Published in The Daily Star on Friday, 15 May 2015.
New agenda for the world
Debapriya talks to Star on MDGs
Sajjadur Rahman
The Millennium Development Goals or MDGs, which were adopted in 2000, are coming to an end this year. Lots of talks have already surfaced about the successor of the MDGs. Accordingly, the United Nations member states, NGOs and the private sector have been holding meetings for the last couple of years, aiming to work out a new set of goals for the post-2015 agenda. The Open Working Group (OWG), formed under the aegis of the UN General Assembly, is at the final stage of giving shape to a new agenda called Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs.
The Daily Star recently talked to Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, distinguished fellow at Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), to know about the pros and cons of the SDGs. The eminent economist, who is also the chair of the Southern Voice on Post-MDGs, a forum of 49 think-tanks of Global South across three continents, also shed light on how Bangladesh should go forward with the new global agenda.
Bhattacharya said the MDGs were mainly about the poor in the low-income countries, but the SDGs are supposed to go far beyond with goals proposed for productive employment, urbanisation, infrastructure, standard of governance, income inequality and environmental conservation. The number of goals reflects the broadness of the vision. There are 17 overarching goals and 169 targets in the SDGs compared to only eight goals in the MDGs.
“SDGs are multi-sectoral and multi-dimensional and the role of the line ministries, such as education, health, planning etc will be supreme. Each ministry will be the leader in its own field. So coordination among ministries and agencies will be an extraordinary challenge,” said Debapriya.
The issue of financing the goals forms another major difference between the MDGs and the SDGs. Talks have already surfaced about how the SDGs will be financed, he said.
The economist also hailed Bangladesh for its success in achieving many MDGs far ahead of many other countries. In fact, Bangladesh now stands above the average countries in the global landscape as its reporting, which was regular, gave good inputs. In many ways, many countries look upon Bangladesh as a leader now.
Yet, the country will face a lot of challenges in implementing the SDGs. Proper coordination among the ministries, data availability and weak governance, among others, were the challenges he highlighted.