The National Assembly (NA) is holding a conference on millennium development goals (MDGs) for parliamentary task force on Sunday (today).
It is the initiative of MNA Mariyum Aurangzeb, who is also the chairwoman of the Task Force on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The conference will engage around 90 lawmakers from the NA, Senate and all the four provincial assemblies as well as legislative assemblies of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan.
The conference will provide interaction among lawmakers and national and international experts, facilitators and speakers participating and sharing their valuable knowledge on various themes of Pakistan’s social development reforms agenda. It will be a watershed in Pakistan’s endeavour for equitable and just development of all its citizens as for the first-ever public representatives from all provincial and legislative assemblies, will come together with their counterparts at parliament to show their commitment and ownership towards development with a cohesive approach to deal with basic human issues such as health, education, poverty reduction, women and children, environmental conservation and other related areas.
Just to recall the inaugural Millennium Summit 2000, held in New York by bringing together representation of 189 UN member states, announced rights based global commitment, in the shape of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Pakistan committed to 16 targets and 41 indicators against which progress towards achieving the Eight Goals of the MDG’s is measured. Time series data available for 33 of these indicators reveal that Pakistan is on track to achieve the targets on 9 indicators, whereas its progress on 24 indicators is off track.
Therefore, the present government which is fully committed to make progress on MDGs as well as to provide a comprehensive input on new and inclusive Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), has made an inclusive strategy by forming national and provincial MDGs task forces.