Ideas for Development

This book is based on presentations made at the Iju Public Affairs Forum Series between 2006 and 2009. The single theme that runs through all the chapters is how best to improve Nigeria's development performance. While the specific topics covered range from political and economic affairs to education, culture, religion and gender, the analysis in each chapter and the recommendations proposed by the different authors focus on how the poor/mediocre development performance record of the country during its first fifty years of independence could be turned around. Overall, the contents of the book cover several of the critical development challenges that Nigeria faced during the first decade of the 21st century. To a great extent, these are the same key development challenges the country faced during the closing decades of the last century; and there is a real sense in which they would qualify as important challenges for the next couple of decades. The contents of several chapters of the book are enriched by the comparative perspectives provided on development experiences of some countries inside and outside Africa.