WHILE the world came together in New York last week to ‘intensify the drumbeat of progress’ towards achieving the Global Goals, drive action and raise awareness, it was business as usual in Pakistan with politics dominating the public discourse as usual.

Bogged down with a financial crunch and fears of sovereign default, the focus of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s new government has been on raising resources both internally and externally. The country’s pledge to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the distance covered since 2015 is not on the agenda of the month old administration.

Compared to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) however, there is greater involvement of the corporate sector in trying to achieve the SDGs. Fuad Hashmi, executive director, Centre of Excellence in Responsible Business at the Pakistan Business Council, mentioned initiatives of several companies in this regard; a list of which was not readily available.

Unfortunately, a country that is ranked 150 out of 189 on the Human Development Index can’t afford to wait for everything else to fall in place before it addresses issues of poverty and hunger. The UN backed SDGs that aim to mainstream, accelerate and monitor progress on key social indicators therefore deserve uninterrupted government attention irrespective of the party in power.

With the conclusion of the third year of the SDGs, Pakistan needs to get its act together if it hopes to avoid embarrassment when it reports its progress at the global forum next year

So far there has been nothing to indicate that the ruling party — which won the elections on the slogan of ‘change’ — is even aware of the UN sponsored global drive towards people centric sustainable development.

Annexure-II: Sustainable Development Goals by Dawndotcom on Scribd

Many government insiders told of tensions in the relevant circles over the utilisation of the budget dedicated to pursuing the Goals. “There is no justification for the unnecessary hiring of armchair consultants and globetrotting habits of people vested with the responsibility of working on the agenda for the poor,” commented a senior officer of the Planning Commission.

Experts thought the political preoccupation of policymakers and bureaucratic lethargy weakened the momentum to reorient policy direction.

Shahid Naeem, recently appointed project director SDGs in the Planning Commission, insisted that the SDGs are getting the attention they deserve in Pakistan.

“We are at it. The last parliament adopted SDGs as a national development plan. In March 2018 the National Economic Council endorsed the SDG National Framework that lists provisional goals and targets. A mechanism is in the making to align policies and plans at all tiers of the government and allocate resources to achieve targets,” he stated in an effort to contest the impression of neglect.

The SDG National Framework, prepared under the guidance of the last planning minister Sartaj Aziz, is a document that attempted to translate global agenda in the local context. Though clearly a product of an exercise undertaken in haste, drawing on data from varied official documents, it did identify baseline of key social indicators and projected quantifiable targets.

“All provinces have also been asked to develop provincial frameworks by the end of the current month. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has already prepared and submitted the document and the other three are working on it.

“We intend to deliberate and finalise the process and get it approved by the cabinet next month. It will provide a basic reference to help gauge and report progress based on globally accepted standards,” he informed. Pakistan has been allotted time to submit its first Voluntary National Review at the UN SDGs congress in 2019. Every year 45 country reports are discussed.

He also mentioned challenges in localizing and reporting progress on universal set of 17 goals, 169 targets and 241 indicators that focus on inclusivity, equity and sustainability in a country where the information and data is both weak and scattered. “We are studying linkages and how a rupee invested in one sector accrues benefits to other related areas. It is difficult to quantify returns of development spending but assessing the multiplier effect of each rupee spent is important for evolving an effective strategy of maximizing returns”, he said over phone from Islamabad.

For a head start on a 15 year journey towards goals and to skip bureaucratic barriers Pakistan launched ‘National initiative on SDGs’ in collaboration with the UNDP. Under this the federal and four provincial units were established for monitoring and evaluation of SDGs indicators.

Neil Buhne, UN resident coordinator and UNDP resident representative in Pakistan was fairly satisfied with the pace of progress on the SDGs here. “Pakistan has done pretty good.” He hoped that the global goals would serve as a basis for the development strategy of the new government in Islamabad and the four provinces.

Pakistan is among the first few countries where the SDGs have been integrated in economic policy documents.

With the PTI government still in its settling phase and the bureaucracy readjusting to a new team of masters, relevant ministers were reluctant or not sufficiently informed to offer their assessment of progress on the Sustainable Development Goals.

With the conclusion of the third year of the SDGs, Pakistan needs to get its act together if it hopes to avoid embarrassment when it reports its progress at the global forum next year.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, September 24th, 2018