Liberia considers partnership on SDGs

Liberia’s Finance and Development Planning Minister Boima Kamara has encouraged the need to have collaboration to identify innovative and cost effective solutions to complex policy challenges in the midst of limited resources in order to achieve priorities in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“Nonetheless these challenges, Liberia has made some progress towards domesticating SDGs,” Mr. Kamara said at a one – day SDGs symposium held at the C. Cecil Dennis Auditorium of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Monrovia on Monday. 14 August.

He says in a keynote address that many of the participants at the symposium had common thought on sustainable development in specific areas like economic transformation and poverty reduction, improvement in education and health, development of science and technology, environmental sustainability, and peace and security.

Unfortunately, the Finance Minister observes that “resources are limited,” and therefore demand collaboration to identify innovative and cost effective solutions to these complex policy challenges.

He emphasizes the great importance of strengthening partnership with other governments throughout Africa and non – government stakeholders.

In line with a long term vision outlined in the Agenda 2063 for Africa … that requires collaboration of both governments and non-government stakeholders, Mr. Kamara encourages coordination of works and building of signages to maximize the impact of “our” collective resources.
Mr. Kamara recalls that the Ebola outbreak here and the decline of global commodity prices were two shocks that caused severe devastation in Liberia and the regional economic growth.

But in a reflection, he says in November 2015, the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning in collaborating with Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo Information Services (LISGIS), through UNDP support held a dialogue in Buchanan on enhancing capacity and statistical condition for SDGs domestication.

According to him, the dialogue provided participants of the opportunity to prioritize goals of the SDGs that would be relevant to the development objectives of the country.

Mr. Kamara expresses hope that the SDG Center for Africa Director General Dr. Belay E. Begashaw’s visit here would help participants to assess Liberia’s progress and help stakeholders gain more knowledge and understanding to further improve Liberia’s effort towards achieving the SDGs.

He asked participants to think strategically about priority areas where multi-stakeholders cooperation can yield fruitful results.

Minister of State Minister Sylvester Grigsby recalls Liberia’s pivotal role in the formulation of the goals in the SDG, first as co-chair of the MDGs which was succeeded by the SDGs, and later heading the High Level Panel (HLP) for Africa in drafting the African Position.

As such, Mr. Grigsby says it is very important for Liberia to review progress that has been made towards the implementation of these very important goals which in a way give the participants the index of the kind of progress made towards national development.

The symposium witnessed presentations from different government ministries and agencies including Post and telecommunication, Agriculture, Health, Gender, Children and Social Protection, Water and Sewer, among others.

–By Winston W. Parley