ISLAMABAD: While the government plans to tinker with the fast-growing solar net metering policy, participants of the National SDGs Conference 2024 on Thursday advised the government to include subsidised solarisation, family planning, environment and universal health in the development policy to achieve Sustainable Development Goals under global commitments.

The one-day conference, organised by the Ministry of Planning and Development, brought together experts, parliamentarians, national and international stakeholders, UN representatives, civil societies, academia, and specialists from diverse fields.

It aimed to develop effective implementation strategies and policies to achieve the SDGs by 2030.

At present, close to Rs100bn are spent in the name of SDGs on the recommendations of parliamentarians with limited focus on their deliverables instead of utilising those funds through the government’s planning and development policies.

Working groups of the conference called for the implementation of environment policy with clear milestones after making the data sets on environment indicators public to set baselines and report on changes and improvements. “The carbon credit policy needs to be adopted to boost exports,” recommended one of the working groups that called for setting up technical committees and apex committees on the environment with participation from all the provinces, private sector, media, and academia.

The conference also suggested smart urbanisation for which public transport policy should be in place for big cities to promote best practices to save energy. At the same time, it also called for providing subsidised solar systems to the masses to promote renewable energy and inclusion of impact of such policies and actions on marginalised communities.

Another working group asked the government to enhance the role of women in labour participation for inclusive development, which should also focus on the 20th poorest districts for poverty eradication.

The economists emphasised the urgent need to reduce the cost of producing energy and inculcate efficiencies in energy generation and consumption.

A social sector group called for an enhanced focus on including persons with disabilities in education policy and a behaviour change communication strategy for family planning.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2024