Some political parties, including the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), and the People’s National Convention (PNC), have reaffirmed their commitment to ensure the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the country.
The SDGs were adopted by world leaders in September 2015, with 17 targets for improving the standard of living of the people in various sectors such as the economy, social, health, environment and good governance.
According to the parties, these goals are directly or indirectly incorporated into their policies which they plan to implement if voted into power.
Speaking to Citi News, NDC’s Director of Research, Dr. William Ahadzie, said although the goals were important, the government also has other targets it aims to achieve.
“Primarily, our own developmental challenges are incorporated in our programme for the next ten years, so yes; the sustainable development goals are consistent with the things we ourselves think are the developmental challenges we have to resolve. But we also have priorities as a political party and as a government.”
But former Director of Research for the NPP, Kwadwo Afari, said the governing NDC was missing the point, and his party will fix it when given the mandate.
“All that the SDGs are saying is that, we must eliminate poverty, and raise the quality of life of the people. If you look at all the political parties’ manifestos, they are all dealing with the issues the SDGs are talking about. Now the question is the ability to do those things. You have the intent, but do you have the ability to do those things? No, because the economy is not good.”
In an interview with the National Chairman of the PNC, Bernard Mornah, he said it was about time the country owned the SDGs so that governments would be obliged to attaining such goals.
“It is good to have global goals, but it is also good to localize these goals so that we can own them. So out of the 17 SDGs, we should develop the Ghana development goals. You can see that nowhere in the goals is job creation an issue, and yet in Ghana, we have job creation or unemployment as a major obstacle.”
The party reps were speaking at a public forum organized in Accra by the Integrated Social Development Center (ISODEC), with support from STAR-Ghana.
–
By: Felicia Osei/citifmonline.com/Ghana