Planning Ministry launches taskforce to prepare 2nd Voluntary National Review

AMMAN — The Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation launched taskforces to prepare Jordan’s 2nd Voluntary National Review (VNR), which is scheduled to be presented next July at the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) meeting in New York.

UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Jordan Ghulam M. Isaczai attended a workshop for the national VNR taskforces, where he was joined by representatives from government institutions, UN organisations, civil society institutions and the private sector, according to a ministry statement on Saturday.

During the ceremony, Ministry Secretary General Marwan Al Rifai, who is also head of the Supreme National Committee for Sustainable Development, said that the workshop is the first step in the development of a report evaluating national efforts to achieve sustainable development.

Jordan has committed to implement the sustainable development agenda since its 2015 launch, he said, adding that several objectives related to eliminatingpoverty and improving living standards have already been achieved.

Al Rifai also highlighted efforts towards protecting the environment, such as providing clean energy and water and containing the impact of climate change.

Jordan submitted its first VNR in 2017, he noted.

He added that challenges related to the Syrian refugee crisis and the coronavirus pandemic have affected the Kingdom’s recent development gains. However, he emphasised Jordan’s efforts to speed up the VNR’s implementation by linking sustainable development goals with various governmental policies, strategies and programmes.

Speaking during the National Workshop for the VNR Taskforces in Jordan, UN representative Isaczai commended Jordan’s “determined” efforts to prepare Jordan’s VNR at a time when the world continues to face the unprecedented coronavirus crisis, according to a statement made available to the Jordan Times.

The findings of the VNR in Jordan, along with those of 44 other countries, will be presented at the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) in July in New York under the auspices of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Reports will focus on the theme of “Building Forward Better after Covid -19 towards achieving the 2030 Agenda”, he said.

He added that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 goals provide a comprehensive blueprint for the Hashemite Kingdomto achieve a sustainable recovery grounded in social inclusion and equality while preserving the environment.

“Since Jordan’s presentation of its first VNR in 2017, the world has gone through successive financial, humanitarian and the latest health crises which have hampered the realization of the 2030 Agenda,” he noted. 

Highlighting the importance of the report, he said that the “VNR is not an end in itself but a means to exchange experiences, identify challenges and accelerate implementation of the SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals],” adding that the upcoming HLPF will focus on the availability of data and national capacities for data collection. 

This will be an opportunity to field concerns abouthow the pandemic has impacted Jordan’s progress towards the SDGs, disrupted some prior advances and exacerbated existing structural issues that hinder the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, he said.

He also said that “Jordan’s submission of its second VNR report is a demonstration of its commitment to the 2030 Agenda and an opportunity to showcase its progress, and how economic, social and the environmental dimensions of the SDGs have been integrated into national strategies, such as the Jordan Vision 2025.”

He also expressed the UN Country Team in Jordan’s (UNCT) “full” support to the Government’s undertaking of the VNR process, noting that it “is currently developing its Cooperation Framework with the Government of Jordan to identify the key areas for our support to Jordan’s national priorities over the next five years.”

Isaczai added that he and his team see this VNR and the Voluntary Local Review processes as another opportunity for informing their joint work and strategic positioning of the UN system in support of Jordan’s development.