The government of Tanzania has been advised by stakeholders to integrate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the national planning process and the country’s Five-Year Development Plan II of which the draft is already in place to guide plans.
Speaking the during the Policy Forum breakfast debate entitled “Mainstreaming the Sustainable Development Goals in Tanzania” held on 29th January 2016 at the British Council Auditorium, Posta, Mr Rodgers Dhliwayo, Economics Advisor at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said the SDGs were developed to fill the gaps that were in the predecessor Millennium Development Goals, such as the lack of governance issues that have now been included in the SDGs.
He mentioned another weakness of the MDGs being the absence of a dedicated institutional mechanism for implementation and that is why for the SDGs, all stakeholders including public representatives, the private sector, civil society, the knowledge community and development partners have been taken onboard, fulfilling the spirit behind the key theme of SDGs which is 'leave no one behind'.
The second presenter of the debate Dr. Gladness Salema from the University of Dar es Salaam emphasized that the budget should be used as a key tool to implement the SDGs to address the challenges of the community like bridging gender gaps among many other issues.
She said gender is at the centre of all SDG goals and should be integrated in the development plans by introducing gender-related strategic objectives into policies and establishing requirements for gender analysis of budgets (gender budgeting) including gender indicators in budget requests and providing statements of impact of budget funds on gender equality.
The discussant of the debate, Grace Banya from UN Women advised that every stakeholder should own these goals because its implementation requires their efforts and investment.