The South East Development Commission at the South East Vision 2050 Regional Stakeholders Forum in Enugu affirms that the new roadmap to development is designed to move the region away from fragmented development efforts toward a unified, sustainable economic bloc.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive of the South East Development Commission (SEDC), Mark Okoye, in his address during the official launching of the South East Vision 2050, says the Regional Stakeholders Forum is a strategic initiative aimed at transforming the region into a global industrial and investment hub.
The South East Vision 2050 Regional Stakeholder Forum is a 3-day event aimed at aligning policy, capital, institutions, and people around a shared development future for the South East of Nigeria; the forum is held at the International Conference Center, Enugu, Nigeria, from February 3rd -6th 2026, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm daily.
To achieve the SEDC vision to position the South East as the preferred investment destination in Africa by 2035, the Managing Director says the primary goal of the commission is to address the unique challenges of the South East region, particularly its limited landmass of 29,000 square kilometers, which necessitates highly coordinated planning for infrastructure and industrialization.
Okoye further proposed that instead of individual states competing for the same pool of capital for small-scale projects, the five Southeast states—Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo—should collaborate on large-scale, legacy projects for example a joint 600-megawatt power plants, regional gas pipelines, rail networks in the region; such projects will attract the necessary investment to power industrial growth.
In her contribution to the dialogue, the Special Adviser to the President on Development Review, Miriam Temitope Marshall, emphasized the importance of combining regional strengths towards national development goals.
Marshall posits that regional cooperation strengthens, rather than weakens, state autonomy because a prosperous region provides a better platform for individual states to thrive.
“The ultimate goal is to position the region as a competitive and investable destination within the Nigerian and global economy,” Marshall reiterates.
Meanwhile, the Enugu State Governor, Dr. Peter Mbah, has described the forum as a defining milestone in the collective journey of the South East.
Speaking at the forum, Dr. Mbah, represented by the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Professor Chidiebere Onyia, declared the Governor’s total commitment to the Vision 2050 objectives.
The SSG pointed out that although the Southeast is blessed with immense human capital and a legendary spirit of resilience, unlocking its full potential to achieve sustainable development requires coordinated policy alignment which individual states cannot achieve in isolation, hence regional integration and shared infrastructure becomes inevitable; “this collaborative approach is the only way to move beyond the fragmented efforts that have historically limited the region’s growth,” Governor Mbah’s position.
As the technical sessions commence, the organizers expect to distill ideas from over 200 dedicated stakeholders into an actionable policy document. The commission aims to create an ecosystem where every participant feels a sense of collective ownership of the development plan. This bottom-up approach is intended to ensure that the government acts as an administrator of the people’s collective aspirations.
Focal areas for discourse in the forum are agriculture, digital economy, and transportation, while the outcome will serve as the primary guide for the region’s growth trajectory in the coming years.
