Experts at a seminar on Wednesday expressed doubts about the success of the sustainable development goals against the backdrop of the rise of nationalism and new economic powers and prolonged troubles in Middle East. Focusing the country’s challenges in achieving the sustainable development goals, they said that nationalism was growing strongly among the Western countries who preached globalisation in the past decades. They said that this was not good news for Bangladesh, a party to the sustainable development goals, adopted by the United Nations in 2015 after the conclusion of the millennium development goals. The experts said that the country would face challenges to achieve 17 goals including ending poverty and hunger, improving health and education in the next 14 years because of changes in focus by the world leaders coupled with the country’s weakness in governance and checking corruption. North South University and Centre for Policy Dialogue jointly organised the seminar at the university. Centre for Policy Dialogue distinguished fellow Debapriya Bhattacharya said that indication from the United States towards the implementation of SDGs was not encouraging after Donald Trump won the US presidential election. Election in European countries would be held next year, he said, adding that political will – global, regional and national– would be a critical issue for the SDGs. Presenting the key note paper, Debapriya identified integration of the goals in national planning process, mobilisation of financial and non-financial resources, availability of data for monitoring, participation of people from all strata of society, enforcement of accountability and devising institutional mechanism for implementation as major challenges in the local level. General economic division deputy chief Monirul Islam dispelled the doubt saying that the country would submit voluntary report on the implementation of the SDGs from next year. He said that the government was giving top priority to the SGDs. Former Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Asif Ibrahim said that 77 per cent of the required investment for the implementation of the SDGs would come from the private sector but the country had no data on sectorial employment. He emphasised on long term plan by the government for environment friendly economic activities. Debapriya pointed out that Bangladesh failed to achieve MDGs on deforestation and employment. Both the issues are inserted in the SDGs again. North South University public policy and governance programme director SK Tawfique M Haque said that the implementation of the SDGs in Bangladesh would be slowed down unless corruption was curbed and governance improved. He said that a businessman had to wait for at least eight months to start a business due to bureaucratic hassles.
