“This paper therefore explores the relevance, impact and challenges of sub-national governments in the progress towards the MDGs by 2015. The central hypothesis is that policy and spending autonomy alone cannot enable a sub-national government to
significantly enhance the achievement of the MDGs. It argues that fiscal and policy autonomy must necessarily be matched with governance capacities in terms of economic planning, fiscal responsibility, policy accountability and delivery of public services. Thus, the paper posits that policy
and spending autonomy is a necessary but not sufficient condition for state and local governments to significantly impact the achievement of the MDGs in Nigeria. The study x-rays Nigeria MDGs status at the national and sub-national (state) levels and explores the links between the differential
MDGs status of sub-national entities and their political, economic and institutional conditions.”
