"We are working, together with the Angolan Government and civil society, to launch the first national voluntary report that will be launched in June this year and there you will be able to see where Angola is in this sense," said Zahira Virani, when asked by Lusa about Angola's actions in the field of SDGs.
For the United Nations diplomat, "the financial crisis, poverty and the covid-19 health crisis" are among the "many challenges of Angola" in the process of materialization of the SDGs, but "there is the commitment of the government and the Angolan people to make it right."
"We are working together, especially with the Ministry of Economy and Planning. Of course the financial crisis did not help, we have a population that lives in poverty, covid-19, and everyone needs activities and investments from the Government side and partners as well," Zahira Virani stressed.
The official was speaking at the end of the presentation ceremony of the program on "Strengthening Synergies between Social Protection and Public Finance Management", budgeted at 1.8 million euros funded by the European Union (EU).
The program launched Friday in Luanda, which will be implemented by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) until December 2022, foresees strengthening the capacity of public institutions to increase the budget and improve the delivery of social protection services in Angola.
Zahira Virani recalled that Angola is one of eight countries on three continents selected to participate in this EU-funded global project, saying that the project "will also support the steps needed to achieve target 1.3 of the SDGs."
"We recognize that the health crisis plaguing the world represents a challenge to the achievement of the SDGs, the United Nations estimates that globally the impact of covid-19 will bring an increase in extreme poverty," she pointed out.
For her part, the ambassador of the European Union in Angola, Jeannette Seppen, also noted the importance of the project, considering that it will "support the development of the sustainable social protection system.
The project, she noted, "will support the adoption of a national policy of social protection, promote the analysis of financial needs and fiscal space to establish the minimum level of social protection and promote coordination between the ministries involved in order to improve the capacity of funding and service delivery.
"This is a very ambitious project for which it is essential to ensure joint work between the ministries involved, in fact social protection is essential to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth, improve poverty," she concluded.
