Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, yesterday reiterated country’s commitment towards mainstreaming the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into its national plans. Udoma said this at the Annual High Level Policy Dialogue on Development Planning in Africa (HLPD), with the theme, “Mainstreaming the Sustainable Development Goals into National Development Plans’’ in Abuja. Udoma, represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Mrs. Fatima Mede, urged participants to promote coordination and coherence among African planners in domesticating and mainstreaming SDGs in their national plans.
“As we make eff orts to mainstream the SDGs in our respective national plans, let us not forget to do same for the African-focused Agenda 2063. “Th e point of emphasis must be social development for our people, inclusive economic development for prosperity, inclusive societies and responsive institutions for peace and environmental sustainability for the planet. “I challenge you to think through the possible connections and synergies that can be formed across African countries in mainstreaming the SDGs in our national plans,’’ he said. Th e minister expressed optimism that participants at the end of the forum would be better equipped on best approaches and tools to mainstream the SDGs into their respective national development planning processes.
Th e HLPD 2017 is aimed at brainstorming on the modalities for mainstreaming SDGs into national development planning process with emphasis on policy planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting. According to the minister, the overall goal of the event is to ensure the eff ective implementation of SDGs for all Africans through improving lives of the people on the continent. He said the event was timely as many African countries were in the process of fi ne-tuning their national development plans and seeking out ways to mainstream the SDGs into their national plans. Th e minister said Nigeria had made signifi cant progress in mainstreaming the SDGs into its national plan, adding that concerted eff orts were being made to mainstream it into the annual budgets at the federal and state levels.
