On June 20, 2025, the Secretariat for Sustainable Development Goals participated in the webina.organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) for countries submitting the Voluntary National Review on Sustainable Development Goals in 2025 at the UN High-level Political Forum.
Representatives
of the Department of SDG coordination under the Ministry of National
Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, employees of the SDG
Secretariat of Economic Research Institute JSC, representatives of
Almaty Development Center JSC and UN Country Office in Kazakhstan
participated from Kazakhstan.
During
the first session, countries shared their experience in preparing the
Review, including information on the current status, recent
achievements, current challenges and key priorities.
Bakytgul
Khambar, the Director of the Secretariat for Sustainable Development
Goals of Economic Research Institute JSC, reported with the
presentation on preparation of the third Voluntary National Review of
Kazakhstan. Bakytgul Khambar pointed out that this Review focuses on
SDG localization, as well as involvement of non-government
organizations, youth and school children for implementation of the
principle "Leave no one behind". In this context, the
results of the youth survey and the experience of interacting with
stakeholders during the preparation of the Review were presented.
Barriers such as the lack of methodology for systematic monitoring of
SDG implementation and an insufficient database on the contribution
of the business sector were also identified.
The
representative of Bhutan shared the current status of the preparation
of the Review, plans for its presentation at the UN High-level
Political Forum and participation in additional events in July 2025.
The
representative of Malaysia, Mr. Fakhrul-Ke, said that the Malaysian
SDG Center, together with ministries, is preparing the Review. He
noted that the national strategic documents, including Malaysia's
Development Plan for 2020-2026, were developed taking into account
the SDGs, and that government policy priorities are consistent with
the UN SDGs. In addition, Malaysia has prepared 15 Voluntary Local
Reviews posted on the UN database.
The
second session of the webinar was devoted to the practices of SDG
localization. Within its framework, Dias Kumarbekov, Director of the
Analytical Center of Almaty Development Center JSC, presented a
presentation on the preparation of the Voluntary Local Review of
Almaty. He pointed out that this year the works on preparations of
the second local review are being carried out, and Kazakhstan is the
only country in Central Asia implementing such an initiative. At the
same time, one of the main problems in preparing the review remains
the lack of detailed statistics at the local (urban) level compared
to the national level.
Mr.
Omar Siddique, the ESCAP representative, pointed out the importance
of SDG localization for the countries of Asia, Central Asia and the
Pacific region. Using the example of India, he emphasized the
effectiveness of cooperation between the academic sector and local
executive authorities in preparing local reviews. He also expressed
the opinion that it is advisable to promote the localization of the
SDGs at the national level in order to increase the effectiveness of
their implementation on the local level.
Mr.
Siddique highlighted the successful work of the Associations of Local
Executive Authorities in Malaysia and Indonesia, which are focused on
the development of urban sustainability. In addition, he informed
about the availability of the ESCAP Internet platform for online
courses and about the possibilities of obtaining technical support
for the localization of SDGs at the city and territory levels.
In
the final part of the webinar, the ESCAP representative reported on
the holding of a webinar to share experiences in strengthening the
Review on July 18 this year, as well as a webinar in August on
activities following the submission of Voluntary National Reviews.
