Southern African countries’ diplomats declare that sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) must focus on poverty eradication.

Southern African countries’ diplomats have declared at the 193-member UN meeting that sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) must focus on poverty eradication.

Speaking on behalf of Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe during the second meeting of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) on Wednesday, Zambia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dr Mwaba Kasese-Bota, said poverty reduction must be the number one priority of the SDGs, which are currently being formulated.

According to the Zambian envoy, poverty eradication requires multidimensional approach that cut across relevant thematic areas and sectors.

She says the success in the achievement of poverty eradication depends largely on the global community working together in a coherent manner in formulating internationally acceptable and universally applicable SDGs that resonate with different and heterogeneity contextual realities of the Member States.

DrKasese-Bota has noted that Millennium Development Goals (MDG) target to halve extreme poverty by 2015 has been slow and remains a major challenge.

She says the SDGs, must therefore, take into consideration key lessons learned from MDGs especially in relation to stable and continued economic growth, income inequality, unemployment, access to social services including health for all, sustainable energy and science and technological innovations..

The Southern African Group representative says each SDG must be accompanied by means of implementation in form of financing, technology transfer and capacity building.

Dr Kasese-Bota says the commitments on SDGs in the Post-2015 Development Agenda should be clearly stated and differentiated from the already existing commitments.

She adds that the time span for the SDGs must be considered in order to have “clear financing and implementation commitments”.

Dr kasese-bota has emphasized the need to consider the issues of indicators and targets of sustainable development, the goals which should not only be quantifiable, but must bear a strong and indispensable element of quality standards.