A two-day Young Leaders Training on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on the theme ‘Role of Young Leaders in Localising Sustainable Development Goals in Nagaland’ commenced today at Capital Convention Centre, Kohima.

Altogether 95 young leaders have been identified from all the districts of Nagaland to advocate the SDGs and the Nagaland SDG Vision 2030 agenda.

Addressing the inaugural function, Dr Kekhrielhoulie Yhome, Advisor School Education & SCERT Nagaland complimented the young leaders joining the platform of SDGs.

“You must be responsible. You are the right stakeholders for the change in our state,” he said. Maintaining that there are a lot of global challenges, he stressed on the need to apply local ideas to deal with local issues. “We need to bring workable ideas to address local problems and issues,” he said.

Universal Call to Action 
R Ramakrishnan, Principal Secretary (Planning) & Development Commissioner, Nagaland said that the United Nations member states adopted the SDG in 2015 as a universal call to action. 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 Nagaland has also formulated and launched a ‘Nagaland SDG Vision 2030: Leaving No One Behind’ in August 2021. “It is a strategic development roadmap to work coherently towards a holistic pathway for the inclusive development of Nagaland,” he said. This was a document that was conceived in consultation with all the Departments. It provides the proposed sector-wise strategies to achieve the SDG targets.

“We are also encouraging the departments to sincerely implement various ongoing development programs and schemes which are closely aligned to SDGs and bottlenecks in the implementation of these schemes are flagged at the highest level for remedial actions,” he said.

He informed that the State Government “is committed to promoting inclusive, peaceful and sustainable development for a prosperous and sustainable tomorrow-Development for all and leave no one behind.”

He was optimistic that this training will be fruitful and that there will be an improved understanding of the SDGs from Nagaland’s perspective, and ensure we leave no one behind. “I also hope that this training will foster innovative thinking among the young leaders to come up with suggestions on better implementation of SDGs,” he added.

‘We need fresh energy and thinking
Nayantara Sasikumar, OSD (Planning) & SDG State Nodal Officer, SDG Coordination Centre, Government of Nagaland said that Nagaland has been actively working towards achieving the SDGs through its SDG Coordination Centre, Department of Planning & Transformation (DP&T).

To accelerate the implementation of SDGs, the State has established a dedicated center- SDG Coordination Centre (SDGCC) under the DP&T in October 2019 with technical support from United Nations Development Programme, she said.

The center is established with a mandate to act as a center for SDG knowledge dissemination, monitoring, and policy strengthening, and as an accelerator of SDG implementation across the state. Since then, the state has been actively pursuing and has taken various initiatives for the implementation, streamlining, and strengthening of the SDGs.