With 900 days left in the deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Pakistan government and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have joined hands to accomplish the goals.
In his United Nations message, Nicholas Rosellini, UNDP deputy assistant administrator and deputy regional director for Asia and the Pacific said, “Today when Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is scheduled to address the UN General Assembly, UNDP reaffirms its support to the Pakistan government for accelerating progress towards achieving the MDGs.”
“With the level of commitment that the Pakistan government has demonstrated through its different actions in the recent past, I am confident that Pakistan will make substantial progress on some of the lagging MDGs by 2015,” said Rosellini.
Pakistan has upheld its commitment to achieve the MDGs despite various socio-political and economic challenges, natural disasters and internal and external security issues.
The Pakistan government and UNDP have been working closely to promote this agenda through a number of joint initiatives that reflect the adoption of the MDGs in public policy and their adaptation to the local context.
The Planning Commission of Pakistan has played a major role in setting a policy direction for the MDGs, monitoring any progress and coordinating the efforts of different stakeholders.
Center for Research on Poverty Reduction and Income Distribution (CRPRID) established in the Planning Commission with the UNDP’s support has served as a hub of knowledge and policy advice on MDGs through empirical, qualitative and policy-oriented research on key developmental issues.
The center has proved instrumental in poverty measurement, research and analysis of public policies on poverty, progress monitoring of the MDGs through the development of four National MDG reports and has provided technical support to the government in pro-poor policies and programmes.
The Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP), strategic planning documents first formulated in 2000 which identified targeting the poor and vulnerable as one of the key issues and focused on the MDGs, have significantly influenced pro-poor policy-making and spending in Pakistan.
A PRSP monitoring unit created in the Finance Ministry with the UNDP’s support became the government’s core function for PRSP monitoring at the federal and provincial levels, gender-responsive budgeting and impact assessment of public sector pro-poor programmes and has resulted in an increase in pro-poor expenditure from 3.8 percent in 2001 to 9.86 percent in 2011.
Minister for Planning, Development and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal said that in the recent budget, there has been an unprecedented increase in fund allocation for the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), especially for health and education, which reinforces the government’s resolve to achieve the MDGs.”
“We need to invest in youth, technology and innovation to find quick solutions to some of the constraints in achieving the MDGs,” he said.
Recognising the collective efforts and resources needed to accelerate progress, the process of preparing a Pakistan MDG Report 2013 is underway in the Planning Commission with the UNDP’s support.
The report will document Pakistan’s experience in terms of successes and challenges in the journey towards the MDGs, state Pakistan’s priorities for the post-2015 development agenda and will give a final push for the achievement of the MDGs in Pakistan.
The federal and provincial governments have also acknowledged the need for accelerated action and have embarked upon a number of initiatives such as the Prime Minister Youth Programme.
