people and planet

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instructive examples of national efforts to improve
multisector planning. They reflect the importance of
political will, institutional support, adequate capacity and
available data to support the integration process.
Nigeria: large-scale, local implementation to meet the MDGs.
Nigeria used US$18 billion from debt relief in the 2005
Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative to launch its
Office of the Senior
Special Assistant
to the President
Nigeria established
on the Millennium
a grants scheme
Development Goals.
integrating responses Between 2007 and
2009, it provided
for health, education,
conditional grants
and water and sanitation at the state level
targeting health,
water and sanitation,
electricity, and poverty alleviation (Phillips, 2009;
Zamba and Oboh, 2013). In 2010, the office established
the Conditional Grants Scheme to Local Government
Areas (CGS-LGA) Track to more effectively reach local
governments, strengthen primary health and education
systems, and help them provide priority services through
a strong emphasis on local, data-driven planning (Iyengar
et al., 2015).
The CGS-LGA Track had significant political support,
including a high powered steering committee and a
special MDG adviser from an associated presidential
office. Since the funds were provided under a debt relief
initiative, the Ministry of Finance was able to tag funds
for pro-poor investment (Persaud, 2016).
The design and implementation of the CGS-LGA Track
demonstrated strong horizontal and vertical integration,
prioritizing health, education, and water and sanitation.
Local project priorities were discussed in joint meetings
of the planning unit and the other sectors. A joint
federal, state and local financing arrangement motivated
commitment at all levels (Persaud, 2016). Local officials had
to develop proposals that identified priority local needs
using the Nigeria MDG system of indicators and inputs,
which was developed for this project (Iyengar et al., 2014;
Iyengar et al., 2015). This use of data-driven decisionmaking
eventually led to the first common database on
health and education facilities, which eventually became
available to all government programmes, development
partners and civil society groups.
The focus was on filling financial gaps where sectorspecific
funding was inadequate and avoiding duplication
of line ministries’ projects. In some cases, such as drilling
boreholes at schools or in communities, water and
education officials had to agree on detailed joint plans
(Persaud, 2016).
According to a report, by 2014, the project had disbursed
more than US$300 million towards strengthening
MDG-focused health and education interventions in
one-third of the country, and efforts were being made
to scale up nationwide. Over 90% of the funds were
used for infrastructure projects in the three sectors. An
independent assessment of progress from the first round
of grants found that over 80% of the more than 5,000
projects could be sustained through community efforts
(Earth Institute, 2015).
Colombia: a pioneer of SDG implementation. Colombia’s
government has been instrumental in developing the
post-2015 agenda and proposing an integrated approach
to development (Development Finance International,
2016; OECD, 2015f). It is also active in global efforts to
understand how to incorporate the SDG agenda into
national development plans.
In February 2015, even before the SDGs were agreed, the
government established an inter-agency commission
on preparation and implementation of the post-
2015 development agenda and SDGs (Lucci et al.,
2015). It is composed of ministers and vice-ministers,
signalling strong political commitment to cross-sector
implementation (Persaud, 2016).
There is clear vertical integration of the national
development plan. Once consensus was reached at the
national level, the government encouraged governors and
mayors to include the SDGs in their development plans,
which define the main local development priorities for
2014–2018 (Development Finance International, 2016).
The three core pillars are education, peace and equity,
and are considered to be presidential priorities. The
new agenda also aims at a lifelong learning perspective
that defines targets for all education levels and ages.
The national development plan aims to make Colombia
the most educated country in Latin America by 2025
(Development Finance International, 2016).
Colombia was one of the first countries in Latin America
to decentralize its education system to tackle inequitable
2016 • GLOBAL EDUCATION MONITORING REPORT 141