The United Nations Development Program UNDP is set to support Sri Lanka in achieving Sustainable Development Goals.
Representatives of the United Nations Development Program said that Sri Lanka will be supported in achieving the country’s Sustainable Development Goals.
They stated this during a recent discussion held at the Presidential Secretariat about adding sustainable development goals to budgeting, the PMD reported.
The discussion was chaired by President’s Senior Adviser on Climate Change Ruwan Wijewardena and President’s Adviser on Environment and Sustainable Finance Professor Ananda Malavitantri.
The United Nations Development Program, Resident Representative Azusa Kubota, Budget Consultant, Adviser Asif Shah, Integration Specialist Dulani Sirisena and Afraa Mohamed, Policy, Research and Engagement Assistant, were present at the discussion.
The rationale for integrating sustainable development goals into public financial management systems was discussed at length and the main benefits of development goals and budgeting were also discussed.
Attention was also paid to providing an effective basis for budget decisions with improved data to reduce fiscal space and fiscal gaps, assist government and donor negotiations by introducing efficient mechanisms to protect social sector spending, identify funding gaps and under-resource priorities to support effective targeting of resources.
Further, they focused attention on promoting policy coherence and assisting in getting more value for money from public investments, raising public awareness of government actions by ensuring transparency in public financial allocations to achieve sustainable development goals.
Its benefits such as providing a proper system for resource mobilization, and identifying priorities in the annual budget through sustainable development goals/climate/gender-based budget targets, were also discussed at length.
In addition, the practical problems arising within that process and how to prevent those problems were also extensively examined in this discussion.
The Government of Sri Lanka and UNDP in Sri Lanka have already launched the Sri Lanka SDG Investor Map (the Map), a market intelligence tool that seeks to direct private capital where Sri Lanka’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) priorities, Government policy and market opportunity intersect, as the country seeks to rebuild its economy sustainably, using the SDG framework as its guide. The methodology for the Map was created by UNDP SDG Impact.
Like many other countries, the Sri Lankan economy was also impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic with GDP growth contracting with a significant slowdown in tourism earnings which is a key source of dollar income for the country.
Sri Lanka is building pathways to recover from its double crisis of sovereign debt and a balance of payment crisis, making it difficult to import essential items such as medicines, fuel and food. The current public debt is 140% of GDP and Sri Lanka’s plan is bring it down to less than 100% by 2032.
While Sri Lanka is pursuing an IMF program to stabilize its macro-economy and restructure its external debt, private capital, foreign direct investments, blended finance options and public-private partnerships, are all needed.
The SDG Investor Map will be of importance when channeling these funds to investments for social and environmental objectives- towards green development, women’s economic empowerment, social sector development
