George Osei-Bimpeh, SEND-GHANA’s Country Director has urged government to find innovative and domestic driven ways of financing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within the framework of post 2015 development agenda.

He argued that, sustainable development financing was the only panacea for consolidating gains made through the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Speaking at a recent media organized by SEND-GHANA on the Open Budget Tracker Survey and Post 2015 Development Agenda, Osei-Bimpeh opined that, increasing inequality and the fact that about seven (7) million Ghanaians live on just a dollar a day makes a case for social protection programmes which implementation requires guaranteed financing.

This comes at the hindsight of lessons gleaned from the formulation and implementation of the MDGs.

Among other things, there was less discussion and no concrete agreement and strategies to finance the implementation of the MDGs; issues of governance were not prioritized for which reason fiscal or budget transparency and accountability were completely out of the picture.

He drew government’s attention to these lessons to serve as a guide as the country is preparing to join the inter-governmental negotiation on the SDGs and as government explores financing mechanisms for the implementation of Post 2015 Agenda.

“Budget transparency and accountability should be the core priority of government in the context of SDG/Post 2015,” he advised.

The SDGs which  follow, and expand on, the MDGs, are a new, universal set of goals, targets and indicators that United Nation (UN) member states will be expected to use to frame their agendas and political policies over the next 15 years starting 2016.

On her part, Clarie Schouten, Senior Programme Officer, International Budget Partnership, is of the view that, budget transparency can help shine light on leakages and improve efficiency in public expenditures.

According to her, transparency without participation is insufficient for accountability and therefore advised that opportunities should be created for public participation in the budget process. “There should be full transparency on government revenues and government spending on each of the goals as part of the means of implementation should be monitored.”

The event which was organized under the auspices of International Budget Partnership (IBP) was to present the different features and dynamics of the evolving development financing landscape in order to help improve the understanding of participants of how countries were dealing with increasing complexities, opportunities and risks.

Source-SEND-GHANA