AS A signatory to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted on September 25, 2015, Bangladesh has been involved in executing the sustainable development goals for the last nine years and playing a commendable role in the global sermon on the SDGs. The government of Bangladesh has engaged respective stakeholders in the implementation process of the SDGs with a whole-of-society approach to this end. Non-state actors have also been contributing significantly to carrying out interventions towards the implementation of the goals.听
Though our media face numerous challenges in freedom of expression, it plays a crucial role in promoting and achieving the SDGs by听informing the public about critical issues, raising awareness, holding governments and organisations accountable, shaping public opinion, and encouraging action towards sustainable practices, essentially acting as a powerful tool for driving positive change towards a more sustainable future.
SDGs gave the world a striving dream exercise that leads towards transformational progress, with the pledge of 鈥榣eaving no one behind鈥�. Out of 169 targets of the SDGs, many are not measurable. Data for predicting those indicators, predominantly reliable long-term data, are not available for Bangladesh. Unfortunately, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics is always in a big question mark to provide quality data. In this situation, the localisation of SDGs is very significant for us. Localisation narrates two features: a) how local and regional governments can support the achievement of the SDGs at a national level by bottom-up interventions; and b) how the SDGs can provide a framework for local development policy.
Many Asian countries, like Sri Lanka, China, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, have developed their SDGs-related localised plan and execution mechanism. According to the Sustainable Development Report 2024, Bangladesh has an SDG index of 64.35, ranking 107 out of 167 countries. This is better than India鈥檚 (63.99), Pakistan鈥檚 (57.02) and Afghanistan鈥檚 (48.24), but worse than the indices of Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.
In Bangladesh, the 鈥楴atore SDG Localisation Framework鈥� was developed with technical support from a donor agency. This district-level model plan comprised the credentials of local problems and potentials, priorities, adoption, database preparation, resource mobilisation, and responsibility-sharing among government departments, civil society organisations, and the private sector. It was also about empowering the local people to participate in the achievement of the SDGs in their daily lives. Research findings on the progress of the 鈥楴atore SDG Localisation Framework鈥� showed that media have a vital role in the areas of awareness raising, advocacy, and monitoring. It also suggested engaging the media representatives more for working closely with the government to follow up on the progress in the realisation of SDGs at the local level. They can promote issues and concerns of agriculture and food; law and order and security, education and culture, public administration, local government, human resources, engineering, health, etc.
Bangladesh has six 鈥榟otspots鈥� that simply define a broad grouping of districts and areas facing similar natural hazards and climate change risks. These are: 1) coastal zone (27,738 sq km); 2) Barind and drought prone areas (22,848 sq km); 3) haor and flash flood areas (16,574 sq km); 4) Chattogram hill tracts (13,295 sq km); 5) river system and estuaries (35,204 sq km); and 6) urban areas (19,823 sq km). The socio-economic, political and cultural problems and prospects of the six 鈥榟otspots鈥� are completely different. For example, increasing frequency of cyclones, river erosion, forced displacement, communication hazard, lack of infrastructure as well as capacities in coping with disasters, lack of industries, untapped marine resources, energy crisis, inadequate number of teachers and doctors, lack of local employment opportunities, decline of per effort fish catches due to capital expansionists, pollution, over-fishing, sea piracy, shortage of manpower in government offices, salinity and inadequate access to safe drinking water, insecurity facing women, child marriage and child labour are the major socio-economic problems in the coastal belt.
Some difficulties are common throughout Bangladesh. Floods, scarcity of fresh water, and degradation of the ecosystems are major issues in the haor region. But in the barind and drought-prone areas, irrigation, cross-boundary water issues including river basin developments, losses due to floods and drainage congestion, water supply and sanitation and round-the-year unemployment are major and consistent problems. Moreover, socio-political unrest, intra-group clashes, land settlement, remoteness, settlers, schooling of children, scarcity of safe drinking water, biodiversity degradation, and deprivation of ethnic minorities are major problems in Chattogram Hill Tracts. Also, urban poverty is an emerging issue, especially in slums and informal settlements. Its complexity has increased due to the pouring of climate migrants into urban and semi-urban areas.
The aspects of the six 鈥榟otspots鈥� must be addressed in the national planning of SDGs from the bottom up. Integration of SDGs into the 8th Five-Year Plan, ministry mapping for implementation of SDGs, data gap analysis, SDGs financing strategy, monitoring and evaluation framework of SDGs, SDG tracker, and joint collaboration with citizen鈥檚 platforms for SDGs are some remarkable initiatives of the government. But it is important that every sub-district of the six 鈥榟otspots鈥� has a localised plan for SDGs. It should be based on local problems and solutions. The localisation process may take into account the local resource mapping, the sub-district development plan, and an implementation committee coordinated by the upazila nirbahi officer.
The importance of more media engagement for the implementation of localised SDGs can hardly be exaggerated. Media plays significant roles in raising awareness, monitoring and accountability, giving voice to marginalised communities, promoting positive behaviour change, facilitating dialogue and debate, and supporting policy advocacy, among others, in the global discourse of the SDGs implementation. The 鈥楴atore SDG Localisation Framework鈥� accredits the roles of media. Besides, media professionals in cities and in coastal areas have the enthusiastic to contribute to implementing the SDGs and we should and can explore their potentialities.
Besides, without a strong decentralised local governance system, a successful localisation of the SDGs in Bangladesh will be difficult. It is also important to speed up the pace of implementing the SDG-related programmes and projects at the local level, given that there is not much time left in the run-up to the 2030 deadline.
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Dr Mohammed Mamun Rashid is a development professional and adjunct faculty member of a private university.
