Assessing State Govt
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, November 14 2017:
Wada Na Todo Abhiyan (WNTA)'s convenor Annie Namala has claimed that various NGOs and CSOs in the country are collectively working and closely observing and assessing therelatedactivities/initiatives taken up by various State Governments of the country, including the North East region in.
order to achieve the seventeen goals of the Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs) adopted by United Nations General Assembly in 2015 .
She was addressing a press meet conference at Manipur Press Club, after participating at the "Regional Consultaion on Sustainable Development Goal: Status of Hunger and Poverty among marginalized Communities" organized by Human Rights Alert (HRA), Centre for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy (CSSEIP) of Manipur University, WNTA and Civil Society Academy (CSA) at Hotel Imphal Classic today.
Namala further informed that WNTA is a CSO consisting of over 4000 civil society organizations across the country and added that her organization is engaged in popularizing, monitoring and advocating SDGs.
Reminding that 193 member States/countries of the United Nations, including India have collectively agreed on achieving 17 goals under an initiative called SDGs by setting 169 targets in their respective countries, the convener said that WNTA, in collaboration with various CSOs and NGOs in different States of India, has primarily monitored and assessed the promises made by various Governments in different States before and during election times.
She lamented that that "Millennium Development Goals" initiated in 2000 and 2015, has not yielded fruitful result as many UN member countries failed to give befitting reply to their promises in connection with the initiative.
While observing that goal number 16 of the SDGs, which emphasized on "delivering justice and bringing peace" is very much linked with the North East States of India, Namala highlighted that some of the main goals of SDGs include eradicating poverty, malnutrition, providing sustainable livelihood to citizens, giving primary and secondary education to all citizens, escalating urbanization besides bringing gender equality and preserving environment in the countries signing the SDGs.
She informed that thousands of workshops and consultations programmes have been organized by her organization in different parts of the country as part of advocating and taking feedback from general public in connection with the welfare programmes promised by Governments in the respective States.
CSSEIP's convener and MU Professor Elangbam Bijoy exuded confidence that the goals of SDGs can be achieved to the maximum extent in Manipur while observing that the Government has a unique nature of giving commitment to the people in connection with welfare schemes.
Conveying that the Centre has asked CSSEIP to make a vision document for the welfare of the citizens in the State under the supervision of Niti Aayog, he informed that the guiding principle for the vision document is SDGs.
He explained that the emphasis of the vision document is given priorities on academic education, social issues, among many others, while stating that a forum has also been created in connection with the task.
HRA's executive director, Babloo Loitongabam informed that many issues were discussed at length during the "Regional Consultaion on Sustainable Development Goal: Status of Hunger and Poverty among marginalized Communities" .
He disclosed that the issue of lifting AFSPA from the North East has been listed in the top priority, among other initiatives/proposals, in connection with work plans of SDGs.
Many other members of various CSOs from outside the State also participated at the press conference.
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