Calling upon BRICS countries to strengthen “cooperative mechanisms”, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Saturday said a united front would help in the successful implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Much of India’s development agenda was mirrored in the SDGs, Ms. Mahajan said.
Inaugurating the first meeting of the BRICS Women Parliamentarians’ Forum at the Rajasthan Assembly here, Ms. Mahajan said while India had chosen the path of removing poverty by empowering the poor, BRICS should innovate new institutional means for meeting the needs of the member countries.
The Speaker affirmed that some of the recent initiatives launched in the country were promoting inclusion and social advancement. The initiatives include Jan Dhan Yojana, unleashing entrepreneurial energies of people, and the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao scheme to bring the girl child as focus of all development efforts.
New initiatives“Make in India, Skill Development and Digital India are some of the new initiatives taken by the government to accelerate growth in the country,” Ms. Mahajan said.
She said BRICS was a relatively young group and its member countries together comprised 43 per cent of the world’s population, contributing 37 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product.
“The success of the SDGs will be heavily dependant on their successful implementation in the BRICS countries,” she said.
Ms. Mahajan said the women parliamentarians, as enablers of achievement of the SDGs, needed to concentrate on their role as people’s representatives, helping highlight their concern and mobilise citizens’ participation in issues of governance and sustainable development.
Referring to the 2030 agenda for the SDGs, Ms. Mahajan said the women parliamentarians had added responsibilities in it because worldwide, women were facing disproportionate risks and greater burdens from the impacts of poverty, climate change and other social, political and economic crises.
Sustainable developmentShe laid emphasis on sustainable development without hurting culture and traditions.
She highlighted the age-old traditions of water conservation and sustainable use of water resources in Rajasthan, saying these practices had virtually made it a drought-free State.
State Assembly Speaker Kailash Meghwal spoke.
