UN development goals to enhance Africa's progress: Kenyan experts

The adoption of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by world leaders gathered at the UN general Assembly in New York will inject a fresh impetus in efforts to accelerate socio-economic progress in Africa, Kenyan experts said on Thursday.

More than 150 world leaders will from Sept. 25 to 27 discuss and adopt the UN-led post-2015 development framework that aims to addresses pressing global challenges like hunger, climate change and inequality in a holistic manner.

The experts told Xinhua in separate interviews that the new goals raised the bar in the quest to address bottlenecks to sustainable development including poverty and climate change.

David Kikaya, an international relations scholar, was upbeat the adoption of sustainable development goals would inspire African governments, private sector and civil society to re-organize strategies of fighting poverty.

"The new development blue print to be endorsed by world leaders this week focus on creative and holistic ways to catalyze growth that is inclusive, socially and environmentally conscious," Kikaya said.

Kikaya noted ordinary citizens were fully involved in charting the new development pathway.

"What makes the SDGs stand out is the bottom up manner in which they were formulated. There is a sense of ownership among citizens which bodes well for their implementation," he said.

Kikaya, who is Kenya's former Permanent Representative to the UN offices in Nairobi, said he was optimistic that the new development goals would unleash prosperity in Africa once implemented to the letter.

"For the first time, the international community has agreed on the community driven and innovative approaches to fight ancient and new bottlenecks to sustainable development," Kikaya said.

Stephen Cheboi, Kenya's national coordinator of Action 2015, a government-affiliated organization responsible for promoting sustainable development in the country, said the Kenyan government has involved key people to develop a national position on sustainable development goals.

"We held sensitization forums at all levels to enlighten policymakers and citizens on the highlights of the new development framework. Kenya has developed an action plan for the implementation of SDGs that will be approved by parliament soon," Cheboi told Xinhua.

Kenya will pay greater attention to the cross-cutting themes of agriculture, health, environment and energy in order to accelerate sustainable development, according to the official.

He said there was a consensus among key stakeholders on the need to wage a new onslaught on climate change, hunger and infectious diseases that have halted socio-economic progress.

"Majority of the sustainable development goals have a correlation hence the need to devise a multi pronged approach to boost their speedy implementation," Cheboi said, adding an inter-agency team has been formed to explore viable strategies that would accelerate sustainable development in Kenya.

"We are focusing on domestic financing, policy and legislative reforms, better coordination and public participation to achieve a balanced growth," he added.

The adoption of SDGs is expected to inspire African leaders and policymakers to re-arrange national economic policies in order to catalyze inclusive growth.

Wilmot Reeves, an economist at UNDP Kenya, said that adoption of SDGs would be instrumental in accelerating Africa's socio-economic transformation.

"African countries now have a chance to redefine their future development agenda and avoid pitfalls that held the continent back for too long. Governments must localize SDGs and embed them in national development policies," Reeves told Xinhua. Enditem