Implementation of the new global development agenda demands balanced integration of economic, social and environmental dimensions in the national policy frameworks.
This was stated by Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) distinguished fellow Debapriya Bhattacharya while delivering his speech at the United Nations High Level Political Forum 2015 held in New York on Tuesday.
He said successful delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will also need to establish greater coherence within global governance structure.
Debapriya also chaired the Southern Voice on Post-MDGs - a network of 49 think tanks drawn from Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The Forum has been created under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council the United Nation to provide overall guidance to the implementation of the SDGs - successor to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
It has been also entrusted with the task of monitoring the progress in SDG achievement during the next 15 years and ensuring accountability of the process. The SDGs envisage a universal, transformative and inclusive development agenda.
Debapriya pointed out that public policy interventions and collective actions on the part of the citizens will be critical in meeting the challenges of SDG implementation.
In the future, single goal driven approaches will have to be replaced by cluster of goals as to promote synergy among them, to manage spillovers and to contain the trade-offs, he said.
“One of the important tasks in this regard will be putting in place monitoring and evaluation mechanisms at national, regional and global levels which can provide evidence-based assessment of the effectiveness of the new agenda.”
The Forum session was chaired by Ambassador of Croatia Vladimir Drobnjak who is also Vice-President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nation.
He observed that implementation of the SDGs has to be managed at multiple levels which should include from local governments to the United Nations itself.
Most of the speakers at the Forum opined that the national governments should create platforms so as to facilitate all stakeholders’ including the public representatives, private sector and non-government organisations’ participation in the SDG implementation process and review mechanism.
The panelists of the session were Ambassador Karel van Osteroom of the Netherlands, Dr Patrick Birungi, director, National Planning Authority of Uganda and Vice-President of the Czech Parliament Ms Jaroslava Jermanova.
The lead discussants were-Yaya Junardy, president of the Global Compact Network in Indonesia and Galina Angarova representing the Major Stakeholder Group of the Indigenous People.
Sadia Faizunessa, deputy permanent representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations emphasised the need for building capacity at all levels so as to face the emerging policy challenges.
