TARGETS to acquire the goals of sustainable devel opmentin the post-MDG (ao15) period me failing to spot the needs of highly sensitive social groups -mainly children, women and persons with disabili¬ties, the most vulnerable section of the satiety. Some reports carried in different newspapers on Monday focused on mob issues blaming poor government measures, inadequate budgetary allocation and lack of coordination among the public fimclionaries liable for these breakdowns. Moreover, the experts talldng in a roundtable in the city on Sunday highlighted that the future strategy regarding children development after aor5 needs more intimate deliberation.
Another report in an Engli4r daily expressed extreme dis¬pleasure of the professionals and researchers demanding a gender-sensitive budget to reduce dis¬parity induced inequality between men and women while the other expressed the severe frustrations of the ‘differentlyable-people’ who claimed that the gov¬emment treat them as a helpless and marginalised group as the government onty allocated a fired for them from the social safety nets programme. However, the flip side is that the country has per¬formed better in achieving the MDG targets in respect of child and maternal welfare than that of many of our neighbouring countries.
But unfortu¬nately, the focus point of human rights has not been included in MDG success. Therefore, sustainable development criterion for the post-MDG period must ponder on the human rights issue. The UNICEF experts observed that the government has manyproj¬ect-based activities, which act as a deterrent factor for child specific action. There is also a lack of coordina¬tion among the GOs, NGOs and the donor agencies. Though there were huge investments in this head during the last 15 years, the outcome has not been monitored precisely and the output is not lmown yet. Regarding the development agenda for women, a query has been raised that most of the allocated mon¬ey was for the welfare of distressed women, but there should also be an allocation to empower women, develop female entrepreneurs and to free women from oppression.
The government has to take initia-tives to monitor the gender sensithityin the develop¬ment exercises.
However, the other serious issue about the persons in disability cannot be ruled out as the budget has no allocation for their education, health and employ¬ment. It is regrettable that at the outset of each year all the children are given new books except the chil¬dren with disabilities. Moreover, the government made no proposals to allocate funds to the relevant ministries for the health and medicare, sports and cultural pursuits of those people with different ablli¬tice.
For a better future as well as for abetter Bangladesh, we ask for an integrated approach by the govem ment.A focused planning strategy in a more inclusive and transparent way can ensure good governance. Children, women and the people With disabilities must need intensive allocations in the budget and must not be spared from the post-MDG target.
