SDG Coordination Council’s 5th meeting, chaired by the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Alikhan Smailov, took place on 12 March 2021. The Council was attended by the key stakeholders involved in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in Kazakhstan, including the heads of “5P” (People, Planet, Prosperity, Piece and Partnership) inter-sectoral working groups, UN Resident Coordinator, Resident Representative of the UN Development Programme, Country Director of Asian Development Bank and others.

The key objective of this meeting was to look through/ assess and discuss the outcomes of the work that has been conducted on SDGs implementation throughout 2020; to set up new priority objectives for 2021 and to approve the national list of SDG targets and indicators to be mainstreamed into the State planning system documents.   

In his opening speech, the Chairman of the SDG Coordination Council, Alikhan Smailov, highlighted the importance of the partnership for further implementation of the Joint Programme (JP) on aligning policy and financing with SDGs towards an Integrated National Financing Framework (INFF) in Kazakhstan. Secondly, he pointed out the potential use of the Development Finance Assessment outcomes for formulating better policies and measures for SDGs.

During the meeting, UNDP Resident Representative in Kazakhstan, Yakup Beris, presented the key results of UNDP support provided to the Government of Kazakhstan in accelerating progress towards SDGs, indicating that the national SDG Platform established in 2019 has achieved to bring many actors to the process of the 2030 Agenda implementation and allowed to scale up a number of joint efforts, further enhancing the work towards accelerating SDG progress in Kazakhstan and establishment of an INFF.

A nationally led and owned SDG coordination structure was established in 2018 by the resolution of the Prime-Minister of Kazakhstan, following the UN’s advice. It consists of the Coordination Council on SDGs, chaired by the First Deputy Prime-Minister, 5 inter-sectoral working groups around 5 Ps of SDGs (People, Planet, Prosperity, Piece and Partnerships). The Ministry of National Economy acts as a lead ministry in coordinating the implementation of the SDGs in Kazakhstan, while the JSC Economic Research Institute acts as a Secretariat to provide analytical support to the 5 working groups.