CEO Jonga who is on the invitation of the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs and the National Development Planning Commission of Ghana told our reporter that the forum is meant to build participants’ capacities as well as improve local and national government capacities on localising SDGs and Agenda 2063.
“I took part in a session entitled "Using VLRs to drive localisation of the SDGs and informed VNRs sharing of experiences and lessons learned," he explained, saying the session gave The Gambia the experience of voluntary local reviews.
He highlighted the responsibility of central governments in creating the enabling environment and policies for local and regional governments to take lead roles in the localisation of the SDGs, coupled with the provision of resources and capacities that matches with their responsibilities in the localisation process.
He also spoke on the need for the localisation process to be inclusive in order to create room for more traction ownership of the SDG goals and timely reporting through the participation of local and regional governments in the national mechanism for coordination reporting and follow up mechanisms to accelerate implementation.
He equally spoke on the benefits of a voluntary local review and the voluntary national review as well as the need to align local and regional efforts with the SDGs and the significance of mutual peer to peer learning to enrich the VLR-VNR processes.
