Promoting sustainable development through grants in Delta State: an assessment of the role of United Nations International Children Education Fund (UNICEF)

Abstract

In recent time, the concept of sustainable development cannot be overemphasized. Since the early 1980s, the term ‘sustainable development’ has been used widely and indiscriminately. The term began to gain popularity, when it became increasingly fashionable to use it as a way of responding to global environmental concerns, biophysical issues, fairness, equity and distribution. This paper is to examine the role of grants on sustainable development in Delta State. The paper adopted the historical method of data analysis involving the review of secondary data. The findings revealed amongst other things that while grants as a supplement to other means of finance to ensuring sustainable development in Delta State, the reality on grounds is such that there is failure on the part of the government of Delta State to fashion out appropriate policy framework that would ensure that there is significant interactions between international grants such as that coming from UNICEF and social, economic and institutional processes in Delta State in such a way to continually sustained and meet up with increasing future demands in terms of population growth and continuous use of natural, human and material resources. It has been observed that changes in the integrated approach to social, economic and environmental issues have not really facilitated the developmental goals in Delta State. For instance, problems such as poverty, flooding, ethnicity, environmental pollution corruption, attitudes and lopsided income distribution have been on the increase. A cursory look at socio-political, economic and environmental situations in Delta State showed that these issues has continued to undermine every efforts at ensuring that available resources and grants in critical areas to meets the needs of the populace in ensuring sustainable development that is all encompassing. To achieve the ultimate goal of sustainability, this paper reinforces the urgent need for a shift to the third arena, which facilitates a smooth integration of public needs (through public debates and capacity building), scientific evidence and policy, and extensive use of innovative tools such as precautionary principle (preventative measure, even without scientific certainty of major human or environment impairment) to ensure a high-quality decision-making process. In addition to the above, it recommended that to achieve the SDGs, creating and maintaining smart and effective partnerships founded on the undoubtable patriotism and goodwill of the entire citizenry, alongside the moral and in kind support from the global fraternity of nations will be critical.