Pakistan, UNDP sign MoU to establish SDG centers

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Friday formally launched the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish the SDG centres both at the federal and four provincial levels to review progress on achieving these envisaged targets on regular basis.
For SDG centres at Islamabad, the government would utilise Rs1 billion out of which Rs500 million would be provided by the UNDP. The SDG centres will also be established in four provincial capitals with the assistance of the UNDP.
The UNDP has so far committed Rs300 million for the Punjab SDG centre and preparation in other provinces is also underway to establish such centres.
According to the Planning Commission announcement on Friday, the SDGs were launched at the national conference organised by the Planning Commission of Pakistan.
Federal Minister for Planning, Development & Reform Ahsan Iqbal accompanied by Federal Minister for Food Security Sikandar Hayat Bosan, Minister for Education Baleeghur Rahman and UN Resident Coordinator Neil Buhne inaugurated the launching of SDGs in Pakistan.
On this occasion, an MoU was also signed between the Planning Commission of Pakistan and the UNDP for implementation of the SDGs in Pakistan. Federal Minister for Planning, Development & Reform Ahsan Iqbal and Neil Buhne signed the MoU on behalf of the Planning Commission and the UNDP respectively.
The Minister for Planning & Development in his opening remarks observed that launching of the SDGs in Pakistan reflected the commitment of the government for implementation of the SDGs and considers it as Pakistan Development Goals.
“We need to implement the SDGs for our own sake rather to take it as an international agenda. Progress on the SDGs should not be tied with foreign funding,” he said.
Ahsan Iqbal said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s vision to move forward is to make Pakistan a self-reliant country by relying on its own resources. In line with this vision, he pointed out the SDGs would be accomplished in Pakistan by using mostly our own resources instead of waiting for financial assistance from abroad.
He said that for reviewing the progress of SDGs, an SDG centre has been established in the Planning Commission to work in partnership with the federal ministries and provinces to review the progress on quarterly basis.
The minister said that the SDGs were also aligned with Vision-2025 of the government, which makes the SDGs as national goals of Pakistan. He recalled the failure of MDGs in Pakistan and pointed out that it was basically due to lack of political will and planning, absence of engagements with the stakeholders at different levels in the society and on federal and provincial levels and fractured socioeconomic platform.
Now the political will is very much there and the government is also working vigorously to repair the fractured and imbalanced socioeconomic platform.
He pointed out that Vision-2025 provides fundamental principles and a comprehensive framework for development.
“While devising Vision 2025, we tried to learn from our mistakes and improve what we lacked to implement the MDGs.”
He stressed that we need proactive approach and result-oriented strategy to achieve the SDGs.
He felt that 35 years of our history were lost under dictatorship and the biggest price the nation paid was in the form of a fractured social sector, which received the least priority in those years.
Today, Pakistan is a semi-developed country in terms of per capita income; but is bracketed in the least developed nations regarding social sector development.
Ahsan Iqbal said the governance paradigm is now shifting towards collaborative form of government. The present government is establishing partnership with the private sector, the development sector and the academia to improve governance in the country.
“We will work very closely with the corporate sector, the civil society and the academia for speedy implementation of the SDGs.”