Young Leaders Training on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was held at Capital Convention Centre, Kohima, Nagaland under the theme ‘Role of Young Leaders in Localising Sustainable Development Goals in Nagaland.’
During the opening plenary day held on 27th June 2023, Limabenla Jamir, Development Consultant, Coordinator Asia & Africa Expert Working Groups, Inclusive Governance/ Local Public Sector Alliance said that the training aims to augment the process gaps of contextualising and localising SDGs. Jamir said that to achieve sustainability in the State of Nagaland, ensuring economic growth, development, creating decent jobs for young people, preserving the rich biodiversity and ensuring social protection like education, health and financial security requires collaborative efforts of local government, international agencies, civil society, non- profit organization and young minds.
Jamir also mentioned that the event organisers have brought together exceptional leaders, changemakers and industry experts and they will be interacting with the participants through technical sessions, documentary, panel discussion and networking.
Biraj Patnaik, Executive Director, National Foundation for India (NFI) through video message, said that NFI considers it as a privilege to have 90 young leaders from all 16 districts of Nagaland and to train them in SDGs. He expressed hope that this training will provide substantive knowledge about the important role that each individual plays in transforming the society.
Nayantara Sasikumar, IES OSD (Planning) & SDG State Nodal Officer, SDG Coordination Centre, Government of Nagaland, speaking on the works of SDGCC in Nagaland, said that Nagaland has been actively working towards achieving the SDGs through its SDG Coordination Centre, Department of Planning & Transformation. She said to accelerate the implementation of SDGs, the State established a dedicated centre - SDH Coordination Centre (SDGCC) in October 2019 to act as a Centre for SDG knowledge dissemination, monitoring, policy strengthening and as an accelerator for SDG implementation, with technical support from United Nations.
Nayantara also enumerated the SDGs implementation in the State as under:
1. Intuitional Mechanism: The High Level Steering Committee headed by the Chief Secretary is constituted for guidance, monitoring, policy review and correction on SDG implementation. There are also Departmental Cells in all relevant departments with SDG Nodal Officers. At the district level there are District SDG Cells for implementation of SDGs.
2. SDGCC has carried out state and district level capacity building workshops and consultations for SDGs, developing the Vision Document and Indicator Framework. The SDGCC will carry out capacity building training in collaboration with Rural Development for village level functionaries.
3. Localisation, Integration and Coverage:
a. The State has formulated ‘Nagaland SDG Vision 2030: Leaving No One Behind,’ in consultation with concerned departments.
b. Developed District Manuals for SDG localisation and integration.
c. All Flagship schemes, State Schemes and programmes have been mailed to the SDGs.
d. Developed the State and District Indicators Frameworks aligned to the National Indicator Framework.
4. Innovation: The ‘Nagaland SDG Action Awards’ and ‘SDG Innovation Participatory Action Research Initiative (IPAR)’ have been initiated. The winners of these awards will be declared soon.
Delivering the keynote speech, R. Ramakrishna, IAS, Principal Secretary (Planning) and Development Commissioner stated that the SDGs consist of 17 ambitious global goals and 169 associated targets that serve as a blueprint for a better and more sustainable future. He said that Nagaland is making consistent progress in the SDG India Index published by NITI Aayog and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) which focus on state level performance. The composite SDG score in Nagaland has improved from 57 in the year 2019 to 61 in 2020-2021, ranked 19th out of 35 States and Union Territories in India. He also mentioned that Nagaland has performed well in SDGs 1 (No Poverty), 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), 7 (Clean and Affordable Energy) 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), 13 (Climate Action) and 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions).
Ramakrishnan said that as per the North Eastern Region District SDG Index 3021-2022 which was published by the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region, NITI Aayog and UNDP, districts in Nagaland like Phek, Kohima, Dimapur, Mokokchung, Wokha, Mon and Peren have scored well in certain goals like Zero Hunger, Quality Education, Clean Water and Sanitation. He mentioned that Phek district is ranked first across all 103 NE districts in Goal-2 Zero Hunger. He mentioned that Nagaland formulated and launched a ‘Nagaland SDG Vision 2030: Leaving No One Behind’ in August 2021 which is a strategic development roadmap to work coherently towards a holistic pathway for the inclusive development of Nagaland.
Congratulating the delegates who were selected to undergo the two-day training, guest of honour, Kekhrie Yhome, Advisor, School Education and SCERT Yhome challenged the delegates to understand that they are the young leaders of the society and to be responsible to the society. He said that there is generational gap, in terms of knowledge systems, and to come up with sustainability not only in local level but also bring local ideas which will work with local issues and local challenges, bringing about workable ideas. He encouraged the delegates to work in their individual capacity as well to bring about changes in the society.
The goal of the two day training is to identify and bring together young leaders from all the 16 districts of Nagaland who will be trained on the current SDGs position of Nagaland and localising the Government of Nagaland SDG Vision 2030. 90 young leaders between the ages of 18- 25 years are participating in the training.
Imsutoshi, National Foundation for India delivered the closing remarks. Shot clips on how to meet the Sustainable Development Goals together|SDG Moment|United Nations and Nagaland SDG Vision 2030 was screened during the training.
This two-day in-house training for young leaders (27th and 28th June 2023) event was organized by National Foundation of India and SDG Coordination Centre of the Department Planning & Transformation, Nagaland, co-funded by the European Union.
(I.Tiakumla Ao, I A)
