By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, MAR 07, 2024: NITI Aayog organised the 'National Conference on Accelerating Sustainable Development Goals' in partnership with the host Government of Rajasthan and technical partners UNDP and UN in India on 4th and 5th March, 2024 in Jaipur. The two-day conference brought together senior government officials from 31 States and Union Territories and Government of India. The inaugural session included key addresses by Mr. Suman Bery, Hon'ble Vice Chairman NITI Aayog, Dr. V.K. Paul, Hon'ble Member (Health) NITI Aayog, Sudhansh Pant, Chief Secretary, Government of Rajasthan and Shombi Sharp, United Nations Resident Coordinator.

The objectives of the conference were to encourage States and UTs to take stock of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) localisation, exchange experiences on institutionalising the SDGs at the subnational level, explore the SDG finance landscape at the national and subnational level and charting a path for accelerating progress at the mid-point of the 2030 SDG agenda.

The second day of the workshop included technical sessions on SDG Monitoring, Institutionalisation of the SDGs, Financing the SDGs and Lessons from Localising SDGs in India.

To foster cross-learning and knowledge exchange, the conference included an SDG exhibition. It provided a platform for States and UTs to showcase their technical products on localisation at their respective SDG booths.

"This conference exemplifies NITI's role as a platform for sharing the learnings and good practices on SDGs from across the country. This being a moment of acceleration, I am enormously heartened by how much innovation is taking place in the States and UTs in pushing the SDGs down to the district, block and local level," said Suman Bery, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog in his keynote address. "This event is an example of NITI Aayog's commitment to Cooperative Federalism. I would like to also thank our partners United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations (UN) in India for supporting innovative SDG efforts at the subnational level," he added.

Dr. V K Paul in his opening address remarked, "We must relentlessly pursue the SDGs. This conference, I am sure, will not only focus on the goals which are low-hanging or the high-impact ones alone but also the tough ones as well."

Three knowledge portals, UNDP 'SDG Knowledge hub', 'Food and Nutrition Security Analysis Dashboard' of Government of Rajasthan, 'SDG -2 (Zero Hunger) Dashboard' of Government of Rajasthan were inaugurated by Bhajanlal Sharma, Hon'ble Chief Minister, Rajasthan in the presence of Suman Bery, Hon'ble Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog and Dr. V.K. Paul, Hon'ble, Member, NITI Aayog.

The UNDP SDG Knowledge hub is a one-stop portal which brings together good practices, SDG indicator frameworks, SDG linked budgets, among other knowledge products produced by States and UTs.