Vice President Yemi Osinbajo Thursday at the Presidential Villa stated that the task for the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) is to determine how it would affect human history beginning with Nigeria.
Osinbajo, who highlighted the need to reposition NIPSS, recalibrate its visibility and attract significant financial backing from the private sector and other non-public sector sources, said, “one of the reasons why a think-tank is effective is because it is a place where people think and develop ideas because ideas make the difference. This is why countries that have made progress continue to seek ways not just in developing their own think-tanks, but in looking for other think-tanks they can collaborate with because there is so much happening around the world and a lot of collaboration is necessary.”
“One of the critical things for us in NIPSS is to first of all realise that the most important part of our work in the coming years would be really thinking and developing ideas.”
Prof. Osinbajo identified other areas that should concern NIPSS including developing ideas on how to get extreme poverty out of the country, address climate change issues, among others.
“Our country is a nation of 200 million people, growing at 6 million a year and poverty is almost at 60%, even more, extreme poverty. In another few years we are going to become the third most populous country in the world. We have to devise a strategy to get out of that poverty.
“It is our foremost think-tank that ought to be in the forefront of thinking how we are going to deal with the situation, politicians will come and go. Our think-tanks must be able to provide a tactical roadmap to move from where we are to get to where we ought to be.
“And that is the same for every other thing. Everyone is talking about Climate Change and what is going to happen to the world. People are thinking about these things time and time again, but we need to have our own think-tank come up with policies and ideas about what we need to do,” he said.
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