PAKISTAN is the sixth-most populous country in the world and has shown an increase in the occurrence of hunger in the past five years.

Reports by some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) suggest that it is the second-least successful country at mitigating hunger, with only 13 per cent reduction since 1990s.

The situation may become even graver in the case of Punjab whose population, as provisional results of the latest census put it, has crossed 111 million, indicating increasing burden on natural resources.

In particular, groundwater situation in the province is a ticking time bomb. The aquifer is being exploited unfettered, and the risks of brackish water percolation and complete exhaustion of the reservoirs have become real in the absence of a water policy and groundwater law.

Sooner than later the authorities will have to chalk out a plan for meeting the ever-increasing socio-economic needs of an exploding population without hurting environmental concerns by aligning these needs with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Fortunately, Islamabad is one of the few first countries to formally adopt the SDGs in February 2016. Punjab claims to have taken lead in implementing the initiative by establishing the first SDGs Support Unit with the help of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in June 2016, while the other federating units followed the suit.

Sooner than later the authorities will have to chalk out a plan for meeting the ever-increasing socio-economic needs of an exploding population

However, the unit has yet to formulate an SDGs framework to identify priorities of the province by setting targets and baselines. So far it has undertaken stocktaking of the development strategies and plans of the last two years, particularly 9,500 development projects of the annual development plans and analysed their alignment with the SDGs.

“Currently, we are in the process of hiring a couple of think tanks to do some research work for identifying our short-, mid- and long-term SDGs priorities,” Punjab’s Chief Economist Dr M. Aman Ullah says, hoping that the framework will be completed within six months.

The appointment of additional secretary-level focal persons in at least 24 provincial departments and holding of sensitisation workshops in eight out of nine divisions of the province are being boasted as some of the achievements of the unit during the last one year or so.

The focal persons hold the main responsibility for coordinating between the provincial departments and the SDGs Support Unit by understanding functioning of the relevant department.

On the institutional side, a provincial advisory council — with secretaries of key line departments, and representatives of the academia, think tanks, NGOs and the private sector as its members — has been notified a month ago, while a task force has also been formed to enacting legal framework for achieving the SDGs.

“The advisory council will review all development plans and growth strategies and give the government its feedback on how to align the same with SDGs,” says Dr Aman Ullah, adding that a strategy is also being developed for engaging the private sector.

The institutional framework, including monitoring the implementation and reporting of gaps, is all the more necessary given the failures in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) when there was lack of departmental ownership and monitoring mechanisms and structures, he says.

“Lack of institutional and legal frameworks, a delay of more than 10 years in submitting the first MDGs report and the administrative hurdles created by the 18th Constitutional amendment devolving various departments and their responsibilities down to provinces had made the working on MDGs disastrous,” he says. “Now we’re taking care of these flaws while implementing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.”

Punjab is also undertaking regional development plans to address regional imbalances and bring the underperforming districts on a par with performing districts as a key to achieving the SDGs. For promoting local ownership of the initiative, a pilot project was undertaken in two districts of south Punjab, i.e. Rajanpur and Dera Ghazi Khan, for assessing priorities of the locals, says the official.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, September 25th, 2017