Funding is crucial to the implementation of the post-20015 development agenda or sustainable development goals (SDGs) with a 15-year (2016-2030) implementation period, says millennium development goals (MDGs) progress report 2015 of Bangladesh released yesterday.
The world is expected to agree upon a new global sustainable development framework between 25 and 27 September 2015 during the current United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.
The agreed SDGs will succeed MDGs, forged in the year 2000, and will aim to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty, reduce inequality within and between states, achieve gender equality, improve water management and energy and take urgent action to combat climate change.
“Greater funding and innovation are crucial to the implementation of the post-2015
development agenda,” said the report.
As the post-2015 development agenda is being prepared for launching, its breadth and ambition need to be matched by adequate funding and renewed efforts to mobilise innovation, science and technology for sustainable development, it said.
It is important to pay greater attention to the potential of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to attract other
financial flows, both by blending it with non-concessional public finance and by leveraging private finance and investments, it said.
The outcome document of the UN Summit for the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda titled “Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Global Action,” contains five sections, including the 17 SDGs and 169 targets. Once adopted in the current UNGA, the new goals and targets of the SDGs will come into effect on 1 January, 2016.
On the other hand, 189 countries (there are 193 currently) adopted the MDGs having eight goals, 21 targets and 60 indicators in 2000 to bring the people of lagging countries into mainstream development by 2015.
Before ending the terminal year 2015, Bangladesh has already made remarkable progresses in many areas like poverty alleviation, ensuring food security, primary school enrollment, gender parity in primary and secondary level education, lowering the infant and under-five mortality rate and maternal mortality ratio, improving immunisation coverage and reducing the incidence of communicable diseases, according to the report.
However, income disparity reduction, cutting poverty in remote areas and char lands, access to safe water for all and the low economic participation of women still pose a big challenge for Bangladesh despite significant achievements in several goals and targets set in MDGs.
According to the study, Bangladesh needed foreign assistance of $5 billion and $3 billion per year under the baseline and high growth scenarios respectively. The GED publication of “MDG Financing Strategy for Bangladesh” estimated that $78.2 billion was required for attaining all the MDGs in Bangladesh during 2011-15.
The MDG Progress Report 2015 reveals that from 1990-91 to 2013-14, Bangladesh, on an average, received $1.74 billion ODA per year, which has been far short of the required $3 billion per year.
An Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing comprising 30 experts, nominated by regional groups recommended that public finance and aid would be central to support the implementation of the SDGs.
It also insisted that money generated from the private sector, through tax reforms, and through a crackdown on illicit financial flows and corruption was also vital.