Ministry of National Development Planning says Government has set a conducive environment for implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and will continue to assess its performance and check for areas needing further refinement.

Minister of National Development Planning Alexander Chiteme, has since urged media houses to play a critical role in raising public awareness on (SDGs) voluntary national review by providing a platform for public discussions and allow Government and other stakeholders to be held accountable.

Mr Chiteme says the SDGs overarching goal is to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. 
“The core principles of the agenda 2030 include: universality, leaving no-one behind, interconnectedness and indivisibility, inclusiveness and multi-stakeholder partnerships,” Mr. Chiteme said.
“To actualize these principles by 2030, United Nations member states need to follow-up and review implementation of the SDGs through the Voluntary National Reviews at the United Nations High-Level Political Forum.”

He explains that the voluntary national reviews at the High-Level Political Forum are intended to share experiences on progress on the implementation of the SDGs.   
“Zambia has volunteered to be peer reviewed during the 2020 high level political forum. The process involves the preparation of a national SDGs implementation report whose findings will be presented at the forum,” The Minister said.

“The government has mainstreamed eight-six (86) percent of SDGs targets into the Seventh National Development Plan and this his implies that the implementation of SDGs in Zambia is being done concurrently with the implementation of the 7NDP, and consequently, monitoring and reporting on SDGs is being done using the existing structures used to monitor and report on the 7NDP programme implementation.”  Mr Chiteme said.

The Minister said the structures for monitoring and reporting including overall coordination of SDGs involve district development coordinating committees, provincial development coordinating committees, cluster advisory committees and the national development coordinating committee.