Despite making some notable advances on certain goals and targets, Asia and Pacific as a region, at its current rate, will not be able to attain any of the 17 SDGs by 2030. An overwhelming majority of the countries have taken concrete steps to create national institutional setups and frameworks to implement the SDGs, including inter-government agency coordination, ensuring policy alignment, and undertaking priority setting and designing roadmaps. However, in localisation of the SDGs and ensuring disaggregated and inclusive implementation of the goals, Asia is facing formidable challenges both at regional and sub-regional levels. Asia is also lagging in terms of addressing the attendant challenges in view of the anticipated data revolution. The present study testifies that regional initiatives towards SDG implementation must be strengthened further as these could contribute significantly to efforts at the national level. A lack of proactive global initiatives (e.g. towards the greater flow of ODA, facilitating technology transfer, favourable market access, and conducive trade rules) has tended to undermine the capacity of regional and sub-regional bodies to draw synergies, and leverage regional initiatives, for more active support towards implementation of the SDGs.
Authors:
Professor Mustafizur Rahman, Distinguished Fellow, CPD
Mr Towfiqul Islam Khan, Senior Research Fellow, CPD
Mr Md. Zafar Sadique, Senior Research Associate, CPD
Published by: Southern Voice