Update: 7:00PM THE Speaker of Parliament has urged individuals and communities to take greater interest in the Sustainable Development Goals and express ownership because they affected everyone.
She said more forums were needed to educate people on the SDGs and make them understand what they stood for and the reasoning behind the 2030 agenda.
“The SDGs are not simply goals of Governments, policymakers or of international organisations but are goals that affect all of us as individuals and communities; thus we need to take greater interest in them and express some ownership.
“Thus I would therefore encourage more of these forums where we should not only be looking at SDG implementation and monitoring, but also get people like social workers, teachers, educators and ordinary citizens to understand what the SDGs are and the principles behind the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” Dr Luveni said.
She was speaking at a Fiji Multi Stakeholder Dialogue on Sustainable Development Goal 4 on Education organised by the Fiji Council of Social Services (FCOSS) and the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE).
A media release from the Parliament office stated that the Speaker also outlined the activities of Parliament to mainstream the SDGs into its work such as legislative scrutiny, civic education and capacity-building for Members of Parliament and the secretariat, Speakers Debate on the SDGs and key development issues, Parliament Diary dedicated to the SDGs and a tool that is readily available to MPs and gender mainstreaming to ensure MPs work includes gender-based analysis as mandated through the Standing Orders.
High officials from the Ministry of Education, USP, UNDP, PIFS, development partners, selected CSOs and observers from New Zealand, Pacific Island countries namely Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Samoa and Solomon Islands were part of the dialogue.
