Senior Advisor Private Sector Engagement for SDGs Farrukh Moriani said that United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in collaboration with Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) and the government will help private sector to gear up economic activities in order to achieve the Sustained Development Goals (SDGs) within the shortest possible time.
He visited FCCI and had detailed discussions with vice President Ahmad Hassan here Wednesday to mobilize private sector and achieve the national initiatives for the SDGs. Giving the details of this five year project, Farrukh Moriani said that Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform, Provincial Planning Departments and UNDP are supporting the establishment of National frameworks to localize international development targets in Pakistan. He further said that SDGs highlight the vital role of the private sector in human development in Pakistan through inclusive business, private finance, public private partnership and innovative solutions to the countries keenest development challenges.
Farrukh said that globally, it has seventeen goals and 169 targets while each target will have two to three indicators. He further said that out of total seventeen goals only few are relevant to Pakistan. He further said that government of Pakistan has neither enough resources nor competency to ensure implementation on all these goals and targets simultaneously.
Hence, we have to fix priorities to achieve the ultimate Sustainable Development Goals. He further said that the role of private sector is very important and his visit to Faisalabad will help him to clearly identify the core issues along with the mode of cooperation between FCCI, UNDP and government in the fields of economic development, environment, gender parity, climate change, health and education etc.
Commenting on the importance and relevance of textile with Faisalabad, he said that UNDP can help local entrepreneurs to improve their efficiency with innovation and the technology up-gradation to enhance its share in export of textile products.Engineer Ahmad Hassan appreciated the basic objective of UNDP and said that Faisalabad has 45 percent population of productive age. Out of it only one lak are enrolled in different Universities but we have to work on the remaining eight lak youth for its mainstreaming by equipping them with market driven technical skills. He expressed concern that ratio between formal and technical education is 1:10. He said that 90 percent passed out students of technical institutes immediately get jobs while the holders of formal degrees or diploma become burden on society as they have to run from pillar to post to get respectable job. He said UNDP should prepare a comprehensive and uniform technical syllabus for the country which could be further divided into different stages according to the grading of the students.
Engineer Ahmed Hassan further said that technical education is imperative to gear up the economic development of the country but despite of its importance, the duration of technical courses has been reduced from one full year to 6 months. The Vice President said that he is planning to visit Vietnam and Thailand to identify the reasons that why these countries made tremendous progress despite of facing Pakistan like situations within last two to three decades. He also mentioned some leading industrial units of Faisalabad that have made wonderful progress in the prevailing and most daunting situation.
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