Finance minister stresses inter-ministerial efforts for SDGs

ISLAMABAD: Dr Shamshad Akhtar, the caretaker finance minister, on Monday said all the concerned ministries should join hands for the implementation of sustainable development goals (SDGs) and define their roles and responsibilities at the ministerial level.

“In this consultative process, stakeholders from private sector and business community can also be taken on board,” Akhtar said at the launching of Data Reporting Gaps Study, developed by Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform (MPD&R) in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

A comprehensive website on SDGS was also launched on the occasion. Akhtar, who also holds the portfolio of minister for planning, development and reform, noted that the study would significantly facilitate the national and provincial governments in their decision-making process, and for generating and using data for various functions.

The minister maintained that the contextualisation of SDGs had a significant role to play and that the sector needs much focus.

She stressed that the country must step forward by developing a knowledge base and the ministry should serve as a knowledge hub and maintain a main body of literature which should have an integrated approach to study different sectors like energy, water, agriculture etc.

“Although the government has already worked upon developing and strengthening horizontal and vertical linkages, it however needs to be fast-tracked through engaging private sector, youth, academia and civil society.

The minister emphasised that the country had to jot down as how the provincial and local statistical organisations would take forward the enhancement and augmentation of data itself.

“A significant number of capacity development programs will be required for not only what we have but also to manage the missing information,” Akhtar said.

The minister stressed to strgthen focus on areas like pollution, climate change, and especially the complex arena of environmental accounting. She also advised to map out all the short- and long-term training programs at different levels.

Shoaib Ahmad Siddiqui, federal secretary planning, said report aims at disseminating the key findings of the data analysis, discussing various/alternate solutions to fill data gaps, building consensus with ministries and reporting agencies to monitor and report according to their respective indicators mentioned in the data reporting gaps, and the identification of focal persons from each ministry and their respective departments for continuous support on data and other SDGs related issues.

Ignacio Artaza, country director UNDP Pakistan, stated the study provided stakeholders with the insights for the ongoing work, which was crucial for timely development of new plans, initiatives and to understand where and when resources are required.

Artaza highlighted the UNDP and MPD&R were also collaborating with Pakistan Bureau of Statistics to support data collection and aligning national surveys with the SDGs.

He mentioned that the launched website aims to develop a data portal for all users to extract information on SDGs progress in Pakistan. Zafar ul Hassan, chief SDGs, MPD&R, said the major objectives of this report were to examine whether data was available, to examine the level of disaggregation of this available data, and to develop a fact sheet for each indicator at the disaggregated level.