Sustainable Development Goals – Assam
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide an overall framework for monitoring progress across all aspects of development at all levels of governance. As the successors to the Millennium Development Goals (MGDs), the SDGs encompass a broader breadth of development trajectories by covering economic, social, and environmental aspects. With the global and national ambitions to reach the SDG goals and targets by 2030, 17 goals have become the guideposts to drive global, regional, national and sub-national development. Over the past few years, Government of Assam dedicatedly & diligently focusing on priority areas of Sustainable Development Goals through various programmes and schemes at the Centre and the State-level.Government of Assam became one of the first governments to adopt the SDGs and initiate the process of integrating SDGs in the development of the state. The following milestones have been achieved in the process of implementing SDGs in Assam:
January 2016: The Transformation and Development (T&D) Department was appointed as the Nodal Department for implementing SDGs in the State. The task of developing a robust indicator framework for the state as well as districts aligned to the National Indicator Framework (NIF) was started by T&D Department in collaboration with Centre for Sustainable Development Goals (CSDG) and UNICEF. These consultations were very participatory adhering to the guidelines issued by Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). The 300 indicators under Assam SIF included 169 exclusively from NIF (National Indicator Framework), 56 from Aspirational district indicators, 33 from NITI Aayog priority indicators, 15 from Global indicators and 27 from Assam Agenda 2030 indicators.
February 2016: T&D Department with the support of CSDG published ‘Assam Vision 2030’. The process of developing this document has included consultations across the government departments and inputs from experts over a series of meeting in January and February 2016. The document defines the ambition of the state to ensure the health, happiness, prosperity and wellbeing of each and every citizen of Assam, as also on the conservation and preservation of the State's unique biodiversity, which is critical for the sustainable development and economic growth of Assam.
October 2016: T&D Department with the support of CSDG published ‘Assam 2030: Our dreams Our commitments’. This document was presented to the NITI Aayog for as the state’s vision document for achieving the SDGs.
April 2018: T&D Department with the support of CSDG had been preparing strategic and action plan for each State department since May 2016 onwards. The outcome of this exercise was publication of a comprehensive document of strategies and actions for achieving SDG named ‘Assam Agenda 2030’. This document was presented in a 2 days workshop of Hon’ble Members of Assam Legislative Assembly in March 2018 and discussed at the floor of Assembly for 5 days during March-April 2018 in which more than 40 Hon’ble Members participated and in that context Assam Assembly was probably the 1st State Assembly to take up discussions on SDG’s for 5 days in a session.
February 2020: A 3-day Conclave was organized by NITI Aayog witnessing active participation from senior officials of the governments of all 8 North Eastern states as well as the central government, academia, civil society organizations, think tanks and financial institutions. This Conclave laid the roadmap for fast tracking SDGs in the North-East. It served as a precursor to the NER District SDG Index consisting of 84 indicators across 15 SDGs across 50 target assesses district level performance. With the approval of State Cabinet, Assam SIF and DIF was published consisting of 300 and 100 indicators during this Conclave.
June 2021: SDG India Index is a primary tool for monitoring progress on the SDGs in the country and has simultaneously fostered competition. Assam has gradually improved its score from 49 to 57 from 2018-19 to 2020-21. The state has moved from being as Aspirant state to a Performer category state with a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8 percent during the same period.
February 2022: The T&D Department organized a State-level workshop on ‘Northeast Region District SDGs Index and Dashboard’ at Assam Administrative Staff College, Guwahati. The agenda for this workshop was to strengthen SDG localization and institute robust SDG monitoring at the state and district level. Various key officials from NITI Aayog, Principal Secretaries/ Commissioners/ Secretaries of all line State Directorates/ Departments and Deputy Commissioners from all districts had participated in the workshop.
April 2022: A Report and an Executive summary on Implementation & Monitoring of SDGs was prepared with the technical support of KPMG reflecting the present status-in Depth analysis and way forward for achieving SDGs in the State.
January 2023: Transformation & Development Department (T&D Department), Government of Assam deployed E&Y LLP as Project Management Unit (PMU) for assisting T&D Department for implementing and monitoring of SDGs in the State. Selection has been done via procurement system of Government of Assam following QCBS method. The PMU shall be the Technical Assistance Team for T&D Department concerning implementation of all aspects of SDG Agenda in the State. The mandates of the PMU are:
1.To provide guidelines and processes to Departments for priority-setting for all 17 SDGs and their targets.
2.To assist in State’s participation in various socio-economic rankings and awards relating to SDGs.
3.To analyze, coordinate and report on SDG Index and other similar indices.
4.To engage and coordinate with various other agencies towards implementation of SDG Agenda in the State.
5.To develop and implement capacity development programmes for different target groups/ stakeholders as required from time to time.