Provincial consultations on SDGs launched

Harare (New Ziana)– The government on Thursday launched the provincial consultations on progress in attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) under the Voluntary National Review (VNR) framework.

Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare permanent secretary Simon Masanga urged stakeholders to contribute to the VNR before the report is taken to cabinet for consideration.

“In line with the country’s mantra of leaving no one and no place behind, the government intends to conduct consultations in all the 10 provinces of Zimbabwe and today marks the first provincial consultation,” he said.

He said persons with disabilities, youth, women and the elderly will be given priority during the consultations and engagements for the VNR using the “whole government” approach of inclusivity.

Masanga commended the agriculture sector for ensuring that the country is food secure as it is part of the SDGs.

“I think you are aware that we are now food secure as a nation and I worked in the agriculture sector for 10 years and during those days we used to import wheat, soya bean and maize and now that’s a thing of the past.”

“Fortunately in 2019 we had developed a “whole of government approach” for monitoring SDGs where we had categorized the targets that were relevant to Zimbabwe and each Ministry was then tasked to mainstream these in their strategic plans. All that information fed into the NDS1 and the targets under the NDS1 are linked to the global agenda”

The Zimbabwe government through the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare is set to participate in New York next year reporting on the SDGs that it has achieved in 2023.

Masanga said the country is midway through the implementation of the SDGs to which it signed up in 2015 and it reported its VNR in 2017 with less data, due to limited time and resources.

SDGs that are crucial in a modern-day society include social services and protection, poverty reduction and value addition, food and nutrition, gender equality, HIV and AIDS, and Public Administration and Governance.

New Ziana