Unite Nations office in Malawi, says the Media needs to take the initiative to help citizens stay engaged in both localization and prioritization process of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Mia Sepo, UN country representative was speaking in the Capital city, Lilongwe during the meeting with members of Bwaila Media Club (BMC) to discuss SDGs and its significance for Malawi’s dream of eradicating poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth.
She explained that SDGs is a very complex agenda which captures how development thinking has evolved from the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) to when these goals were approved by member states.
The UN Country representative therefore said, one of the very important lessons from the MDG’s is that “There has to be very strong ownership and very strong local anchoring for these goals to be implemented.
For that to happen, Sepo emphasized that the media needs to be very actively engaged in helping people understand and monitor implementation of SDGs.
“The Media in Malawi has an absolutely critical role in explaining what SDG’s are, in helping people really understand how SDG’s are different from MDGs as well as in monitoring the implementation of SDGs when Malawi has gone through the process of localizing and prioritizing those SDG’s.” she said
She also advised that as Malawi is about to embark on the National Planning Process in the prioritization and implementation of SDG’s, it is absolutely important that the process is inclusive.
Sepo emphasized that the planning has to hear very broad range of partners, players and voices in society so that those “priorities that Malawians agrees on” is “something that everybody can mobilize around and everybody can feel ownership of.”
She then noted that this cannot be achieved without the media. She underlined that the Media must be on the forefront to help people “stay engaged than understand why this is important for them”
“And again the media has a role to cover and to explain the national planning process and to build some enthusiasm around it as well, because planning can sound a little bit boring but when you take the SDGs, you take the localization of SDGs, the need to prioritize the SDGs and the need to come up with the plan for Malawi that really matters. And that really drives the development agenda” said Sepo
Chairperson for Bwaila Media Club, Peter Makawa said the encounter with the UN Country representative has been very fruitful as the media has gained more knowledge about the SDG’s.
“Member States have approved the SDGs some few weeks ago. So, this was a right time for us members of the media to engage the UN, to help us understand what the SDG’s are.” Said Makawa
He then disclosed that the Lilongwe based Press club is planning an ambitious project which will help to popularize the SDGs to all Malawians having learned that very few knew the just ending MDG’s.
“Even though Malawi managed to achieve half of the Millennium Development Goals, but very few Malawians knew them. So, as media we feel we have an obligation to engage citizens and help them understand these Sustainable Development Goals as well as how important they are to them.
We are therefore going to take an initiative which will help to reach a lot of Malawians. The project will help people understand these SDGs and demand government to play it’s role in the implementation of these SDGS. And more importantly, we want also to enlighten people that they also have to take part in the prioritization and implementation process of these goals”
SDG's are the world's time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions-income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion-while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability.
The just ended 70th Session of the United Nations General Assembly adopted new resolution which consists of 17 SDGs and 169 targets and will form a development blueprint for the next 15 years.
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