ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms, Ahsan Iqbal on Tuesday said that there is a plan to take the local governments on board to achieve Sustainable development Goals (SDGs).
Replying to a question in the Senate, the minister said that Planning Commission will invite all district heads of local governments through provincial planning departments in Islamabad on March 9 for sharing policy options for internalizing SDGs in to local development policies.
He said that provincial and federal governments were also working on various capacity building programs regarding implementation of SDGs at local level.
He said that Pakistan has become the first country to adopt SDGs in its development framework as it made SDGs as linchpin of Pakistan Vision 2025.
He said that Pakistan has devised integrated monitoring framework for sustainable development. He said that federal and provincial governments were productively engaged through different forums on sustainable development framework.
An institutional mechanism was being established in the shape of federal SDG Support Unit linked with provincial SDG Units, he added.
He said that the message of SDGs was taken to grassroots level by holding divisional level awareness seminars where districts were invited to help provincial and federal planning departments for localization of SDGs indicators.
He said that all divisional headquarters of KP and Balochistan were already covered. Seminars are also held in upper part of Punjab and remaining divisions of Punjab and all divisions of Sindh will be covered before March 15, 2017, he added. APP