New ways of thinking can overcome dev challenges

Participants at the concluding session of the national conference on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on Wednesday observed that the country's development has reached a crucial juncture and new ways of thinking for development should be evolved to overcome innumerable challenges in the coming days.
They identified lack of timely and quality data at the national as well as local levels a big challenge.
Sources of funding, improving basic service delivery in public health and education sectors, employment generation and operating the ecosystem are among the challenges to meet 17 goals of the UN agenda, they noted.
General Economic Division of Planning Commission and Governance Innovation Unit under the Prime Minister's Office organised the Second National Conference on SDGs Implementation Review (SIR) 2022 at the Bangabandhu International Convention Centre, that began on Monday.
More than 2,000 guests, officials and representatives from 43 lead ministries/divisions, offices of the divisional commissioners, private sector, development partner agencies, NGOs/INGOs, civic bodies, academia, and research organisations participated in the three-day event.
A parallel session facilitated discussion on the implementation status of SDG-related plans, policies, projects and programmes, initiatives undertaken in implementing SDGs and the ways forward.
In the concluding session, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan was present as the chief guest with Planning Minister MA Mannan in the chair.
Economic Affairs Advisor to the Prime Minister Dr Mashiur Rahman attended it as the special guest while Principal Coordinator (SDG Affairs) at the Prime Minister's Office Zuena Aziz was present as guest of honour.
Member (Secretary) GED Dr Md Kawser Ahmed moderated the session and gave a brief of the outcomes of the conference.
The Home Minister expressed his confidence in attaining the SDGs much earlier than the targeted year of 2030 like the country did at the time of MDG (millennium development goal).
"We'll set another example in the world by attaining the SDGs before 2030" he told the event citing achievements of the country during the past 13 years even at the time of Covid -19 pandemic.
The Planning Minister said Bangladesh has been able to prove its ability to graduate from the position of poverty towards economic emancipation and gender equality.
He called for taking responsibilities to elevate the country to the height of a developed nation with dignity.
'We've overcome the problems of low income, food shortage, poverty, safe drinking water crisis etc,' he said adding that the United Nations have already recognised the successes of the country.
Dr Mashiur Rahman laid importance on generating highly reliable data and removing income and expenditure gap between rural and urban areas saying that reliable data is needed for investment for the future.
He also stressed a new way to analyse the government expenditure, revenue and development budget to ensure proper assessment of the SDG performance of the country.
The conference put forward a set of recommendations to overcome challenges including coordination among ministries/divisions and also between the state and non-state stakeholders, revision of SDG Action Plan and the 8th Five Year Plan, coordination with the non-state stakeholders especially the private sector.

smunima@yahoo.com