Journal of Emerging Trends in Economics and Management Sciences: Home

Abstract:
Nigeria is indeed at critical juncture of its developmental trajectory, the economic recession of 2015-2017 coupled with the widening gap between rich and poor have shifted the emphasis of the country toward sustainable development driven by capacity building. At present Nigeria is unable to implement meaningful economic programmes with far reaching impact due to systemic weaknesses and lack of capacity at federal State and local government levels, as well as the institutional and individual levels. The paucity in capacity among these levels of governance has created vicious cycles where poverty, limited capacity on one hand and bad governance on the other put a clog to the wheel of the country?s development. The resultant effect of this is absolute marginalization of the citizens which are mired by inequality and poverty. As a result there is now a realization in Nigeria that previous efforts and approaches to capacity building have not delivered the desired results and that capacity constraints still remain one of the major obstacles to development and specifically to individual achievements. Nigeria currently is in dire need of earnest effort in the area of capacity building to develop its human resources, and strengthening Institutional and Legal framework to be able to harness its vast resources to promote rapid economic development to better the life of its citizens. The paper examines the role of capacity building as a citadel of economic development, the paper has also provided measures towards which capacity building can help to ameliorate Nigeria?s human development inadequacies. The paper concluded that it is imperative that relevant stakeholders in Nigeria should consider redesigning policies and implementation of new strategies in achieving human capacity building.

Keywords: Capacity Building, Economic Development, Opportunities, Nigeria

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