Events

MINSK, 20 October (BelTA) – In 2018 the Belarusian Economy Ministry will start working on the concept of the national strategy for the sustainable development till 2035. Sustainable development goals will be incorporated into the strategy as much as possible, BelTA learned from Belarusian Deputy Economy Minister Alexander Chervyakov during the roundtable session held on 20 October to discuss the implementation of the sustainable development goals at the national and regional levels.

Belarus has undertaken to implement the UN agenda in the area of sustainable development. “Next year we will get down to working out the concept of the national strategy for sustainable development till 2035. We will have to incorporate the SDGs into the draft national strategy as much as possible,” said Alexander Chervyakov.

The existing sustainable development strategy for the period till 2030 will be reviewed before that. There are plans to set up a system of indicators for the new strategy at the national and regional levels. The UN sustainable development strategy will be the cross-cutting theme of all the program documents starting 2018. “This year we are working out district development plans for the first time ever. We look at them from the point of view of the sustainable development goals and indicators,” Alexander Chervyakov added.

The official noted that large-scale organizational work had been done at the national level to reach the SDGs. Upon the Economy Ministry’s initiative a sustainable development council has been set up. Representatives of the civil society, international organizations, science and education institutions, government agencies sit on the council.

The roundtable session to discuss the implementation of the sustainable development goals at the national and regional levels was organized as part of the 18^th international scientific conference on problems of the forecasting and state regulation of social and economic development. The conference is scheduled to take place in Minsk on 19-20 October with assistance of the Belarusian Economy Ministry, the research institute of the Economy Ministry, the representative office of the Dortmund international education center in Belarus, and the EU-UNDP project for support to local development in the Republic of Belarus.