Karooro designated coordinator for SDGs

Government has appointed the Minister for General Duties, Hon. Mary Karooro Okurut, to be in charge of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Karooro Okurut is also the Woman representative for Bushenyi district.
The Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, announced the appointment of Minister Karooro, during the Thursday sitting of the plenary of Parliament.
Kadaga remarked that Parliament has desired for some time a designated coordinator for SDGs to avoid an occurrence similar to Millennium Development Goals, which she said were never reported to Parliament.
“Today I am a very happy person. We have been asking government for some time to give us a focal person for SDGS, and you remember the Millennium Development Goals ended without any report in this House,” said Kadaga.
Kadaga has on several occasions tasked Committee Chairpersons to report on SDGs but in vain.
“As you aware, I have been harassing you to give an evaluation of SDGs in your reports. We hope she will develop an action plan. We are really happy for you [Karooro] and happy for the country.”
Karooro lauded the Speaker for her efforts in urging members of Parliament to fast track the implementation of SDGs.
“SDGS are just a universal call that by 2030 we should see an end to poverty, have a better climate, our environment should be clean among other goals,” she said.
She explained that one of the ways government would track SDGs implementation is to ensure each Ministry in its policy statement includes its compliance and implementation levels.
“Now that we have started the new budget cycle, we expect all the policy statements to give us an update of how far we have gone in implementation of SDGs,” said Karooro.
Karooro called for the support of Parliament in tracking SDGs implementation saying, “remember the target is 2030, unless we start like yesterday we shall not achieve our target.”