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.”