Africa-Press – Cape verde. The Secretary of State for Business Development challenged, on Friday, the leaders of Cape Verdean local authorities to resolve at least three or four of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and accelerate their achievement.
Adalgisa Vaz launched this challenge at the opening of the seventh ordinary meeting of the General Council of the National Association of Municipalities of Cape Verde (ANMCV), of the VIII mandate, which is taking place in Santa Cruz, a municipality in the interior of Santiago.
The minister called for the acceleration of the SDGs, recommending greater involvement of the private sector in the process of local economic development through public-private partnerships, but also suggested an improvement in the collection of taxes and fees.
Likewise, he highlighted the need to take greater advantage of digital governance facilities, the strengthening of technical planning capacity based on faithful statistical data and the definition of indicators for a better assessment of the SDGs, as well as the adoption of policies to respond to the challenges of poverty reduction and sustainable development.
In this sense, Adalgisa Vaz recommended that municipal leaders work to promote articulation, integration and complementarity between municipal action, sectoral programs and projects, carried out by deconcentrated State services, institutes, public companies and private sectors, justifying the intervention of each one of the sectors has an impact on the territory and the lives of its inhabitants.
To solve the three or four SDGs and accelerate their achievement in each municipality in accordance with the municipal vision and mission, Adalgisa Vaz demonstrated the need for local governments to collaborate with the central government in collecting reliable local data, as “essential tools” to monitor disparity and redirect resources to ensure no one is left behind in pursuing the SDGs.
The Secretary of State recalled that the themes of the SDGs are directly or indirectly linked to the daily work of local governments which, according to her, act on the ground close to the populations, with awareness campaigns, investment programs and partnership agreements with different agents of national and international economic development.
Along the same path, Adalgisa Vaz highlighted that both the Government of Cape Verde and the international community recognize that the majority of the SDGs, close to 65 percent (%), will only be achieved with the involvement of local authorities, with a strong focus on the fight for sustainable development, against global warming, and for cities and neighborhoods that are more inclusive, safe, sustainable and resilient.
Regarding requests from the country’s municipalities regarding improvements in the provision of sanitation services, drinking water supply, education, health, housing, connectivity, boosting local economic activity, women’s economic empowerment, professional training and youth employment, among others issues that contribute to accelerating the achievement of the SDGs, reported that the Government took good note in these aspects.
And in the same way, he highlighted that the Government counts on the intervention of local governments to identify people living in poverty, in the implementation of economic development strategies to create decent jobs and strengthen the resilience of populations by strengthening their employment capabilities. encourage participatory decision-making, in the integration of mitigation and adaptation measures to climate change, in its planning instruments to increase its resistance to environmental shocks.
To conclude, Adalgisa Vaz highlighted that “the Government is aware of the weak financing capacity for local development and the obstacles to implementing the SDGs, arising from the structuring constraints typical of a small island economy”, reinforcing that the State Budget for 2024, the Government increased the municipal financing fund by approximately 9.4% and also created a guarantee line for municipal councils in sectors of public interest.
The seventh ordinary meeting of the ANMCV General Council takes place under the motto “together, working as a network for the SDGs” and brings together the presidents of the country’s municipal councils and municipal assemblies.
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