National Parliamentary MDGs Conference –country’s leap for sustainable social reform
PRESS RELEASE
ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly of Pakistan, under the guidance and patronage of its Honourable Speaker, SardarAyazSadiq , is holding the inaugural National Conference on Millennium Development Goals for parliamentary taskforce. It is an initiative of a young and dynamic woman Parliamentarian MNA Marriyum Aurangzeb, who is the chairperson for Task Force on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This conference will engage around 90 parliamentarians and legislators from the National Assembly, Senate, four provincial assemblies of Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh as well as legislative assemblies of Azak Jammu and Kashmir and GilgitBaltistan.
The conference will provide interaction among MPs and national and international experts, facilitators and speakers participating and sharing their valuable knowledge on various themes of Pakistan’s social development reforms agenda. It will be a watershedin Pakistan’s endeavour for equitable and just development of all its citizens asfor the first time everpublic representatives from all provincial and legislative assemblies, will come together with their counterparts at the National Parliament to show their commitment and ownership towards development with a cohesive approachto deal with basic human issues such as health, education, poverty reduction, women and children, environmental conservation and other related areas.
Just to recall the inaugural Millennium Summit 2000, held in New York by bringing together representation of 189 UN member states, announced rights based global commitment, in the shape of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Pakistan committed to 16 targets and 41 indicators against which progress towards achieving the Eight Goals of the MDG’s is measured. Time series data available for 33 of these indicators reveal that Pakistan is on track to achieve the targets on 9 indicators, whereas its progress on 24 indicators is off track. Therefore, the present government which is fully committed to make progress on MDGs as well as to provide a comprehensive input on new and inclusive Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), has made aninclusive strategy by forming national and provincial MDGs task forces.
These Federal and Provincial Task Forces on MDGs will aim at addressing the challenges and strengthen the legislative, oversight, and representation and play a pro-active role in accelerating the pace in achieving the agreed and committed targets for post 2015 development agenda.These Task Force Groups will be mandated to examine the existing status of the national development agendaand identify the issues and challenges in its full attainment. They will be result oriented and will propose recommendations and develop mechanisms for the effective implementation of the national development in line with Pakistan’s national and international commitments.They have also established MDGs desks in Ministry of Planning & Development for dynamic stakeholder consultation at federal and provincial level.
The conference will be held from 2nd to 4th of June 2014 at Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services, Islamabad. It will have experts and facilitators from the relevant fields along with members of the national and provincial assemblies, to discuss and the issues and design a work plan on how to raise awareness, to hold our governments to account and to draw attention to the post 2015 debate,investigate provincial priorities in greater depth, establish dialogues with members of the public to inform them of the issues and ensure that their voices are heard. Also to engage with local and relevant authorities, civil society organizations, media and the private sector by sharing information and supporting their participation in decision making will be thought of.
The conference will have notable and highly qualified experts and parliamentarians from all the political parties speaking on the relevant issues. Speakers of the conference include Mr. Baligh ur Rehman,Minister of State of Education, Ms. Saira Afzal Tarrar, Minister of State for Health , Dr. FehmidaMirza, Former Speaker of National Assembly of Pakistan, Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, ,MNA Dr. Nafisa Shah, MNA Shiasta Pervez Malik , MNA MsAzraFazalPechuho, MNA Ms. Ayeasha Raza Farooq, MNA Mr. Asad Umar, MNA Ms. MarviMemon and Ms. ShahnazWazir Ali, former MNA. It will also have various knowledgeable speakers from various international agencies speaking on the relevant topics.
The conference will start with a plenary session on Good Governance, Monitoring & Accountability - Driving the Economic - Social Development Reforms. As peaceful and inclusive societies, rule of law, and capable institutions today remain critical and cross-cutting in ensuring a cohesive and sustainable development in most countries around the globe, without that an inclusive sustainable development agenda cannot be adequately planned or achieved. Conference will include sessions in the next two days i.e 3rd and 4th June 2014, on all the eight goals Pakistan is focusing on, which will include the following topics:
· Tackling Exclusion and Inequality
· Making Quality Education Accessible
· Gender Mainstreaming and Equality
· Roadmap to Healthy Generation
· Combating a Disease Ridden Society
· The Effect of Climate Change - Integrating Economic, Environmental, & Social Sustainability
· Public Private Partnership in Development Discourse of Pakistan
· Youth Involvement in Development
· Media, Private Sector, and Civil Society - Collaboration for Citizen Development and Democracy.
This inaugural National Conference on Millennium Development Goals 2014 is an effort for developing insights among MPs and provide a platform on which the parliamentarians, through discussions and consultations with experts from within as well as from civil society and private sector be able to share relevant knowledge, respective contexts and best practices, emerging parliamentary mechanisms, and modern techniques in good governance as vital tools for providing enabling environment within which the post 2015 development agenda can be formulated and achieved. This would also provide a great bonding and networking opportunity to the participants and will help them capitalize the momentum and political goodwill to deliver the much needed relief for the citizenary of Pakistan.
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