System revamping a must to pace up progress on SDGs: experts

Islamabad: Development expert and civil society practitioners while speaking to the participants of a webinar identified lack of authentic data, capacity to deliver, skilled human resource and paucity of funds as the key challenges for achieving the targets of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at its required pace. Last five years have shown improvement in some of the SDGs indicators while most of them remained unchanged. Slow pace is alarming for Pakistan, and the country needs to review its mechanisms running the SDG regime.

The experts suggested wider awareness on grassroots level, fiscal devolution, collaboration and coordination among the stakeholders and partners to pace up progress on achieving the targets. Despite five years in practice, a comprehensive integrated system is missing while integration of institutional output also lacks besides meagre participation of industry and civil society. The experts also suggested having a universally accessible database and a digital platform to showcase the accumulated output for a well-deserved outlook for the external world. It would bring much needed development partnerships, and technical and financial resources too.

The webinar war organized by the Development Communications Network (Devcom-Pakistan) and DTNTV on the subject “SDG Regime: Where we are five years after” on Tuesday. The panel of experts included Economic Advisor on SDGs to the Planning Commission of Pakistan Ali Kemal, Senior Technical Advisor to National Assembly Taskforce on SDGs Chaudhary Muhammad Shafiq, Team Lead National Assembly Taskforce on SDGs Hassan Hakeem, WASH and Water Conservation Expert Nadeem Ahmed, Sustainable Industry expert Bilal Mustafa Syed, Dean Strategy and Marketing Hamdard University Prof. Dr. Muhammad Kamran Naqi Khan, and advocacy and outreach expert Zahida Quadri. Devcom-Pakistan and DTNTV Director Munir Ahmed hosted and conducted the webinar.

Speaking on the occasion, Ali Kemal said: Pakistan was the first country to endorse the 2030 Development Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. A unanimous resolution to this effect was passed by the National Assembly and since then the SDGs were incorporated in the national development agenda.

The stakeholders for the institutionalization of the SDGs include parliamentarians, provincial and local governments, think tanks, academia, private sector and other development partners. He said as many as 31 focal persons were appointed in different ministries to coordinate the SDGs mainstreaming in the development projects. But unfortunately, every other time they are changed that hamper consistency in the coordination and marred the performance too.

Talking about the challenges to SDGs targets, he said financial inclusion, funds and innovation to handle the process of progress on the indicators are major shortcomings. Mainstreaming of SDGs into development projects and mapping of the indicators, grassroots level awareness and data reporting would immensely improve Pakistan’s performance on SDGs. He urged the media and civil society to come up with the vibrant solutions to improve the conditions.

Chaudhary Muhammad Shafiq said: The National Assembly taskforce on SDGs has created awareness among the parliamentarians about the importance of SDGs which they believe would improve quality of life of their voters. Because of the awareness, he said, the parliamentarians adopted the SDGs framework in the National Assembly session. He said the NA Taskfoce is going to launch the Constituency Scorecard to measure the development in the context of SDGs indicators after the success of Citizens Scorecard that supported the inclusion of citizens’ valuable inputs.

Devcom-Pakistan Director Munir Ahmed said: SDG-17 is the last in the row but very important. It is overlooked too despite being the backbone of all – the partnerships. No SDG would have meaningful success without substantial partnerships, sharing of resources, skills and capacity, coordination and collaboration. Segregated efforts would not bring desired results. Unfortunately we could harness the potential of international partnerships but have also to do so at domestic level too. Hassan Hakeem said: The NA Taskforce on SDGs is reaching to the 273 constituencies with the support of provincial and local authorities, public and civil society organizations. Data gaps are very high that could be avoided with a live online doc where departments should be updating their data in real time. Streamlined coordination would improve overlapping only if the data is provided and managed properly. He said we need to integrate the legal frameworks for improved monitoring and reporting to ensure the subjective outlook for subsequent reporting on the UN SDGs platform. We also need to improve horizontal communication mechanisms.

Talking about the SDG-6, Nadeem Ahmad said: Only water and sanitation indicators are improved while rest remains the same. The statistics show that 91 per cent wastewater remains untreated. Hand-washing remains at 60 percent despite all Covid-19 awareness campaigns. Pakistan is one of the countries where underground water is extracted at higher ratios while recharge is very low. It would make Pakistan more vulnerable to water availability to all.

Prof. Dr. Muhammad Kamran Naqi Khan pointed out many structural issues with the SDGs regime in Pakistan. Despite all tall claims, the federal and provincial governments could not engage local governance, district authorities, and local public representatives. Fiscal devolution was very imperative but not done. Instead of strengthening the local systems for meaningful engagement for development, they were wrapped up. We hardly see any efficient data management. We need to have 2-3 years integrated PSDP plan if we are serious to take the pace of progress on the SDGs.

Adil Rasheed asked to overhaul the entire system from improving the planning to management and service delivery. He said the system is inefficient to deliver the required results. Adequately trained and dedicated human resources are required to work on automated tools to ensure time-bound efficient delivery of tasks.