Planning minister advocates national consensus to achieve development goals

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal on Wednesday, while calling for evolving a broad national consensus to achieve development goals and uplift the economy, has said that with a declining development budget, continuing political instability and spreading polarization, Pakistan couldn’t progress.

While addressing the “National Meet on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030”, jointly organised by the SDGs Secretariat in collaboration with Mustehkam Parlimaan, a project of the European Union (EU) in Pakistan, the minister also called upon the parliament to develop a roadmap with broad national consensus to achieve the SDGs by 2030.

He noted that a country could not progress in the presence of polarization and anarchy. He stressed that political stability and continuity of policies were a must to take the country forward.

The Minister for Planning said it was a defining moment to learn from past mistakes and put the country in the right direction. As regards the implementation of the SDGs, the minister said the parliamentarians must push for such legislation and allocation of resources in the budget that helped in the implementation of the global goals. He said the parliamentarians should oversee the implementation of the SDGs.

He said “legislation is a prerogative of the parliamentarians which also approves the budget too for all the state servants.” He said that two-thirds of Pakistan’s population consisted of youth but unfortunately the country had been left behind the world.

He added, “Pakistan is at the mercy of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The economic development of the country depends on its policies. When we left the government in 2018, the development budget was Rs1,000 billion which in 2021-22 was reduced to Rs550 billion.”

Further, he said all the stakeholders including the civil society and the local governments should also be taken on board so that the whole state infrastructure could play a role in achieving the SDGs.

The minister said the progress of the SDGs was impacted by the current economic crisis in Pakistan; however, the incumbent government was committed to putting the economy in the right direction which would ultimately help achieve the goals by the given time.

He said the development budget was directly related to the SDGs, but the big challenge was that the federal development budget was shrinking instead of expanding. “In 2018, when we left the government, the allocation for the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) was Rs1,000 billion, but it shrank to Rs550 billion in 2022,” he said, adding that due to fiscal constraints, the government could manage to allocate Rs700 billion for the current fiscal year.

The minister said policy continuity was also important in this regard, but unfortunately, there had been policy disruption in the past. He said in 2015, the world had adopted the SDGs to remove poverty, hunger, and backwardness from across the world, but Pakistan was the first country which adopted these goals as part of its national development agenda in 2014.

Speaking on the occasion, National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, while stressing the need for making joint efforts to achieve the targets set under the SDGs, said that Pakistan had affirmed its commitment to the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development by adopting SDGs through a unanimous resolution in 2016.

He said “Covid-19 has been a major setback for the global economy and our prosperity. The Covid-19 pandemic is transforming how we think about our economies and our societies.”

He added sincere efforts would be critical to ensure a green, resilient, and inclusive recovery from the pandemic. He said that there were several factors affecting the implementation of the SDGs, which included but were not limited to climate change, health, economic growth, poverty, gender inequality and socio-economic challenges.

According to the Sustainable Development Goal Index ranking 2021, Pakistan ranked 129th out of 165 countries, with an overall score of 58 per cent, mainly for its progress on one of the 17 goals of climate action, he added.

“We must join hands to ensure no one, especially children who are deprived of essential nutrients, which directly hinder their growth.” He said that deteriorating health conditions in Pakistan with little to no access to health care services is yet another issue and “as legislators it is our responsibility to provide equal and quality health services to all.”

He said Pakistan was a country that had experienced political and economic turmoil for decades. “Building a world with zero hunger which can positively impact our economies, health, education, equality and social development is integral to building a better future for everyone.”

He said Pakistan was one of the most vulnerable countries to the consequences of climatic change because of its diverse geographical and climatic features.

He said the formation of national accountability and governance structures required to track a nation’s progress on all global goals would also accelerate the progress on each target. He said the event was an opportunity to devise a roadmap that empowers everyone to face the future with confidence.

Speaking on the occasion, Convener National Taskforce on SDGs Romina Khursid Alam said Pakistan was the first country in the world to accept the SDGs as its national development agenda to ensure sustainable human development in conformity with globally set targets ensuring well-being for all.

Romina said the Covid-19 pandemic taught great lessons to the country as it aggravated the scourge of hunger, poverty, inequalities, gender disparity and serious health crisis that demanded the government to prepare a well-informed and coordinated effort at the national and local levels to meet the development goals.

“Nevertheless, with declining economic conditions due to the Pandemic, acute capacity challenges are present in the area of climate change, health, economic growth, gender and poverty. There is a projected slowdown in economic growth from 5.6 percent in 2021 to four percent in 2022. Subsequent to COVID-19, public living in extreme poverty had now risen to 37.7 percent,” she said.

Alam mentioned that SDG-2 aimed at eliminating hunger and malnutrition. However, the prevalence of stunting growth has reduced by seven per cent in the past five years among children under the age of five. “Furthermore, the country relies heavily on its climate-sensitive land, water and forest resources for livelihoods and food security, – with agriculture remaining a crucial source of employment for 42 percent of the population.”

EU Ambassador Dr Riina Kionka in her introductory remarks said the EU was very pleased to be with the SDGs Taskforce Secretariat of Pakistan and also recognised Pakistan’s efforts for achieving SDGs by 2030.

She added that Pakistan had designed a comprehensive provincial and federal level SDGs framework. The EU envoy said, “Pakistan lags behind its peers in achieving SDGs. Despite early progress, the continuity in poverty and unemployment remains a concern. However, its important to recall that people are the centre of every endeavour linked to SDGs.”

Dr Kionka said achieving the SDGs demanded tough political choices whereas the Pakistani parliament had a critical role in achieving SDGs with critical legislation and its strict implementation to ensure the accomplishment of development goals.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022