Implementation of SDGs will be challenging — Nana Oye Lithur

The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, has stated that the low level of knowledge among key national stakeholders of the SDGs is the main challenge which could hinder the implementation of the development goals.

She further noted that this could also affect the effective incorporating and monitoring of the SDGs in national policy and programme frameworks.

According to her, the fact that the SDGs are emerging in national discourse on the post-2015 agenda means that there are still significant portions of the body politic and institutional establishment in countries, which are still not fully apprised of the SDGs.

Nana Oye Lithur was speaking at a forum of about 150 decision-makers from government and CSOs hosted by UN Women, the Danish Mission to the United Nations and Women Deliver alongside the UN General Assembly meeting in New York.

The discussions were on “How to make the SDGs matter most for women and girls.”

Other speakers at the meeting included Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, Mr Kristian Jensen, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Denmark, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, Catherine Nyambura, Women Deliver Young Leader from Kenya.

Awareness creation

Nana Oye Lithur told the gathering that “in Ghana, the continued engagement with key stakeholders on the SDGs by the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) in partnership with the UNDP on the post-2015 development agenda, gives added motivation to continue with awareness-raising and consultation on the SDGs”.

 On the challenge of incorporating the SDGs into national policy and programmatic frameworks, she said: “The potential pitfalls lie in how national institutions will fully grasp and internalise the 17 goals.”

Nana Oye Lithur said with the experience of the MDGs, which were fewer, various stakeholders at the local level were able to more easily identify and factor them into policies, plans and programmes.

She said without careful synergising and prioritisation, institutions at the national level might not achieve effective planning and implementation of the SDGs and their objectives.

Priority steps

The Gender, Children and Social Protection Minister also spoke about the priority steps that the Government of Ghana would take in localising the indicators to monitor SDG implementation and how ministries and government agencies in Ghana would adapt and implement policies aligned with the new SDG framework.

She said as was done in the case of the MDGs, the first step towards localising the SDGs and to ensure their implementation was to factor them into the overall national development planning framework, currently the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda - GSGDA II (2014 - 2017).

The GSGDA II guides the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the various sector policies and operational plans.