KOTA KINABALU: Sabah hosted its first Malaysia Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Summit on Thursday (Jan 25).
Organised by Sabah Economic Development and Investment Authority (Sedia), the event recorded over 2,000 participants comprising delegates, exhibitors, YouthJoy participants, as well as job seekers.
Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor said the summit provided an avenue for state agencies to present some of the initiatives that had been implemented.
He said this included biodiversity and forest ecosystem protection efforts, as well as the conservation and management of fisheries sources through the Tagal method.
An informative and comprehensive selection of topics were presented from the start of the event to the very end, with a focus mainly on five different aspects which are Driving Sustainable Development; Ensuring Inclusive Development; Preserving Biodiversity and Protecting the Forest Ecosystem in Sabah; Leading the Drone Industry; and Driving Cooperation for Sustainable Development in Sabah.
Additionally, four plenary sessions were conducted involving collaboration between government agencies, the private sector, industry players and institutional bodies, thus resulting in a comprehensive effort that successfully touched on every aspect of each panel members’ expertise.
It saw the collaboration between 40 bodies involving State and Federal Government agencies, GLCs, NGOs, local entrepreneurs and the private sector, including the likes of the State Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, City Hall (DBKK), the Sabah Tourism Exploration Association, NK Robotics, Desa Group of Companies and many more.
For the younger audiences, the one-day summit was supported by the simultaneously held YouthJoy programme, an ambitious effort to raise awareness among the youths and teenagers of the role of SDGs in improving development within Sabah.
The content of the YouthJoy programme consisted of pocket talks by experts related to development, environmental topics and the empowerment of rural communities.
This entire event is a part of the larger Malaysia SDG Summit 2023- 2024 series, which is a programme by the Ministry of Economy to be held across five regions throughout Malaysia.
The Ministry of Economy plans for the Malaysia SDG Summit 2023-2024 to be coordinated in each region by respective Economic Corridor Authorities, through collaboration with the State Governments and local authorities.
SDG is an agenda introduced by the United Nations (UN) since 2015 and comprises of 17 goals towards achieving a shared goal by all 19 UN Member States, known as “Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”.
SDG is further broken down into 169 various targets towards achieving the 17 goals, and address social and economic development issues.
Source: Daily Express
