By Tony Tagbo
As the political atmosphere intensifies and Nigerians brace up for an imminent political transition in 2023, the 28th Nigerian Economic Summit (NES#28) seeks to refocus the minds of Nigerians on its developmental imperatives for the present and the future.
The sustainable growth of the Nigerian economy is constrained on many fronts. For example, the Naira continues its free fall against the US Dollar and inflation continues to rise relentlessly, neutralizing all efforts towards poverty alleviation.
Additionally, most socioeconomic trends wane as insecurity pervades every region in varying dimensions, threatening food security, school enrolment and the general safety of lives and properties.
There is no gainsaying that the quality and will of the political leaders coupled with the overall cohesiveness and optimal functioning of the machinery and arms of government across the federation have a pivotal role to play in the reversal of Nigeria’s trajectory.
It is in full awareness and sensitivity to the observed risk of losing sight of our developmental priorities as a nation and the momentum of reforms that the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) and the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning will convene stakeholders from the private sector, academia, public sector, development institutions, and civil societies to deliberate and identify the imperatives for a prosperous Nigeria.
Hence, NES #28 theme: “2023 and Beyond: Priorities for shared prosperity”
Stakeholders will deliberate on the key execution priorities for the incumbent government and the incoming leadership in 2023 through four sub-themes including: delivering macroeconomic stability for shared prosperity, Investing in our future, unlocking the binding constraints to execution and reframing the agenda for transformational leadership.
The session discussions at the summit will be dimensioned from the above sub-themes to enable stakeholders to make actionable recommendations on specific issues under the subthemes.
The 28th Nigerian Economic Summit (#NES28) seeks to galvanize stakeholders to deliberate on an actionable framework for transformative political leadership and effective governance, to facilitate economic growth and nation building. NES #28 presents the best opportunity for stakeholders to agree on a consensus on the national and sub-national imperatives for economic security, social justice, conscientious governance, political stability and environmental sustainability.
The summit hopes to discern the imperatives for harnessing Nigeria’s latent human capital wealth as a means of securing our collective future by identifying critical factors for effective policy implementation for sustained economic growth.
#NES28 will also highlight stakeholder actions needed to eliminate barriers to inclusive economic growth and development; Identify pragmatic initiatives to elicit economic leadership at the subnational levels, by adopting a “Bottom Up” approach to economic growth and development and articulate the economic agenda for the incoming leaders in 2023 and beyond.
The public-private dialogue platform Nigerian Economic Summit (NES#1) was held from February 18-20, 1993. Participants at NES#1 concluded that it is imperative for the private sector to continuously dialogue and cooperate with the public sector. Over the past 27 years, national and global policymakers and business leaders have acknowledged that the annual NES is the premier platform for public-private dialogue in Nigeria.