Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, Federal Minister for Planning and Finance on Monday said its really good that Pakistan had achieved the stage to be able to do a stock taking on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) data. She expressed these views while addressing to the launching ceremony of Data Reporting Gaps Study and official website of National Initiative on SDGs. Where now we can see our strengths and weaknesses. She congratulated the core team of the Federal SDGs Support Unit and SDGs Section of Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform on achieving this milestone.

She added that the contextualization of SDGs is also very important in which a lot need to be done. She emphasized that we need to adopt a fast track approach to add more change maker agents by engaging private sector, youth, academia and civil society. We should prepare ourselves and assemble for Voluntary National Report this year, she added.

This report will significantly facilitate the national and provincial governments in their decision-making process, and for generating and using data for various functions. The launch of data reporting gaps study serves four purposes;

Disseminate the key findings of the data analysis, Discuss various/alternate solutions to fill data gaps, Build consensus with ministries and reporting agencies to monitor and report according to their respective indicators mentioned in the data reporting gaps, Identification of focal persons from each ministry and their respective departments for continuous support on data and other SDGs related issues.

Country Director UNDP Pakistan Mr. Ignacio Artaza, stated that Data Reporting Gaps on indicators provides stakeholders insights for our work going forward and it is crucial for timely development of new plans, initiatives and to understand where and when resources are required.

He highlighted that UNDP and Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform are also collaborating with Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, to support data collection and aligning national surveys with the SDGs. He mentioned that this website aims to develop a data portal for all users to extract information on SDGs progress in Pakistan.

Federal Secretary, Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform, Mr. Shoaib Ahmad Siddiqui, welcome all distinguished guests and express his gratitude to the Minister Dr. Shamshad Akhtar for her spearhead ship for her continues support and guidance, who has deep interest on Pakistan’s progress on Sustainable Development Goals, he added that on the very first meeting with the minister SDGs was on the top agenda of interest.

Zafar ul Hassan, Chief SDGs, Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform briefly presented key outcomes of the Data Reporting Gaps study. He shared that 3 major objectives of this report are; 1. Examine whether data is available, 2. Examine the level of disaggregation of this available data, 3. Develop a fact sheet for each indicator at the disaggregated level. This report may serve as a guiding document for all stakeholders to reduce the data reporting gaps, and will eventually help in monitoring SDGs achievements till 2030.

He also shared that Pakistan fares reasonably well in capturing the inclusion and equity aspects of SDGs, Sustainability aspect of data needs substantial improvement and we need to focus on quality of data. Participants from various government departments, civil society, private sector, data collecting agencies, academia and think tanks attended the seminar.

Published in Daily Times, July 10^th 2018.