AS part of its efforts towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs) target by 2030, the office of the senior special assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Sustainable Development Goals headed by Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire in collaboration with the Oyo state government has commenced training for the second batch of research assistants that will help in generating data to assist the state in carrying out relevant projects in the state.

The training was put together in partnership with a private firm, Orbis Consulting Limited to conduct a baseline inventory survey on Education, Water/Sanitation, Vocational Skills and Primary Healthcare.

Special Adviser to the Oyo State Governor on Sustainable Development Goals, Temitope Fajana, said: “The data obtained from the 15 local government areas in the first and second phases of the exercise will be used in designing policies and projects and also in making community development decisions across Oyo state”.

“The focus of the baseline survey is to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030,” Fajana said.

“The inventory taken by the research assistants is to help the government in identifying deficiencies, plan, and take the needed steps when and where necessary.”

Also speaking during the training exercise, the National Coordinator of the Civil Society Coalition on Sustainable Development in Nigeria, Tola Winjobi, commended the pacesetting role of Oyo state in the baseline survey.

The team lead of Orbis Consulting, Yakubu Gana, took participants through a presentation on what is expected of them with respect to the identification of facilities provided through the MDGs/SDGs Conditional Grants Scheme and other Paris Club Debt Relief Gains expenditure as a basis for further interventions.

Similarly, Sola Fagorusi of Onelife Initiative for Human Development, a non-governmental organisation that is also taking part in the project, shared insights on the data collection tool. He said the research assistants will be using the Open Data Kit for the field survey “to ensure that field findings are accurate and the geo points are properly captured”.

Fagorusi added that there would also be quality control officers who would supervise the work of the research assistants to ensure an error-free result.

Participants at the training exercise were selected from the 33 Local Government Areas in Oyo State.