HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT: AN IMPERATIVE FOR ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGS) IN NIGERIA

Abstract

A nagging concern on the mind of all developing countries, Nigeria inclusive, is that of development. The countries so referred to as developing, are in a hurry to “catch up” with the more developed western countries of Europe, the U.S.A, Japan ,Russia, China, among others. To ensure sustainable economic growth and development in an economy, investment in human capital is therefore essential. This paper attempts to assess Nigeria’s effort at human capital development for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs).Other specific objectives are to examine the role of the university in intellectual capital development; to examine Nigeria’s skill acquisition programmes and unemployment reduction. Nigeria’s development challenges were identified to include in-adequate financing, economic, socio-political, environmental, regional, science and technology, and corruption challenges were x-rayed. The methodology adopted was that of the content analysis as sources of data were all secondary from publications of the UN, the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria’s report to the Rio+2 summit, a review of publications in reputable international journals. The paper recommended massive sensitization and awareness campaign by Government, the establishment of a Sustainable development Fund (SDF) among other initiatives.