Of the 4 billion people that are known to be poor in the world today, Africa has more than her fair share, and the number of the poor, as percentage of the total African population, has been steadily increasing since the era of independence. While the state played an extremely important role in financing social welfare during the first decade after the independence of most African countries, this role has declined with time.

Malnutrition, high child mortality, lack of access to basic education, unemployment, and various types of social indignity have been dominant features of the decline of human development standards in Africa. Yet Africa has the resources and the potential to overcome these indignities if only public revenues were used responsibly and accountably.

As an organization, we argue that the challenge for good governance in Africa needs to begin by recognizing and accepting this fundamental point of departure. The legitimacy of any government of a modern democratic republic must begin with taking into account the basic needs of its citizens in terms of food, shelter, clothing, education, health, security, decent work and social solidarity or human dignity.

The principal indicators of poverty reduction need to begin by looking at improvements of the standards of living of the people given the above human needs fundamentals. Quite often, while these could be realized, governments in Africa waste valuable resources in corruption, excessive private and public consumption and external debt repayments and servicing.

In order to recapture the road to sustainable development, good governance needs to be refocused on governance for meeting the basic needs of the citizens, i.e. poverty reduction in our historical context. Our organization is concerned about bringing government’s attention to the basic issues; the basic fundamentals for its people. The issue of poverty in most African countries is traced back to poor governance and social policies and they need to be addressed. Key social policies must be reviewed and addressed to ensure positive economic and social changes that benefits the people.

At PUSH AFRICA, we are committed to participating in conversations that enforces a change in the social and economic well being of our people in Nigeria and the rest of Africa and we hope to continue to activate these conversations and possibly push through to be in the rooms where these conversations are taking place.