Papua New Guinea Adopts new Sustainable Development Goals

The New Sustainable Development Goals

By FIDELIS SUKINA

It is 2015 and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) 2000-2015 are due for the global community.

There are new set of goals which were adopted recently in September 2015,  called the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) and has 17 goals nine more than the previous goals.

Several goals have been achieved by some countries but The eight MDGs –which focused on reducing poverty and hunger; achieve universal education; promote gender equality; reduce child and maternal deaths; combat HIV, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; develop global partnerships – failed to consider the root causes of poverty and overlooked gender inequality as well as the holistic nature of development.

The recent trip by Deputy Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea Leo Dion and Foreign Affairs Minister Rimbink Pato to the 70^th United Nations General Assembly saw Papua New Guineas support for the SDG’s and Papua New Guineas and the Pacific’s stance on the oceans which can be found on Goal 14.

“PNG’s contribution at the international level as chair of the Pacific Islands forum was our leadership in securing consensus among PIF countries in proposing SDG 14 which is to conserve and use the oceans, seas and marine resources in a sustainable manner”. Dion said at the General Assembly in New York

Papua New Guinea is one of the countries that did not achieve the goals but has improved the situation to meet certain standards from its previous status quo.

Papua New Guineas Prime Minister when asked during the Pacific Islands forum about the countries stand in the New SDG’s and why we didn’t achieve all our MDG’s compared to other pacific Islands

He said PNG was improving especially in terms of universal education but because of population and remoteness we were still lagging behind on other MDG goals.

“In terms of countries achieving the MDG’s smaller pacific Islands states are achieving because of smaller population sizes.”

“Papua New Guinea is the Biggest country in the region with 8 million People most living in rural communities that are sometimes in accessible it is challenging, but over the last two years like Universal Education we are putting more kids in schools in the last two years compared to some countries in the world we will achieve it over time it is not fair to say that we are lagging behind I can assure you we will get there.”

Patrick Duong regional program adviser for the United Nations who was present during the forum said the way things look for the pacific was different, adding that we have different issues and must find ways to address them.

“The Language  of development has changed today we   talk about the quality of education few years back we were mentioning access to education, but  access to education is somehow manageable now we have quality and relevance of education that need to be addressed”

“In  the pacific the question is what do you do with your education, maybe you don’t need to go to tertiary education maybe you  need more  vocational training that’s where the labor market is or training related to climate change so how can government adapt itself to get quality education”.

“Truly the language has changed  we cannot eradicate poverty but rather reducing the gap of the rich and the poor and getting and trying to leverage some commitment for better outcomes from extractive industries for sustainability”. Duong said

Within the 17 SDG’s are 169 targets. Targets under goal one, for example, includes reducing by at least half the number of people living in poverty by 2030, and eradicating extreme poverty (people living on less than $1.25 a day). Under goal five, there’s a target on eliminating violence against women, while goal 16 has a target to promote the rule of law and equal access to justice.