India has been important contributor to progress across SDGs: NITI Aayog Vice Chair

United Nations: India, through its efforts, has been an important contributor to progress across the Sustainable Development Goals, Vice Chair of the NITI Aayog Suman Bery said.

These remarks by Bery were made on Monday. He is representing India at the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), taking place at the UN headquarters from July 8 to July 17, under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council.

The theme is ‘Reinforcing the 2030 Agenda and eradicating poverty in times of multiple crises: the effective delivery of sustainable, resilient and innovative solutions’.

“Through its efforts, India has been an important contributor to progress across these SDGs and it has succeeded through successful delivery of physical and digital infrastructure at scale, targeted social national safety net programmes with digital delivery to minimise fraud, improved women's agency, attention to program delivery in the least developed administrative jurisdictions, and strengthened local and national response to natural and manmade disasters,” Bery said here.

He said all of this has been achieved in a participative, democratic framework with orderly transfers of power at the level of India's states and at the Center following the recently concluded national elections. The HLPF is reviewing in-depth Sustainable Goal 1 of ending poverty in all its forms everywhere; Goal 2 of ending hunger, achieving food security improving nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture; Goal 13 of taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

Goal 16 of promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, providing access to justice for all and building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels; and Goal 17 is strengthening the means of implementation and revitalising the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.

Bery, delivering India’s national statement, emphasised India's commitment to sustainable development and inclusive growth.

He said on the multi-dimensional poverty index, India is on track to achieve target 1.2 of reducing at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to regional definitions much ahead of the 2030 deadline “as around 135 million Indians escaped multi-dimensional poverty in the five years between 2015-16 and 2019-21.” He said this has been made possible through the integration of social safety nets, infrastructure development, and multiple financial inclusion programmes.

He noted that presently over 500 million Indians benefit from cashless health insurance.

India has guaranteed free food supplies to over 800 million citizens during the pandemic and in the years that have followed, making it the largest food security programme in the world.

He added that the most critical SDG upon which “hinges the success of our efforts” remains SDG 17 and India has laid emphasis on strengthening partnerships to facilitate access to adequate financing, technology and capacity building for the global south.

On climate action, he said India has invested heavily in renewable energy and decarbonisation of the economy, despite India having amongst the lowest per capita emissions.