The Government of Bangladesh is committed to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Hence, they are aligning their national development policies and strategies accordingly. The civil society organisations have been contributing to the national development since the independence. Strong synergies with the government organisations will collectively enhance the country’s capacity to deliver the ambitious development agenda of SDGs.

These observations were made today, Thursday 7 March 2019, at an event titled Goal Groups’ Consultation with the Government Officials at CIRDAP Auditorium, Dhaka. The event was organised by the Citizen’s Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh as part of its ongoing initiative of organising a “National Consultation on the Progress of SDGs in Bangladesh towards the HLPF 2019”. The meeting of the United Nations High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development of this year will be held in July in New York, which will be followed by the SDGs Summit in September 2019.

Keeping the HLPF 2019 in view, the Platform is preparing review reports on the identified SDGs of HLPF 2019—i.e. Goal 4, 8, 10, 13, 16 & 17. The interested Partner Organisations of the Platform have formed six Goal Groups (GGs) to prepare the citizen’s review reports on their chosen Goals. These reports will, mainly, focus on the progress of the SDGs from two aspects – contribution of the non-state actors in delivering the SDGs in Bangladesh, and the pledge of Leave No One Behind.

The preliminary findings of these reports were shared at this event with the representatives from government organisations, relevant to the six SDGs, for their comments and suggestions. Representatives from Ministry of Education, Ministry of Primary and Mass Education; Ministry of Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment, Ministry of Industries, Ministry of Social Welfare, General Economics Division at Ministry of Planning, Anti-Corruption Commission, Economic Relations Division of Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NGO Affairs Bureau at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Governance Innovation Unit, PMO, participated at the event shared their inputs to the reports.

The event was chaired by Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, Convenor of the Platform, and Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD). Professor Mustafizur Rahman, Core Group Member of the Platform, and Distinguished Fellow, CPD, Dr Fahmida Khatun, Executive Director, CPD, and Ms Anisatul Fatema Yousuf, Coordinator of the Platform, and Director, Dialogue & Communication, CPD spoke at the event. The CPD is the Secretariat of the Citizen’s Platform.