‘Pakistan progressed well on SDGs despite lack of implementation capabilities’

Islamabad : Rukhsana Naveed, Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Climate Change has said that Pakistan was able to show considerable progress on its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) despite a lack of implementation capabilities.

Rukhsana was speaking at a meeting of parliamentarians on ‘Proposed Parliamentary Caucus on Energy Transition in Pakistan’ organised by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and Rural Development Policy Institute (RDPI) here Friday.

“The challenges such as unauthorized deforestation, need to be dealt an urgent basis to save the environment,” Ms Rukhsana said adding our government is responding to this challenge by providing alternate energy choices and legislation is now there to curb activities such as illegal cutting of trees.

Ms Nafisa Shah, PPP MNA, was of the view that energy is a critical issue for the development of the country. Therefore, we need a well-defined leadership, structure, and pre-defined objectives for the formulation of a relevant platform of the parliamentarians.

Romina Khurshid Alam, MNA, emphasized that we need short-, medium-, and long-term policies to tackle critical issues of climate change and energy. She suggested that the role of think tanks and CSOs in building the technical capacity of the parliament and evidence-based policy formulation should be enhanced.

Aliya Hamza Malik, Parliamentary Secretary for Trade, highlighted that Pakistan aimed at achieving 30% energy through renewables resources which is both an ambitious and realistic target.

The formulation of a green parliamentarian caucus could play a vital role in dealing with these pertinent issues as such actions are immensely important for the betterment of our future generations.

Dr. Abid Qaiyum Suleri, Executive Director, SDPI, stressed how SDPI and RDPI may provide secretarial research and other technical support including coming up with relevant policy briefs to the proposed parliamentary caucus. He said that the role played by United Nations Development Programme in the capacity building of the Parliament and the recent initiative of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) through British Council are commendable to advance this much-needed discourse around climate change and energy.