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NewsDay

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‘Economy should grow by 7% to meet SDGs’

Business
ZIMBABWE’s economy needs to grow by 7% in order to meet the sustainable development goals (SDGs), Ministry of Finance officials told Parliament yesterday.

ZIMBABWE’s economy needs to grow by 7% in order to meet the sustainable development goals (SDGs), Ministry of Finance officials told Parliament yesterday.

By Veneranda Langa

Graciano Nyaguse (director joint ventures unit) and Pfungwa Kunaka (principal director fiscal policy) appeared before the Parliamentary Thematic Committee on SDGs to discuss Zimbabwe’s progress.

“Our tracking of SDGs tells us that in order for us to generate resources to finance the SDGs agenda, we need to grow the economy by 7% annually,” Nyaguse said.

“We identified people in line ministries who will be able to track and take stock of the progress on SDGs and we are working with Zimstats in terms of ensuring that there is availability of data on implementation of SDGs and tracking,” he said.

Nyaguse said due to inadequate funding for SDGs, the Ministry of Finance had roped in development partners to assist.

“Other sources of funding like international capital and debt are not available to us because of challenges in the country, and so we are relying on domestic finances to fund SDGs programmes. We allocate the resources through the budget, and also get assistance from development partners. SDG implementation is premised on the availability of resources, and we are concentrating on formulating policies that will assist us to grow the economy,” he said.

Kunaka said their priorities were to ensure SDGs that have to do with ending poverty, access to food, access to education and health, infrastructure like water, electricity, and others.