Sri Lanka says it’s enlisting its massive cooperative sector for a speedier realisation of it 2030 national Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) plan.
“We can achieve our national Sustainable Development Goals easily if the government and the cooperative movement work together. Sri Lanka’s cooperatives are active many sectors, and it can support SDGs as a community based movement,” Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen said in Hanoi,Vietnam yesterday. Minister Bathiudeen, who is leading Sri Lanka’s cooperative sector delegation to the International Cooperative Ministers’ Conference 2017 at Melia Hotel, Hanoi, Vietnam was addressing the 19 April session of the event.
This event, opened on April 18, is themed Sustainable Development Goals and Promoting Stronger Partnerships between Government and Co-operative stakeholders.
“This conference is looking forward to the 2030 targets. We can achieve our national Sustainable Development Goals if the government and the cooperative movement work together paying attention to relevant factors such as gender and youth. At present a main topic of the development discussion in the South Asian Countries is the gender issue.
We can formulate and implement women empowerment programs in collaboration with the cooperative movement so that we leverage it towards the success of an SDG. Currently among the leaders and top management level officers women representation is notably very poor. Since Sri Lanka’s cooperatives are active in agricultural, consumers, production, health services, industries, financial, women and youth sectors, it can support SDGs as a community based movement.
My Ministry with the support of International Labour Organisation is striving to finalise Sri Lanka’s first national cooperatives policy to serve the more than 14,500 cooperatives across the country. We believe that once our policy formulation work is completed Sri Lanka’s cooperative movement can support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals even faster and better. Another reason that we believe that the cooperative movement of Sri Lanka could be used towards SDGs is that the strength of the movement. Sri Lanka’s total population is around 21 million. Of this almost 8 million Sri Lankans are a member of some form of a cooperative active in the country. Therefore I do not have any doubts that the lessons we take home from today’s event here would become valuable inputs to the future of Sri Lanka’s co-operatives.”
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