JOINT SDG FUND DONOR BREAKFAST

• The Guest of Honour, Permanent Secretary – Acting Permanent Secretary for Planning and Administration, Ministry of Finance and National Planning Ms Loise Mulube, representing the Honourable Minister of Finance and National Planning Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane, MP
• All Permanent Secretaries present
• Senior Government Officials present
• Cooperating Partners Group (CPG) members
• Heads of Development Cooperation
• Representatives of Civil Society Organisations
• Private Sector Representatives
• Academia
• Heads of UN Agencies
• UN colleagues
• Members of the Media
• Ladies and Gentlemen

I am delated to be here this morning for this important gathering organized by the UN to showcase accomplishments of the Joint SDG Fund and discuss options for future financing of Sustainable Development efforts in Zambia.

Let me start by thanking SDG Fund donors, the Government of the Republic of Zambia, through all line ministries, departments, and local authorities that the UN has collaborated with on this programme since June 2020. Allow me to also pay tribute to the Joint SDG Fund for having considered Zambia as one of the countries to benefit from this  funding facility.

Today, we can look back at the achievements  made across various sectors, with the aim of contributing to having an Integrated National Financing Framework for sustainable development in Zambia. As planned, this intervention was catalytic and therefore important in complimenting efforts to better utilize the   finance resources  in Zambia including attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Implemented through five UN agencies namely UNDP, UNICEF, UNECA, UNFPA and ILO,  this joint programme helped with the development of the Budget Analysis Toolkit, Policy Brief on the National Budget, Socio Economic Impact Assessment of COVID-19 on Households, COVID-19 Recovery Needs Assessment, 2022, Development Finance Assessment and the Ministry of Local Government Monitoring and Evaluation Framework.

Going forward, we also need to think of how best to support implementation of development frameworks such as the Eight National Development Plan (8NDP) and the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework. These, and other frameworks can only be achieved through an all of society approach with greater stakeholder involvement and partnerships. We all need to look at our comparative advantages, resource envelope and explore where we can intervene.

As we do so, we should of course, remain mindful of aligning our strategies and resources to national priorities so that we are not divorced from what is important to the Government and people of Zambia. In this Decade of Action when we only have around seven years before the year 2030, the task ahead of us to stimulate economic growth and enhance the livelihoods for the people of Zambia calls for a lot of collaborative approaches and synergies that are more appropriate to bridge the silos of development, peace, and humanitarian nexus.

Guest of Honour, ladies and gentlemen

As we noted from presentation, in the spirit of Leaving no One Behind, this programme had a clear strategy to ensure that areas supported did not just include urban areas but the rural as well and in fact reached all 116 districts on the support to local authorities in adopting Output based budgeting to deliver better on the ground. This is a clear demonstration of government policy on decentralization and how to improve resource allocation to the subnational levels.

I am happy to note that in this meeting we have wide stakeholder representation including the private sector and commercial banks. We need to continue exploring private sector options including Public Private Partnerships, Capital Markets and Green Finance to finance sustainable development in Zambia.

We cannot continue with business as usual in our planning and implementation processes anymore but enhance efficiency and effectiveness of our interventions in addressing challenges to achieve the desired impact to drive the much-needed transformation to improve the lives of the people of Zambia.

As I close, let me call for your engagement as partners in implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2023-2027 that was launched by Her Honour the Vice President on 4 November 2022. This Cooperation Framework is a partnership strategy between the Government of the Republic of Zambia and the UN in Zambia towards the achievement of Zambia’s sustainable development.

I wish you all fruitful deliberations and look forward to us coming up with firm resolutions or indeed plans to gather again and plan for financing sustainable development in Zambia.

Thank You