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Minister Denis Naughten launches the Sustainable Development Goals National Implementation Plan
On Thursday 26 April at the Institute for International and European Affairs, Denis Naughten, T.D., Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment Denis Naughten TD, launched Ireland’s Sustainable Development Goals National Implementation Plan 2018 – 2020. Minister Naughten has lead responsibility for promoting and overseeing the coherent implementation of the SDGs on a whole-of-Government basis.
The National Implementation Plan demonstrates Ireland’s ongoing commitment to the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and provides for a whole-of-government approach to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Plan sets out an ambitious vision for how Ireland will fully achieve the SDGs at home by 2030 and support their implementation around the world, particularly through the work of our development cooperation programme, Irish Aid.
The Plan focuses on four strategic priorities, which can be summarised as follows:
• Raising awareness of the SDG among the general public
• Providing stakeholders with opportunities to engage with and contribute to national implementation of the SDGs
• Supporting communities and organisations to make their own contributions toward achieving the SDGs
• Supporting alignment of national policies with the SDGs
To support these strategic priorities, the Plan includes 19 actions to be completed in the period 2018-2020.
Today’s launch marks an important milestone in Ireland’s response to the SDGs, and Minister Naughten will follow-up on this by presenting Ireland’s first SDG national progress report [referred to as Voluntary National Review] to the United Nations in July this year.
Minister Naughten stated:
the National Implementation Plan is the framework for how Government will put all 17 SDGs into action. My view is that the most exciting thing about the SDGs it that it forces Government and the public service to think differently. The SDGs are the responsibility of all of us. The ‘it’s not my job’ culture won’t work if we are to achieve our objectives. We must bring the public and key players such as NGOs, with us if we are to deliver the SDGs. We are now at a very exciting point in the development of our country as a big community rather than a big economy.