A Post – Assessment of the Millennium Development Goals on Children and Women in Nigeria

This paper seeks to evaluate and assess the impacts of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on children and women in Nigeria. World leaders have taken various steps towards enhancing human development, by pledging to respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of humans all over the world. Consequently the rights of the vulnerable ones like children, women, minorities and migrants have become an inclusive global agenda. Unarguably, children and women have always been at the centre of international development targets. In contemporary times, the MDGs were the highest- level expression of the international community’s commitment to development priorities, with set dates and indicators for following them up. All the MDGs are directly or indirectly related to the rights of children and women to health, education, protection, equality and a good life. Nigeria, like other developed and developing countries were part of the MDGs commitment and promised to work towards the realization of these goals. Consequently, appropriate steps were taken by the federal Government towards these goals. However, with the aid of secondary data this paper will analyze how far and how well the MDGs set target for children and women in Nigeria were achieved. With appreciable but limited progress of MDGs in Nigeria, the study recommends good governance and proper institutionalization of future development goals.