TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Civil society organizations have asked the government to conduct intensive coordination to implement Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed last week in UN General Assembly in New York.
“There are several challenges in implementing the 17 points of SDGs,” said Beka Ulung Hapsara, international advocacy manager of the Forum on Indonesian Development, on Thursday, Oct 8.
According to Beka, 120 non-governmental organizations met in Jakarta on Tuesday to identify challenges and strategic positions of SDGs nationally and globally and discuss new opportunities and initiatives in implementing SDGs 2015-2020.
One of the new challenges is the discrepancy between RPJMN (National Mid-Term Development Plan) 2014-2019 targets and SDGs targets in poverty and environment.
Another challenge is the lack of understanding about SDGs targets by government officials, businessmen and NGOs. There are also civil society groups that think SDGs are a foreign program, so they less interested to participate.
In the national meeting, several strategic initiatives were made. Some of them are dissemination of SDGs in the parliament, universities and society and construction of funding architecture for SDGs.
Beka said he did not want to make the same mistake as of not formulating funding in Millennium Development Goals 2000-2015 program and hoped the government would learn from the weakness in implementing MDGs.
UNTUNG WIDYANTO