Uganda to organize the First Regional Peoples’ Sustainable Development Goals Festivals, 2023

7 May 2023, 5:18 pm

By Laila Ndagire <ndagire.laila@gmail.com>

The Government of Uganda through the National SDG Secretariat Office under the auspices of the Office of the Prime Minister in partnership with United Nations in Uganda, Embassy of Demark, Civil Society Organizations, and Private Sector are organizing the first Regional Peoples’ SDGs Festivals, in Uganda.

The festivals will start from Mbarara on 16^th -18 May, followed by Jinja on 23^rd -25^th May, Mubende on 30^th May – 01^st June, and Lira on 6^th – 8^th June, 2023.

The regional activities will include regional walks, citizen parliaments (barazas) and stakeholder consultations.  It will be coupled with tree planting; Cleaning of the cities and SDG promotional events (like radio talk shows, TV talk shows involving local leaders and local CSOs, and  organized citizen groups) to popularize the SDGs.

The Citizens Parliament will be a civic engagement activity involving citizens, political leaders, and technical leaders. The citizens will be raising issues of concern in their localities and both technical and political leaders will be required to respond.

The National festival will be in Kampala and all activities will be inclusive (leaving no one behind) targeting various stakeholders in Government (Ministries, Departments Agencies and Local Governments); CSOs; Private Sector; Development Partners and Special Interest Groups. All festivals will also be open to the general public.

The festivals will lead to the second Uganda Annual SDG Conference 2023, UASDGC23 in June under the theme “Leveraging Inclusive National and Continental Actions for Accelerated Delivery on the SDGs and Agenda 2063.”  The conference will also be informed by the fact that this year (2023) the UN member states will be reviewing the mid-term progress on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs through the SDG Summit 2023 in New York under the auspices of the UN General Assembly in September 2023.

National and local ownership is central to the 2030 Agenda and a dedicated mechanism for mainstreaming and implementing the SDGs in every country is a crucial success factor. With 8 years to the end of the 15 years for implementing the 2030 Agenda, Uganda is 45.1 per cent away from achieving the 2030 SDG targets .Few exceptions, where Uganda is on track (such as on SDG 12 on responsible consumption and production and SDG 13 on climate action) the rest of the SDGs are moderately improving, stagnating, have major challenges, or have no information available. It is therefore worth noting that the implementation is still below the rate needed to achieve the SDGs by 2030. Thus, it is important to mobilize participation and engagement of all stakeholders about the importance of national and local ownership for the inclusive, efficient, and effective implementation of the SDGs in Uganda.