Malaysia makes significant progress in UN SDGs

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has made significant progress in the adoption of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) under the national development agenda, said Bank Negara Malaysia Deputy Governor, Jessica Chew Cheng Lian.

In fact, she said, Malaysia’s national economic development policies, implemented more than four decades ago, had mirrored a number of the UN SDGs long before the initiative was introduced in 2016.

“Malaysia has had a longstanding commitment to the pursuit of sustainable and inclusive growth,” she said in her keynote address at the Global Forum on Remittance, Investment and Development 2018 Asia Pacific yesterday.

The SDGs are a collection of 17 global goals developed by the UN to replace the Millennium Development Goals which ended in 2015, covering a broad range of social and economic development issues.

Malaysia has had a long-standing commitment to the pursuit of sustainable and inclusive growth. Jessica Chew Cheng Lian, Bank Negara Malaysia Deputy Governor

However, she said the government’s effort alone was not sufficient and the financial institutions’ progress in embracing sustainable principles in their business strategies would play an important catalytic role in the delivery of the SDGs.

“Among other things, it would provide a stronger focus on needsbased selling, increase financial resources that are directed at economic activities that promote sustainable goals and encourage support for businesses to adopt sustainable practices,” she said.

She said 14 out of the 17 SDGs were specific targets which focused on the financial sector on some level, including goals on matters such as poverty, hunger, health and well-being, education, decent work and economic growth, industry, innovation, infrastructure and inequality.

“We need to do more to reinvigorate the financial services to drive the SDGs,” she said.

Chew said it was also important for the authorities to keep the policies up-to-date to ensure that they supported the SDGs.

She said policies which failed to keep up with the times could be counterproductive and even worse, create greater risks for the system.

“The SDGs are undeniably one of the most comprehensive attempts to capture the most important global challenges that we face.

“Solutions to these challenges will invariably create new issues for policymakers to consider,” she said, adding that this would lead to shorter life cycles for the policies and a need for faster policy responses to emerging issues.

Meanwhile, Chew also stressed that more efforts should be made to amplify the development impact of remittance, which, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development, involved an estimated one billion people worldwide.

She said some developing countries with large diaspora groups had issued diaspora bonds, and the proceeds were used to finance development projects.

“Other innovations can surely be developed to effectively leverage migrant resources for development,” she added.

Themed “Leveraging Remittances for Sustainable Development Goals: A Call to Action”, the three-day forum which started today will discuss the immense development potential of remittances in the Asia-Pacific region. — Bernama