NEC approves committee for center-provinces coordination

Sustainable Development Goals

ISLAMABAD: The National Economic Council (NEC) on Monday approved formation of a national steering committee for effective coordination between federal and provincial units under Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif chaired the NEC meeting through a video link from London.

The coordination among the Center and federating units get immense importance as the federal government would be responsible to demonstrate the country’s performance at global forums despite this fact that many social sector subjects were transferred from center to provinces in the aftermath of eighteen constitutional amendments.

Pakistan has ratified to become part of SDGs under the United Nations umbrella under which all countries to make progress on SDGs in next 15 years ranging from 2015 to 2030. 

More targets have been envisaged without ascertaining that how the financing requirement would be met especially by the developing countries over the next 15 years period.

In the aftermath of 18th constitutional amendments, more powers have been transferred from center to provinces so it will depend upon the performance of the federating units  

According to presentation tabled into NEC meeting stating that the NEC approved to direct ministries/provinces/special areas and public sector agencies to make concerted efforts in coordination with Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform to effectively align their development framework with SDGs.

The NEC, highest economic decision making forum, also sought authorization of Planning Commissionfor regular monitoring of progress on SDG indicators and directs all stakeholders to allocate additional resources to improve social indicators especially in health, education and living conditions to at least reach close to MDG targets by 2018  The NEC sought endorsement on the formation of a national steering committee for effective coordination and implementation on SDGs targets.

The Planning Commission admitted in its presentation that the country’s performance on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) remained unsatisfactory during period of 2000 to 2015 as the country failed to deliver on many key targets. But it should be kept in mind that the developed world had also failed to fulfill its financing commitments so blaming the developing world would not solve the problem in future as well.  “Our performance on MDGs was far from satisfactory. Out of reported 34 goals, our performance was satisfactory on only 9 goals. Biggest failures were education and health,” said the Planning Commission. “Comparing regionally, our performance was better than Afghanistan only.”  

Advancement towards SDGs will take place only with alignment between growth strategies and SDGs, devising policies and strategies at all levels for SDGs, strengthening monitoring and evaluation (M&E) capacities and reporting standards, generating resources for advancement on SDGs and improving coordination and reporting between district, provincial, and federal governments, the commission said.