Commending Bangladesh’s success in reducing poverty and the child mortality rate over the last 10 years, speakers laid emphasis on applying the lessons of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to effectively implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
They were speaking at a round table titled “MDGs to SDGs” organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) at a city hotel yesterday.
Speakers also emphasised partnership, monitoring, the quality use of public money and the value of a free media and civil society to successfully implement the SDGs.
Emphasising good governance, transparency and accountability, speakers said the effective use of resources and strong monitoring can make things easier for Bangladesh to be successful.
UNDP Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific Haoliang Xu said: “The SDGs are universal. These goals are not only for developing countries but also for developed countries.”
“So we all need to work together to achieve them. No single entity can achieve these goals alone,” said Xu, who chaired the discussion.
He said Bangladesh has done extremely well in the last 10 years in reducing poverty, child mortality and has seen improvement in other sectors. “So there is a lot to be commended.”
Xu said it was highly commendable that Bangladesh had already taken positive steps in integrating the SDGs into its formulation on the 7th Five Year Plan.
“The SDGs are emerging at a time when the world is witnessing lots of challenges. The world is divided today. Who is killing whom, we do not know. However, the good news is SDGs are really glimmers of hope,” said Mahfuz Anam, the editor of the Daily Star.
Ahsan Mansur of Policy Research Institute (PRI) said the government is fully committed to implementing the SDGs but public financing management should be improved significantly.
Much more can be done to improve the quality of public spending, he said.