March 19, 2024

Kenya likely To Miss 2030 Sustainable Development Goals

SDGs country director Florence Sevuo (Photo/Courtesy)

By DAMA KALAMA

Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com

The government has been challenged to revisit to keep on track plans to attain sustainable development goals (SDG’s) by 2030 as non-state actors continue to grapple with economic and social impacts of the Covid-19 crisis.
The SDGs country director Florence Sevuo is concerned that with challenges posed by the Covid-19, the country may experience slow implementation of the development goals.

“We have to rethink and come up with strategies on how to stay resilient because we have a lot of challenges that have been occasioned by the Covid-19 disease. We need to have political goodwill,” she said.

According to the OECD’s latest Global Outlook on Financing for Sustainable Development, developing countries are facing a shortfall of USD 1.7 trillion (Sh17 trillion) in the financing they would need this year to keep them on track for the SDGs.

“The successful implementation of the SDGs in Kenya faces a number of challenges. Some of which include; inadequate capacity to implement, monitor and report on SDGs; resource gap in financing SDGs and data gap in terms of its quality, timeliness and level of disaggregation as well as absence of baseline data,” she added. 

NOT ON TRACK

According to National treasury and planning administrative secretary Nelson Gaichuhie Kenya is not on track to achieve some of the 169 targets which raises concern. 

SDGs country director Florence Sevuo (Photo/Courtesy)

He was speaking in Mombasa when he officially opened 2020 SDGs national stakeholders conference that brought together different sector players. 

“A number of goals, targets and indicators need to be fast tracked as they are still lagging behind. They include poverty reduction, reduction in maternal mortality, malaria and non -communicable diseases, unemployment, some gender related indicators, and environmental degradation among others,” he said. 

According to the 2020 Voluntary National Review (VNR), presented by the Cabinet Secretary to the UN member States during the 2020 High Level Political Forum, good progress has been made in SDG 3(Health), SDG 4 (Education), SDG 6 (Provision of clean water and sanitation), SDG 7 (access to clean and affordable energy) and SDG 11 (ensuring sustainable cities and communities).

He hinted that the government is keen on mainstreaming of the SDGs in the planning frameworks at both the National and County levels, the continuous awareness creation and capacity building programmes position the country to better implement the SDGs. 

SDGs country director Florence Sevuo (Photo/Courtesy)

“The Government also continues to implement social protection programmes and affirmative action’s programmes  across the country with the aim of ensuring that all Kenyans live in dignity and exploit their human capabilities for social and economic development,” said Mr Gaichuhie. 

The theme of the conference is “A Decade of Action, reaffirming our collective commitment to the SDGs and rebuilding from COVID 19 Pandemic” and comes at a time when the world is really weighted heavily under the burden of COVID 19 pandemic.

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