(Continued from yesterday)
AS MY OWN contribution towards our meeting the SDGs as a member country of the UN, I designed a framework that would prioritize 6 of the 17 SDGs into composite program clusters, namely Justice, Education, Wellness, Employment, Livelihood and Safety, or JEWELS for short.
I would imagine that sooner or later, we could also design another framework that would categorize all the other 11 SDGs into more composite program clusters. In the meantime however, we could just broaden the scope of the clusters, for example Agriculture could actually be part of livelihood, and Environment could actually be part of Agriculture.
Aside from JEWELS, I also designed a framework that could measure poverty levels based on the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), and this includes Floor, Assets, Cooking Fuel, Electricity, Toilet and Safe Water (FACETS).
Using JEWELS as a programmatic framework, all the BDCs, MDCs, PDCs and RDCs could already design modular projects that would become the building blocks towards meeting their own SDGs in their respective jurisdictions. By definition, a project needs to have a beginning and an end. Therefore, as each project comes to an end, one more building block towards meeting the SDGs is built.
There should be no problem at all in funding these systemic projects, because that is the reason why the Internal Revenue Allocations (IRAs) are provided for. The Countryside Development Fund (CDF), assuming that it is revived or continued, could also be used for these systemic projects. The key to this is the transparency in implementing and monitoring these systemic projects, because if only there is transparency, corruption could be controlled.
Just in case the BDCs, MDCs, PDCs and RDCs would need help in planning for the projects, it would be very easy to invite volunteer consultants who could actually stay with them up to the completion of the planning process. These volunteer consultants could be recruited from professionals who are still actively working, or from those who have already retired.
On the implementation side, it would also be easy to recruit volunteer managers who could also stay with them from the beginning up to the end of the projects. Just the same, these volunteer managers could also be recruited from professionals who are still actively working, or from those who have already retired.
For good measure, it would also be very easy to invite volunteer advisers who could assist in the project from the start of the planning process until the closure of the projects.
There is no shortage of consultants, managers and advisers who could volunteer to help in the planning and implementation of systemic projects at the local levels that are based on pre-approved policies and programs.
However, we do have a shortage of appreciation for the importance of meeting the SDGs. We did not see that kind of appreciation in meeting the MDGs, and I hope that it will come around this time. Aside from the time bound SDGs, we still have to improve our national scores in the Human Development Index (HDI), also a metric of the UN.
The HDI measures the performance of member countries in terms of literacy, longevity and prosperity, i.e. the quality of life. The MPI is also a metric of the UN that was designed to have a more precise measurement of poverty levels among the member countries./PN
