By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 25 Apr: A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Uttarakhand Planning Department and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with regard to speeding up the sustainable development goals in the state and providing technical support on aspects related to policy planning and providing technical expertise in various departments.
The MoU on behalf of the state government was signed by R Meenakshi Sundaram, Secretary, Planning, and Shoko Noda, local representative of UNDP India. An MoU was also signed for technical cooperation on sustainable development goals, policy research, etc., in the CPPGG constituted under the planning department.
In the programme, Shoko Noda informed that the state of Uttarakhand is a premier state for UNDP, where from the year 2017, UNDP has been providing necessary cooperation in the rapid socio-economic development of the state under umbrella MoU with various departments of the state. Assistance is being provided by the UNDP in collaboration with the state government to prepare monitoring and evaluation system and action plans to speed up the sustainable development goals and besides this also for employment generation, skill development to increase entrepreneurship, formation of SRLM PMU in the state. Cooperation in agriculture and horticulture, under climate change work is also being undertaken on Secure Himalaya Project etc.
Secretary, Planning, R Meenakshi Sundaram urged UNDP India to follow SDG implementation monitoring and evaluation in the state as well as to include gender inclusive, gender budgeting and policy research as per the need of the state and successful experiments (best practices) of development in India and abroad. He also sought technical support to various departments in this respect.
Dr Manoj Kumar Pant, Additional Chief Executive Officer, CPPG, Dr Pradeep Mehta, State Head, UNDP and Policy Expert Kumar Rajesh, were present during the MoU signing.
