Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will be launched later this year, are expected to give Africa its best chance yet of eradicating poverty, said a panel on ‘Meeting the Development Challenge’ at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town, South Africa.
The panel said the fact that consultation on the development of the goals had reached grassroots level in Africa meant that there was a greater sense of ownership of the SDGs on the continent, which has not been the case with the Millennium Development Goals.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s former minister of finance, said “the SDGs have credibility in Africa because they reflect and reinforce the continent’s own goals and objectives.”
In his view, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, undersecretary- general/executive director, United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, said: “We are the first generation with a real possibility to end poverty. We are also the first generation to move the gender agenda forward and to address structural issues underpinning gender inequality.”
Also speaking, Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever, United Kingdom, and a co-chair of the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa, described the SDGs as “an agenda of the common good,” saying partnerships were embedded in the SDGs and the world would only get back on track if people put the needs of others ahead of their’s.
The panel emphasised the need to put funding in place to implement the SDGs at an early stage. Private capital has an important role to play, and potential risks to the participation of the private sector in funding options need to be identified and mitigated.
