Unfazed by development goals miss, Indonesia takes on renewed SDGs
Like many nations, Indonesia may have failed to meet the targets outlined in the Millennium Development Goals - but together with the United Nations it is moving on and will try to reach the renewed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
National Development Planning Minister Sofyan Djalil and United Nations (UN) resident coordinator Douglas Broderick signed last week a cooperation memorandum labeled the United Nations Partnership for Development Framework (UNPDF).
The UN Sustainable Development Summit in September declared that the world had failed to reach the MDGs signed in 2000. Indonesia failed to meet four of the eight targets listed in the MDGs - reducing maternal mortality rates, lowering the number of HIV-infected patients, ensuring environment sustainability and providing access to clean water and good sanitation.
The revised SDGs have 17 goals and 169 targets that include things such as poverty alleviation, improving healthcare outcomes, reducing income inequality and battling climate change.
Reducing maternal death is especially important for Indonesia.
"Nationally, 346 out of 100,000 mothers die giving birth," Broderick said during the UNPDF launch at the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas).
It is thought the goals outlined in the MDGs failed to be achieved because of inter-related problems. "For example, to reduce maternal death, we cannot talk about health facilities only, there are problems related to road access to health centres, the availability of clean water and sanitation and also problems of communication in rural areas," the Health Minister’s special adviser for partnerships and SDGs, Diah Saminarsih, told thejakartapost.com.
Broderick said that in order to increase public participation, there would be an initiative to improve relationships in the private sector, incorporate the goals of the SDGs into the school curriculum and embed scorecards in all 74,000 villages throughout Indonesia.
"The UNPDF is functioning as the umbrella for UN agencies operating in Indonesia. The next five years will be crucial for Indonesia and for the UN to gather everyone behind the SDGs," Broderick said.
