United Nations agencies in the country have launched the second phase of the Sustainable Development Goals Fund, SDG Fund, an international multi-donor and multi-agency development mechanism created in 2014 by the UN to support sustainable development activities through integrated and multidimensional joint programmes.

The launching was done during a workshop which was used to present and evaluate results of the first phase of the initiative, Wednesday November 24, 2021, at Mont Febe Hotel in Yaounde.

The workshop had as stakeholders officials of the ministry of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development, MINEPAT, Nations Development Programmes, UNDP, United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, United Nations Women, UNWOMEN alongside Civil Society Organisations.

In his opening remarks, the Secretary General of MINEPAT, Jean Tchoffo, said the initiative falls in line with the National Development Strategy, NDS 30 which targets the transformation of the national economy, the development of a human capital and wellbeing, the creation of jobs and governance, decentralisation and strategic management of the state and concerns just some keys sectors like national development, rural areas, industries, infrastructure estimated at 37, 5 billion FCFA.

“To ensure the putting in place of the strategy and conscious of what this will bring in a long term in the country, government envisage to bring in partners that would finance this projects,” the MINEPAT scribe stated.

The meeting he added, aims to evaluate the stakes and principal results of the first phase of the SDG’s Fund so as to ensure a better sensitisation and implications of other actors on the need to favour an adequate financing of the SDG 30 for it to achieve its objectives.

On his part, the Assistant Resident Representative of UNDP, Allassane Ba, said the elaboration of the National Development Strategy in Cameroon, the initiative hasambition to contribute to the structural transformation of the economy through operational economic changes that favour development, inclusion while preserving opportunities for future generations.

He however regretted the fact that despite all the visible chances present in Cameroon, one of its greatest challenges this in decades to come is to be able to mobilise resources from governmental and non-governmental actors for the financing of their development projects so as to be able to accelerate its SDGs at the national and local levels.

“…though the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the SDG 2030, it is important to remain concentrated on our belief so as not to permit the crisis shatter our faith and ambitions,” Allassane Ba reiterated.

He added:  “We are at the end of phase one of the project and as we lay the foundation stone for the second phase, it is important to bring out the lessons learnt as well as elaborate methods so as to reinforced the synergy for the intervention of the development partners in Cameroon”.

The SDG Fund Project, it should be said, is an international multi-donor and multi-agency development mechanism created in 2014 by the United Nations to support sustainable development activities through integrated and multidimensional joint programmes.