Staff Reporter

Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen today said implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is at stake globally as currently the development partners are extending only three percent fund out of the proposed requirement.

"Unless adequate financing is available, SDGs will remain an unachievable and unfinished agenda goal," he said.

The minister was speaking at a seminar on "Bangladesh's Journey to SDGs: From Negotiations to Implementation" organized by the Dhaka University's Department of International Relations at the foreign service academy in the capital.

He said as per the estimate, it requires 3.5 trillion to 11 trillion US dollars each year for achieving the SDGs worldwide.

"(However) currently, development partners, on average extend 156 billion a year which is nearly 3 percent of the proposed SDG requirement," he said while terming technology transfer and financing as number one challenge in means of SDG implementation.

"As the global economy is trying to recover from the supply chain disruption caused by the pandemic, the conflicts and uncertainties surrounding the Ukraine war is widening the already huge gap in financing needed to realize the SDGs," he said.

Whereas, Momen said, in the post-COVID-19 era, the developing world needed investments and funding more than ever before to improve their productive capacity, including industrialization, export diversification, infrastructure development as well as integration into the global trading system.

He said Bangladesh, as an internationally acclaimed "role model for development", has a critical role to play in leading the developing world on critical issues of Sustainable Development.

The issues included climate finance, technology transfers, global food and energy security, as well as stabilizing the international trading mechanism, he added.
He said it is crucial to establish a crisis mitigation and resilience-building fund for the countries to ensure the sustainability of their hard-earned development gains.

"We must take collective actions for a sustainable future," the foreign minister said.

State Minister for planning Dr Shamsul Alam and Dhaka University's pro-vice chancellor professor Maksud Kamal also spoke, among others.