The President of the Zimbabwe Local Government Association (ZILGA), Alderman David Guy Mutasa, yesterday represented Zimbabwe at the Voluntary Subnational Reviews Session which focused on the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals on a localized level. The forum was hosted by UCLG and UN-Habitat.
ZILGA, which is a combination of the urban local authorities under Urban Councils Association of Zimbabwe and the rural local authorities under the Association of Rural District Councils of Zimbabwe, managed to compile a report which was presented at the Voluntary Subnational Review Session yesterday.
The forum focused on eight countries namely Cape Verde, Germany, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Tunisia and Zimbabwe and these countries shared their experiences on how their local governments were implementing the SDGs. Present at the forum was the Executive Director for UN-Habitat, Maimunah Sharif and as part of her opening remarks she said, “There is need to strengthen the capacity of local government in order to achieve the SDGs”.
There were identifiable gaps which hindered the progress of the implementation of the SDGs and these include resource limitation, data and institutional fragmentation and the absence of the SDG institutionalization. It was recommended that they needed to be addressed through the devolution and decentralization of power from the national government and that there should be financial support to local governments in order to achieve their goals.
In his presentation, Ald D, G. Mutasa stressed the need to address the data gaps and said, “We look at data gaps and see it is important for Zimbabwe to develop mechanisms to connect the national level and the local level and build capacities and awareness gaps for the further implementation on the SDGs”.
For the full proceedings of the VSR session, click the link below