SUPPORTING NATIONAL PARLIAMENTS TO BECOME SDG CHAMPIONS
SUPPORTING NATIONAL PARLIAMENTS TO BECOME SDG CHAMPIONS Examining Economic Governance and Public Finance Management Systems in Southern Africa with United Nations Development Programme (Cabo Verde). This article looks at the interesting case of the Pro PALOP-TL SAI multi-country south-south and triangular cooperation EU-funded UNDP programme for consolidating Economic Governance and Public Finance Management Systems in the PALOP-TL countries.1
Where are we with the SDGs and Agenda 2030? In the days preceding the 2023 UN SDG Summit (18-19 Sept 2023)2, the word in everybody’s mind was 'caution'. Not enough evidence and data was available; the limited data collected shows stagnation or even regression in most targets; Governments across the world might be now less inclined for consensus on the SDG commitments due to geopolitics. The world has changed profoundly since the first UN SDG Summit in 2019 and the adoption of the 2030 Agenda in 2015. The UN Agenda 2030 and its SDGs are a global shared commitment, and it remains our overarching roadmap for achieving sustainable development and overcoming the multiple crises the world is facing. However, the Agenda is a promise, not a guarantee. According to the Sustainable Development Goals Progress Chart 20233, a comprehensive overview of global progress with respect to the targets outlined in the 17 Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, among the 169 targets, 138 can be assessed (based on both available global data and analysis conducted by custodian agencies4), while 31 targets lack sufficient data or additional analysis for the trend assessment. As referred to in the report, based on insight derived from the latest global-level data and custodian agencies, a midpoint evaluation of SDG progress reveals significant challenges and a concerning picture emerges from the analysis of the assessable targets: • a mere 15% are on track to be achieved by 2030; • nearly half (48%) of the targets that can be assessed show moderate or severe deviations from the desired trajectory;
• over one-third (37%) of these targets have experienced no progress or, even worse, have regressed below the 2015 baseline. This comprehensive assessment underscores the urgent need for intensified efforts to ensure the Sustainable Development Goals stay on course. Today, halfway to the 2030 deadline, it is clear that the promise is in deep peril with the favourable trends resulting from early efforts, particularly in extreme poverty, gender equality and global unemployment, proving now to be too fragile and too slow. Examples of progress towards the 2030 targets for SDG 16 Here are just a few examples of progress towards the 2030 targets on SDG 16, whose stated indicators are for ‘promoting peaceful and inclusive societies and building effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions for sustainable development’. This is something to which Parliaments are so crucial. According to the Global Progress Report on SDG 16 indicators5, “Women’s representation in Parliament is growing too slowly to reach parity with that of men by 2030”, and “people under the age of 45 are significantly underrepresented in Parliament relatively to their share of the national population” in every region of the world other than Europe and North America (SDG indicator 16.71 a). The report also indicates that “women remain underrepresented in public service institutions” in most of the world, except Europe and North America. The key findings on the report regarding progress on SGD 16 could be summarised as follows:
Ricardo Godinho Gomes is the Chief Technical Advisor for Governance Programmes at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Cabo Verde. He is a Political Scientist with more than 15 years’ experience in the international arena as a development practitioner, supervising and coordinating complex multi-country programmes in democratic and economic governance. He studied Political Science (Political Institutions and Public Administration) at the Universidade Lusofona de Humanidades e Tecnologias (2000 to 2005). He has written for several publications including UNDP Journals, Revista de Direito Público and Revista do Direito de Língua Portuguesa. Email: ricardo.g.gomes@undp.org
304 | The Parliamentarian | 2023: Issue Four | 100 years of publishing
