CSO Urge Government to tighten Frameworks on SDR in Nigeria
By: Tochi Onyeubi
A Civil Society Organization, the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ, has urged the government to tighten framework that guides how Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), were being utilized in the country.
They made the call recently, during a three-day capacity building for CSOs and Media on SDR in Abuja.
The Acting Director of ANEEJ, Mr. Leo Atakpu in an interview with news men informed that the workshop funded by Bill and Melinda, was in partnership with AFRODAD, and was targeted at raising the consciousness of citizens to understand and track SDR funds.
He informed that, the project first started by conducting a research on the utilization of SDR in Nigeria and Ghana, and from the findings, it became imperative to use content of the research for advocacy, which gave rise to the engagements with CSOs and the media.
The facilitator of workshop, Dr. Terfa Abraham, an Economist and Senior Research at the National Institute of Legislative and Democracy Studies (NILDAS) in his presentation, informed that Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), is an instrument member countries of the International Monetary Fund, (IMF), receive “in times of global financial crisis”, to balance its payment and help a country maintain its external health and balance foreign reserve.
He gave a detailed analysis on how SDR operates and how Nigeria has utilized hers from 1970-2023. According to him, SDRs are components of external reserved assets that are readily available and controlled by the country’s monetary authority which in Nigeria’s case, is the Central Bank of Nigeria and other relevant financial agencies.
He noted that CBN Act of 2007, provides for the use of SDR, and the role of the National Assembly in playing oversight function. “Section 8 of the CBN Act also provides that the CBN governor brief the National Assembly from time to time with regards to its policies and activities, while section 24 (g) of the same act, mandates the CBN to at all times maintain a reserve of external assets consisting of allocations of Special Drawing Rights made to Nigeria by the IMF.
Dr. Terfa made an analysis on how Africa countries utilized their SDR, and it was discovered that, Nigeria mostly used her’s in sectors that were in less need of it largely unaccounted for. Also, over sighting was poor, due to poor legislative framework, hence the need to strengthen legislative framework.
It was also pointed out that, the sector SDR was used were gender neutral and have implications on inclusivity.
Highpoint of the training was the launch of the campaign on SDR with stakeholders, civil society organizations and the media and a road walk to mark the campaign.
The Acting ED, Leo Atakpu, during the launch, stated that, the campaign was necessary to create awareness for citizens to know more about SDR.
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