The fourth day of the week-long roundtable on Afghanistan Sustainable Development Goals moved the discussion to the next level to align the government’s macro-economic policies with that of the SDGs and examine the transition from a war economy to a peace economy. The first part of the session took place at the Ministry of Finance, followed by a meeting at the office of Chief Executive of the Government Dr. Abdullah Abdullah at Sepidar Palace.

Opening the session in the morning, Minister of Finance Dr. Mohammad Humyon Qayoumi praised the initiative by UNDP and underscored the government’s interest to work with UNDP and other partners on the alignment of the government’s macro-economic strategies, such as Afghanistan’s Self-Reliance Accelerator Package (ASAP), with the SDGs. The Minister reiterated the need for Afghanistan to move from dependency on aid money to a sustainable economy. “We need to end this cycle of begging and aid dependency, so we can have sustainable growth” said Dr. Qayoumi. “That’s why we have a lot of interest in this discussion to identify the linkages and align our programmes.”  

Discussions with the Ministry of Finance counterparts continued throughout the morning on how reforms in the finance sector and investment on agriculture, horticulture, and regional connectivity and trade can help Afghanistan move away from aid dependency to self-reliance and sustainable growth.

UNDP Resident Representative for Afghanistan, Abdallah Al Dardari, reiterated UNDP’s support for the national ownership of the financial policies while providing technical and advisory support for policy options and economic modelling. “As the integrator of SDGs, we aim to ensure the national ownership and support the government identify priorities and linkages between fiscal space and SDGs” said Mr. Dardari.    

The second part of the day’s discussion on Afghanistan’s path to a peace economy and economic modelling continued at Sepidar palace with Chief Executive of the Government, Abdullah Abdullah, chairing the session. The CEO vowed support for the initiative to develop momentum around SDGs. “As the head of SDGs Executive Committee, I welcome and fully support the initiative by UNDP and hope we can make good use of the SDG modelling for long term and sustainable growth in Afghanistan” said Dr. Abdullah.

The session at Sepidar Palace also included an extraordinary meeting of the government’s SDGs Executive Committee that was focused on the progress of the ASDGs Roundtable discussions, transition from war economy to peace economy, economic modeling and data collection. Mr. Dardari assured the committee that integration of SDGs is the top agenda of UNDP and going forward the organization will design all its programmes around that mandate. “As per the UN’s institutional reforms, UNDP has been named SDG Integrator. So we will avoid siloed projects and build platforms within the framework of SDGs” said Mr. Dardari.      

The SDGs roundtable discussions will continue with international partners and United Nations’ agencies operating in the country. These discussions are aimed to create coordination among international partners so an integrated approach is taken to support Afghanistan as it prepares for possible peace in the near future.

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