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Business Reporter
GOVERNMENT has constituted a National Sustainable Development Goals Technical Committee comprising of stakeholders from civil society, business, and development partners to superintend their implementation.

The committee will coordinate implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals to ensure the targets are met timely, with the national progress report being produced annually, Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa said recently.

Also known as the Global Goals, the SDGs build on the Millennium Development Goals; eight anti-poverty targets that the world was committed to achieve by end of last year.

The MDGs, adopted in 2000, aimed at a number of issues that included reducing poverty, hunger, disease, gender inequality, and increase access to water and sanitation.

While some progress was achieved on the MDGs, poverty has not been eradicated.

The SDGs, the broader sustainability agenda, go much further than the MDGs and seeks to address the root causes of poverty and the universal need for development.

They comprise of 17 goals and 169 targets. Some of the goals the SDGs seeks to achieve include end poverty in all its forms, end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, promote sustainable agriculture, ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all as well as to achieve gender equality.

In addition, the Global Goals intends to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all, promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, build resilient infrastructure and promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation

Addressing inequality within and among countries, make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, take urgent action to combat climate change and its impact, conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development are some of the objective the SDG’s seeks to achieve.

Minister Chinamasa said the SDGs were in line with Zim-Asset objectives, and the Government would be prioritising their implementation from 2016 going forward. “The implementation of our National Budgets will also be against the background of our obligations with regards to the post 2015 Sustainable Development Goals,” said the minister. “These will guide the global development agenda for the period 2015-2030, following their adoption by the United Nations Summit in September 2015.”