Local Authorities drilled in SDGs

By Robert Kumwenda

District Commissioners, Councilors and mayors from southern region have been drilled on the Role of Local Government in Promoting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Speaking on the sidelines of the regional workshops for the SDGs Deputy Director for Planning and Policy Development in the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development Walusungu Kayira said the workshops are very important in sense that lessons learnt from the implementation of Millennium Development Goals revealed that there w3as limited knowledge on the same to Local Authorities into adequate alignment of the MDGs to the local development plans.

He said in essence they left out the majority of Malawians in the implementation of the MDGs.

“The workshops have therefore been convened at the appropriate time when government is finalizing MDG 111 which will necessitate the review of Local Development plans with an ultimate objective of aligning priorities of the rural and urban councils to both MDG 111 and the SDGs,” He said.

He added that the workshops will instill knowledge of the SDGs to the council officials so that they can completely align priorities in the blue prints to sustainable development.

Kayira further said that the outcome of the workshops will be critical in informing policy direction on the localization of the SDGs at the local sphere of Government and assist the ministry to figure out the nature, scope and modalities of the globe agenda.

Concurring with Kayira, Mayor for Blantyre city council, councilor Wadi Ndipo said the workshops have been done at the right time because local authorities are the ones who stay closer with the poor.

He said knowledge gained from the workshops will benefit the poor because previously, we had the MDGs but they were not Cleary understood as there were no councilors.

“But now the workshops will give the Local Authorities wider knowledge of what the SDGs are in the area of gender equality just to mention a few,” he said.

Government adopted the Decentralization policy and enacted the national development agenda through local authorities.

State President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika was part of the adoption of the agenda 2030 for sustainable development during the UN Sustainable Development Summit which took place from 25 to 27 September in New york, United States of America.

Agenda 2030 for sustainable development is about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDGs are a universal set of goals, targets indicators that all UN member states are expected to use to frame their development agendas and social economic policies.