THE mechanisms to achieving sustainable development goals with respect to building an inclusive and peaceful society is already in place in Fiji’s parliamentary system, but it is up to the State to ensure that they have the political will to achieve this goal.
These were sentiments of Opposition MP Prem Singh, who believes having a bipartisan approach was key to maintaining political and parliamentary stability.
Mr Singh was one of the representatives of Parliament who attended a two-day conference organised by the UNDP for Melanesian leaders to discuss how to best promote strong, inclusive and peaceful institutions for sustainable economic growth and development.
“We’ve seen case studies and they all relate to how we strengthen institutions like Parliament,” he said.
“Parliament is well-known to be the highest place in the land as far as development of laws and Bills.
“So it is important for us to know how we can strengthen Parliament to achieve stability, which can translate into economic and social development in general.
“This is definitely something that we will take away today and hopefully that there are some lessons learnt. Of course, Fiji is not in isolation.
“We have to keep developing strategies and developing our institutions for us to move forward.
“The mechanisms to achieve SDGs are very wide ranging.
“First of all we must have the political will, particularly the Government. In the Fiji context how we approach this and I believe the best way is to have a bipartisan approach to our problems.”
Fiji joined 192 other countries in September last year to sign the SDGs giving their commitment to a vision of the world to be achieved by 2030.
The SDGs are more wide-ranging than the preceding Millennium Development Goals.
