Dr Grace Bediako
Acting Director-General of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Dr Grace Bediako, has indicated that Ghana is on track to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
She disclosed this in an interview with DAILY GUIDE on Thursday at the Mensvic Hotel on the sidelines of a pre-May Day forum organized by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) Ghana and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) under the theme: “Sustainable Development Goals & Decent Work: The Role of Social Partners.”
The main aim of the forum was to assess the implementation of the SDGs by the government.
It brought together about 700 participants, comprising TUC and its 20 affiliate national unions, heads of Specialized Departments of TUC, among others.
According to her, Ghana made some progress before the SDGs, an offshoot of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), came into force in 2015.
The country has covered about 70 percent of the SDGs, and the only target under the SDG that has not been tackled is the Consumer Protection Goal which was not part of the MDGs,” she said.
“Ghana was very much part of all the negotiations leading up to the adoption of the SDGs in 2015. And what we set out to do is to relate the SDGs with our plans.”
According to her, “At the time of the adoption of the SDGs, we already had the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda which run from 2014 to 2017.”
She added that “and so that ended last year; it meant that we had two more years to complete that so what we did was to look at the SDGs, the goals and targets.
The acting Director-General indicated that “it turned out that we have covered about 70 percent of the SDGs, an offshoot of the Millennium Development Goals so since that agenda or policy framework was set up to actually implement Millennium Development Goals, we reflected substantially what the SDGs also envisaged.”
By Melvin Tarlue