ISLAMABAD: A sub-committee of the National Economic Council (NEC) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) directed to establish technical committees/working groups of relevant stakeholders in all the federal ministries.

The sub-committee also directed to form a working group under the SDG unit/section of the Ministry of Planning with nominees from the provinces to strengthen coordination for accelerated progress on the SDGs.

It also directed the federal ministries and the provincial departments to develop workable action/implementation plan on the key priority targets identified in national/provincial SDGs framework.

Federal Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives Asad Umar chaired the first sub-committee of the NEC on SDGs, here in Islamabad on Wednesday.

The secretary planning, chief SDGs representatives from provincial P&Ds, and officials from the AJK and the G-B attended the meeting.

The first sub-committee of the NEC on Sustainable Development Goals discussed the existing status of SDGs implementation, institutional arrangements and way forward by government to align SDGs with the development framework in the country, and improve coordination for SDGs monitoring and reporting system.

The sub-committee, in principle, approved the decision of data reporting from surveys administrated by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), which will take the precedence to all other survey sources in case of multiplicity or overlap at both federal and provincial reporting levels.

They decided that the PBS and provincial bureaus will publish SDGs progress report on annual basis based on survey and administrative data sources.

Asad Umar directed them to extend data collection and reporting of relevant SDGs indicators for G-B and the AJK.

The sub-committee discussed the mechanism of data flows to the Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, SDGs reporting, and role of the PBS.

The PBS informed the committee that currently Pakistan can report against 80 indicators. A total of 48 indicators are from surveys administrated by the PBS.

They said that the availability of authentic data is essential for decision making and provision of provincial indicators will help policy makers to identify the regional gaps.

The SDGs Dashboard and SDGs Index are presented before the NEC sub-committee for real-time progress monitoring and reporting of the SDGs in Pakistan.

It will provide comparative analysis of the SDGs progress among provinces, special areas and districts level.

The chief SDGs briefed the meeting that implementation of already approved SDGs framework by federal, provinces and area governments required attention.

After the data gaps report 2018, the SDGs-related indications were added in existing surveys to improve data availability.

The sub-committee reviewed the recommendations on the SDGs and directed provinces of P&Ds to establish SDGs sections with regular staff for the SDGs coordination and implementation.

Speaking to all the delegates, Asad Umar said that the government is committed to providing all possible facilities to the most vulnerable and marginalised sections of the society.

He said that consistent with Prime Minister Imran Khan, the PTI has vision of improving the quality of the life of the vulnerable and weakest segments of society.

The progress report of the sub-committee will be presented in the NEC meeting chaired by the prime minister himself.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021