calculate economic growth. Specifically, growth is the measure of the change of GDP from one year to the next. In fact, our economic prosperity is expressed as GDP per capita, meaning the value of all goods and services we produce in a year divided by our population. ,
My assignment today is to share my thoughts on some of the critical policy issues that will help our country achieve growth and thereby attain prosperity, in a sustainable manner. There are a myriad of independent variables that predict economic growth. I have chosen only three to dwell on in the case of Nigeria’s economic growth and some of them may — to the popular mind — not be strictly economic. First is good governance. The others are human capital development and fiscal federalism.
I shall discuss each of these issues in some detail. Before this however, let me say a word or two on economic growth theory, to prepare us for my own perspectives on sustainable economic growth in Nigeria. Again, sustainable because we neither want to create environmental problems nor consume all the resources for generations yet unborn. Itis in this sense that Increasing output (growth) should not be our only goal.
