Prime Minister Dr Lotay Tshering, at the Friday Meet last week, said that Bhutan is on track to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
A United Nations global report to evaluate progress on the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda called for countries across the world for urgent, targeted action to avoid reversing the development gains of the recent decades. The report highlights that a new relationship between people and nature is needed as climate change and biodiversity loss threaten progress.
The report compiled by a group of scientists found that the current development model is not sustainable and that the progress made in the last two decades is in danger of being reversed through worsening social inequalities and potentially irreversible declines in the natural environment that sustains the world. The scientists, hence concluded that a far more optimistic future is still attainable, but only by drastically changing development policies, incentives and actions.
Prime Minister Dr Lotay Tshering said that it is a global report and that Bhutan need not worry as the country has localized the SDGs in its development activities.
“Now when we talk about localizing SDGs no country or world would have localized SDGs better than Bhutan. In the first place, we have GNH. There are 17 National Key Result Areas (NKRAs), in the last parliament we have formed a joint committee to monitor SDG, it’s the highest level in the upper and the lower house where we have three groups of MPs-government MPs, Opposition MPs and NC MPs going to form a SDG committee. The last parliament we again decided to let GNHC have a dashboard in SDG monitoring. Nobody has localized this better. SDG theme of leaving no one behind and this government’s theme is narrowing the gap,” said Lyonchhen.
Country’s voluntary report to the United Nations General Assembly in 2018 states that while Bhutan is on track to achieving SDGs, Bhutan faces threats from climate change and disaster risks and economic vulnerabilities. Therefore the report called for the support and cooperation of international community and development partners to ensure that no one is left behind.
Phub Gyem
