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Deputy speaker wants bigger involvement of regions in reaching SDGs in Belarus

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MINSK, 7 September (BelTA) – The activities to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Belarus should be shifted to the regional level, Deputy Chairman of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of Belarus, the national coordinator for reaching the SDGs Anatoly Isachenko told the STV TV channel, BelTA has learned.

“We have achieved a lot at the level of the central government. The most important thing now is to do the same at the regional level,” Anatoly Isachenko said. Regions should develop evenly, without lagging behind, so that a person, regardless of where he/she lives, feels comfortable there, has a job and a salary, normal roads, and good living standards, the vice speaker added.

Anatoly Isachenko noted that serious steps have already been taken on the ground to achieve the SDGs. To illustrate his point he mentioned barrier-free environment in some houses, thanks to which a person with disabilities can freely reach an elevator and then the necessary floor. “It may not be noticeable at the level of a city or a country, but it means the world for a person who lives there,” he said. Much has been done in terms of environmental protection, for example, advanced treatment facilities have been built.
 
In 2020 Belarus moved up the SDGs index from the 23rd to the 18th place in the ranking that features 166 countries.

A new national sustainable development strategy until 2035 is currently in the works. The whole society is involved in discussing it: representatives of government agencies, the business community, and the parliamentary group.

The Sustainable Development Goals replaced the Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015) and were adopted at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly in 2015. They set out a vision for a world free from poverty, hunger, disease.

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