N Chandrababu Naidu for making Andhra Pradesh globally competent

Hyderabad: As a part of the Vision 2029 document, the AP government has prepared Sustainable Develpment Goals (SDGs) — 17 goals and 169 targets - to transform the state into “a happy and globally competitive society.’’ The Vision Management Unit (VMU) of state government, headed by special secretary (planning department) Sanjay Gupta, prepared this document. It was presented by Chief Minister, N Chandrababu Naidu during the recent collector’s conference at Vijayawada.

The 17 goals and 169 targets cover a broad range of interconnected sustainable development issues. These include ending poverty and hunger, improving health and education, making cities more sustainable, combating climate change and protecting oceans and forests.

The Vision document said that the implementation of SDGs needs to be judiciously prioritized and adopted.  The goals and targets should be customized in accordance with local challenges, capacities and resources available.  

The draft framework had envisioned transforming the state into a happy and globally competitive society with an aim to make one among the three most developed states by 2022. The implementation of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals will become critical as many of them are common with the state’s agenda.

The document said that the job of achieving SDGs in the state exceeds the capacity of any one organisation and demands strong partnership among government, private sector and development organizations.

The Vision Management Unit (VMU) of AP state Development Planning Society (APSDPS) a special purpose vehicle (SPV) of the Planning Department has conducted a series of consultative meetings with the line departments for detailed assessment of SDG goals and targets to be achieved by 2030 or before.

To contextualise SDGs as the state development agenda, the APSDPS has commissioned a few studies carried out by national and international premier research agencies especially on multidimensional poverty, gender, inclusiveness, climate change and sustainability areas for developing the methodology for monitoring of key targets and indicators.

APSDPS has also identified 13 widely adopted global indices and initiated the process of related studies to measure the performance of the state and benchmark it against global standards for various social and economic indicators.