MMDCEs Urged To Focus On The SDGs 

Dr. Felix Ado Yobo, the Deputy Director of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Advisory Unit at the Office of the President, has called on Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) to remain focused on efforts towards meeting the SDGs.

He said the mandate of MMDCEs and the bulk of activities within the local government structure were aligned with the SDGs and necessary to strengthen networks towards meeting the goals.

Dr Yobo was addressing MMDCEs in the Volta Region as part of the 2022 SDGs Day Out event, being held in Ho on the theme: “Our World at a Triple Tripping Point: the Urgency of SDG Action.”

“Many of the things they are doing are aligned to the SDGs, and they should strengthen that alignment and those linkages so that in communicating what they are doing, they can translate it or link it with the SDGs and that would be a good story to tell and give us a good sense of where we are in implementing the SDGs.

“Ghana practices a bottom-up approach in terms of development through the decentralized planning system and the lowest level of development is at the local level which is championed by the municipal and district chief executives and as representatives of the President at the lowest level, they are to support the President’s vision and the President’s dreams,” he stated.

Dr Yobo said the Chief Executives should provide strategic support to the President to enable him succeed as Co-Chair of the SDGs Eminent Group of Advisors, adding “The strategic support that the Chief Executives can play at the local level is overwhelming and cannot be simplified,” he stated.

He commended the efforts of MMDCEs towards the attainment of the SDGs, and urged them to work harder to ensure they were met by 2030.

Dr Yobo noted that the impact of covid 19 and climate change on the SDGs attainment and said, “It is important to re-energize and remind selves that the SDGs that we adopted in 2016 is still relevant. They’ve not lost. They are relevant. And in the face of all the challenges we still must hold true to the principles and the tenets of the SDGs because they are for our present and they are for our future.

“It is for humanity, it is for the planet that we live on,” he said.

The Deputy Director added that the engagement was expected to remind stakeholders of the relevance of the SDGs, and noted, “they are still very important and we need to forge partnerships to give us a good chance of succeeding”.

He urged MMDCEs to consider the SDGs a “shareable task” and to foster partnership with civil society, private individuals, media and academia for collective contribution towards its success.

Dr Yobo said the SDGs day out event would strengthen strategic partnerships across all structures, which include media, traditional leaders, academia and the youth.

He said the creative abilities of the youth claimed a “vital” role in finding solutions to development challenges and thus an innovation challenge had added to the mix of the day out event.

Business leaders in the Region would also be engaged before the three-day stint comes to a close on Wednesday.

Dr Yobo assured that stakeholders including the Government continued to labour at providing an investor-friendly environment and address challenges surrounding data and the general perception on SGDs as the deadline drew closer.

The SDG Day out event kicked off with a health walk in Ho, which drew public attention to the development goals.

A forum of traditional leaders would be held on Tuesday morning and a public forum would follow in the afternoon at the Ho Technical University.

Madam Frema Osei-Opare, the Chief of Staff, is expected to grace the event, which is being undertaken in collaboration with the Volta Regional Coordinating Council, the Association of Ghana Industries, the Bank of Africa, and others, including tech labs and media outlets.