The much awaited South East Economic Summit 2017 event was held at ‘The Base’ event centre with most of the South East governors, civil society groups and industry stakeholders in attendance.

 

This year’s event with the theme “Repositioning The South East For Rapid Economic Development” was organised by the South East Governor’s Forum (SEGF) in collaboration with South East Regional Economic Development Corporation (SEREDEC), UK Department for International Development (DFID) and its implementation organ (PERL), NDIGBO and Entrepreneurship, Nzuko Umunna, Alaigbo Development Foundation, Ndigbo in Lagos, South East Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ohaneze and other development organs of Igbo land.

 

COMMUNIQUE ISSUED AT THE END OF THE SOUTH EAST ECONOMIC SUMMIT HELD FROM THE 11TH – 13TH NOVEMBER 2017 AT THE NIKE LAKE HOTEL, ENUGU.

 

PREAMBLE
The South East Economic Summit was held from November 11-13, 2017 in Enugu. The summit was organised by the South East Governor’s Forum (SEGF) in collaboration with South East Regional Economic Development Corporation (SEREDEC), UK Department for International Development (DFID) and its implementation organ (PERL), NDIGBO and Entrepreneurship, Nzuko Umunna, Alaigbo Development Foundation, Ndigbo in Lagos, South East Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ohaneze and other development organs of Igbo land.

 

The Summit commended the South-East Governors for forging unity among themselves in the larger interest of the South-East region and for setting up the South-East Governor’s Forum (SEGF) that facilitated the South East Economic Summit.
The Summit recalls with nostalgia, the great economic strides made by the people of the South East Zone in the pre-independence era and few years after the independence of Nigeria. It observed that poor infrastructural facility is the bane of economic development in the South-East region.

 

After exhaustive deliberations, the summit resolved as follows:
• The adoption of the study conducted by the Brenthurst Foundation on the infrastructural needs of the South-East states and called on the South East Governor’s Forum to pursue the full implementation of the South East development blueprint by the Foundation.
• In addition, the Summit adopted presentations made and recommendations proposed for the rapid economic development of the South East Zone in the areas of agriculture, ease of doing business, infrastructure, health, education and media development as follows:

 

EASE OF DOING BUSINESS
The Summit adopts the need for the creation of an enabling environment for doing business in the South-East by government assisting in providing/facilitating the needed infrastructure including road, power and empowerment (access to finance, skill etc.) and also streamline and publish laws, regulations and processes in order to make transparent, the environment for ease of doing business in the South–East. This is to be measured by significant increase in the ranking of South-East states in the 2018 World Bank sub-national index.

 

INFRASTRUCTURE 
The Summit fully adopted the presentations on infrastructural development of the South East in the areas of road concession, power, rail network, gas pipeline, water, ICT, industrial parks etc.

 

AGRICULTURE
The summit adopts the recommendations on Agriculture to achieve sustainable agricultural production. The South East must be able to feed itself and export food particularly basic food. It should be able to develop an agro processing hub in Nigeria.

 

HEALTH
The adoption of the presentations on health (on the need) to develop/provide medical and hospital initiative to provide a first class medical programme that can attract health tourism to the region and significantly reduce the mortality rate across all ages in the South East.

 

MEDIA
The summit agreed on the need for a robust media engagement for the purpose of rapid economic development of the SE and urged all the SE states to key into media platforms for effective information dissemination and mobilisation for investment.

 

CONCLUSION
The Summit calls on the South-East Governor’s Forum to fully fund and support the Regional and States’ Implementation Task Forces in realizing the recommendations of the Summit.

Photos from the summit.