Media to play vital role in implementation of SDGs: Marriyum
ISLAMABAD – Minister of State for Information, Broadcasting, National History and Literary Heritage Marriyum Aurangzeb Thursday said that media had a vital role to play in successful implementation of sustainable development goals (SDGs).
Speaking on the eve of 7 SACOSAN South Asian Conference on Sanitation here, the minister said that international experts on water and sanitation were attending the event which was an honour for Pakistan.
She said that for the partners and stakeholders, the agenda was to align the synergy and partnership in integration in what we need in development sector. She said that Pakistan has made considerable improvement in terms of sanitation during past few years. Pakistan has been implementing targets of SDGs in alignment with vision 2025, she added.
She said that there was always a challenge that how national goals could be integrated with its international commitments. She said it was fortunate that at the time when SDGs were being introduced, Pakistan was developing its own development goals.
The minister said that Pakistan was the only country which constituted a full fledged parliamentary task force on SDGs on the direction of Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq. The task force had uniqueness in the sense that it had provincial chapters as well as playing the role of oversight, review of the SDGs and representing the people in the assemblies on SDGs. She said leaving no one behind was the slogan of both SDGs and Vision 2025. The minister said that SACOSAN was also unique as it also left no one behind and had representation from all regions and the countries deliberating on plan on sanitation 2030.
She said availability of right data was imperative for policy making process and data analysis. The minister said that Pakistan successfully conducted census after 19 years, another milestone achieved in data analysis. She said that joint sector review is another milestone achieved with all stakeholders especially provincial institutions participation in WASH and SDGs reviews.
She called for creation of awareness on water and sanitation among the public through media. She said that media was well aware about the SDGs and PTV and Radio Pakistan had been conducting
specific and relevant programmes on education, health, mother and child, water and sanitation. The minister said that major focus was to align all relevant polices at the federal level with the SDGs, and water and sanitation policies were also a part of it. She said that the importance of this conference could be realized from the fact that President of Pakistan attended its opening session and the federal minister for Climate Change was leading that conference.
Marriyum Aurangzeb said that integration of all bordering countries was vital as all such issues transcend boundaries. She said that Pakistan achieved a milestone in facing the challenge of eradication of polio from the country.
We tend to focus on supply side of the issue, but time had come to focus on the demand side of the development and involve the local communities reduce burden on the resources, she said. In Pakistan there was bulge of youth and they should be engaged to raise their awareness on issues like water and sanitation, she added.
She said there was need to think out of box and use tools of broadcasting, film industry, which were vital to change the mindset of people through entertainment. She also called for using the civil society and influential groups of the country to achieve the desired results.
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