By Kemo Cham
The United Nations country office has launched a nationwide campaign with a photographic exhibition geared towards propagating the new global development goals, dubbed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The SDGs are a set of 17 development goals adopted at the last UN General Assembly in September last year. They replaced the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which came to an end after 15 years serving as blue print for global development agendas.
The new goals had been set to be achieved by 2030.
Sierra Leone, represented by a delegation headed by President Ernest Bai Koroma, participated in the discussions that adopted the SDGs.
The one-day photographic exhibition hosted in collaboration with the Kenema City Council was a way of popularizing the goals to the common man, said UN officials. The exhibition highlighted relevant photographs representing the human and environmental situation as they related to local development.
Tikue Girmay, spokesman for the UN country office, said the main reason for the use of photography was to make it easier for the people to understand.
“As the saying goes, pictures speak louder...and research has proved that photography is a good way of sending message to people,” he told Politico.
He said all photos exhibited were sourced locally. Some of them represented the impact of the effect on human activities which the SDGs were meant to address, like the impact of mining on the environment, while others represented the successes of the SDGs, he said.
The exhibition was backed up by a one-day media training in Kenema, the objective for which was to familiarize journalists with the SDGs and enhance their reporting skills on them.
This would also enable journalists to monitor objectively the progress and challenges in the implementation of the country’s development agenda, a statement by the UN office said.
Similar exhibition and media training were set for this week in Bo.
Gabriel Rugalema, the UN Resident Coordinator, said in the statement that the on-going SDGs promotion would provide citizens with the right information about the SDGs and the promises they hold for the country. He urged the government to implement the development goals according to the local context.
“The SDGs should be tailored to country level and informed by context–based evidence,” Rugalema said in a prepared statement from the UN.
“Governments should take into account different national realities, capacities and levels of development and national policies and priorities in implementing the SDGs.”
the statement added that the SDGs represented the shared global goals and targets, and they were highly relevant to the socio-economic reality of Sierra Leone, and in line with the government’s Agenda for Prosperity.
After the Kenema launch, the UN would organize town hall meetings, workshops, panel discussions, and more photographic exhibitions and media trainings in different parts of the country as part of the popularization campaign.
(C) Politico 26/01/16
