Federal Minister Planning, Development & Reform Ahsan Iqbal has maintained that the government while devising action plan for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) realized the need to devolve education and health sectors at district level to improve public service delivery and implement the global agenda of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in letter and spirit. Efforts in this regard enabled to have district levels SDGs implementation plans as well as resulted in formulation of broader national framework. Ahsan Iqbal made these remarks while chairing a ceremony for the launch of “Inclusive and Sustainable Development” an analytical Basis and Policy Framework report. Ahsan Iqbal said, “Pakistan has accorded the highest priority to goals which will enable it to join the league of upper middle class countries by 2030”. He said the goals include zero poverty and hunger, universal access to health services, education, modern energy services, clean water and sanitation. The minister said Pakistan was the first country to adopt SDGs 2030 agenda through a unanimous resolution of Parliament as Pakistan Development Goals. “We believe that SDGs agenda of development isn’t an international agenda, it is our own agenda. It reflects our ambition and desire to give our people better quality of life. Therefore, we must take full ownership of SDGs with complete devotion and passion”, he added. He said, the government conducted post-Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) consultations with all stakeholders for coordinating and strengthening efforts at federal and provincial levels to achieve sustainable development and poverty reduction targets. He further maintained that Pakistan Vision 2025, advocates for inclusive and sustainable development as the basic principle on which the future economic endeavors of the country could be based. Ahsan Iqbal said that the Vision 2025 provides a comprehensive national long termstrategy for achieving inclusive growth and sustainable development. Ahsan Iqbal suggested that we have to ensure quality education at all levels to impart best skills to our youth by improving the physical infrastructure, focusing on teachers’ training and curriculum & examination reforms. That is the only way to ensure a sustainable change in our education system. Minister pointed out that most of the areas concerning SDGs fall under the jurisdiction of provinces and their service delivery rests with them.However, realizing capacity issues, the federal government decided to enhance working relationship with the provinces thereby trying her level best to provide them every possible support to ensure successful implementation of the SDGs. The minister said that the country was facing acute energy shortage in 2013, the current regime has steered the country out of the crisis as the country was enduring 16 to 20 hours on daily basis. Now after 4.5 years, the country’s economy is being ranked among the five top growing economies of the world. He said the worst power outages had jeopardized the entire system of the country, industrial production remained at lowest level but the current government due to strenuous efforts revived the economy. Owing to various steps taken by the new government in 2013 onwards, he said the country’s economic growth rate reached at 5.3% the highest one during the last 9 years and it was expected to reach at 6%. “Economic growth had stagnated at 3% when this government came into power. Last year, we achieved a growth rate of 5.3% and we are expecting it to reach 6% this year,” said the minister, adding that the industrial growth had increased significantly due to the addition of 11,000MW of electricity to the national grid. ****
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