ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal said on Thursday that Pakistan would be included amongst the top ten economies in the world by 2047.
Addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Conference in Islamabad, the minister said that development is possible only through the implementation of SDGs.
He said that it is also to be taken into consideration that the country’s budget would be compatible with the SDGs.
The minister said that parliamentarians had a very important role regarding sustainable development goals and the work of distribution of resources is done by the Parliament.
The Ministry of Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives hosted the conference, bringing together experts, parliamentarians, national and international stakeholders, UN representatives, academia, civil society members, and specialists from diverse fields. The conference aimed to develop effective implementation strategies and policies to achieve the SDGs by 2030.
Secretary Planning Awais Manzur Sumra acknowledged the national imperative of reporting progress on the SDGs and demanded stakeholders prioritize initiatives fostering sustainable development.
He urged for a critical reevaluation of implementation strategies to ensure alignment with the core principles of the SDGs, stressing the need for multi-stakeholder engagement to accelerate progress towards a sustainable future.
The conference deliberations focused on environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainable development.
The environment session stressed the need for effective implementation of environmental policies with clear milestones, sharing data sets on environmental indicators, adopting carbon credit policies to boost exports, and establishing technical and apex committees on the environment.
The session also underlined the importance of smart urbanization, renewable energy, and the inclusion of marginalized communities in policies and plans.
Economic Session
The economic session emphasized the need for inclusive development, enhancing women’s role in labor participation, focusing on the twenty poorest districts, and allocating resources to address poverty.
The session also stressed the importance of efficient energy use, protecting labor by ensuring minimum wages and formalizing informal labor.
The social session focused on the imperative for inclusive education policies, implementing behavior change communication strategies for family planning, achieving universal health coverage targets by 2030, and decreasing social and income inequalities for females in agriculture.
