Malawi’s Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Honourable Sosten Alfred Gwengwe on Wednesday, March 9, 2022 launched the country’s 2022 Voluntary National Review (VNR) process of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through which an assessment of how the country implemented the global development agenda in the year 2021 will be undertaken.
The launch, held under the theme ‘Reviewing Malawi’s Readiness to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals by 2030’ took place at Sunbird Capital Hotel in Lilongwe.
In his remarks, Gwengwe said the VNR was one of the important steps of ensuring that Malawi meets the SDGs. He said this was the reason why the MW2063 First 10-year Implementation plan (MIP-1) has, as one of its milestones, meeting most of the SDGs by the year 2030. He therefore called for an inclusive VNR to ensure that the results reflect the views and situations of many people in the country.
“This needs to be inclusive and participatory by involving all stakeholders including the marginalised population,” said Gwengwe.
He said government remains committed to ensure that Malawi attains the SDGs and that this was why in the 2022-2023 budget, the government had allocated resources for the realisation of the SDGs through funding of projects and programmes as outlined in the MIP-1.
On his part, United Nations acting Resident Coordinator in Malawi Mr. Shigeki Komatsubara appreciated Malawi’s commitment to achieve the UN’s Agenda 2030 under which the SDGs were being implemented.
He said the VNR promotes transparency, inclusivity and partnerships in implementing SDGs and that the UN in Malawi is committed to help the government to come up with a quality VNR Report and achieve MW2063.
In his remarks, National Planning Commission Director General Dr. Thomas Munthali said it was pleasing that Malawi was demonstrating total commitment to the VNR and attainment of the SDGs as evidenced through government’s active participation in the exercise.
“The presence of the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs [today] shows ownership and leadership in the VNR process,” said Munthali.
The 2022 VNR process will, among other things, see the production of a VNR report as well as key messages and a video documentary to be presented at this year’s UN High Level Political Forum on the VNR in New York in July this year.