President Paul Kagame will, Wednesday, join his Zambian counterpart Edgar Lungu to launch the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG/C) Sub-Regional Centre for Southern Africa in Lusaka. According to Lusaka Times, the Minister of National Development Planning of Zambia, Alexander Chiteme, announced at a media briefing on Sunday that his country will host the institution. “The Government of the Republic of Zambia in collaboration with the Sustainable Development Goals Centre for Africa (SDGC/A) based in Kigali, Rwanda will be officially launching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG/C) Sub-Regional Centre for Southern Africa in Lusaka, at the Mulungushi International Conference Centre, on Wednesday 7th August 2019,” the Minister was quoted by the Zambian online news aggregator. Chiteme added that the launch of the Lusaka SDGC/A Sub-Regional Center follows the signing of the host country agreement in September 2018 in New York between the Government of Zambia and the SDG Centre for Africa. The SDG Sub-Regional Centre is an international not-for-profit institution which once launched, will provide technical support, neutral advice and expertise to national governments, private sector, civil society and academic institutions in order to accelerate the implementation of the SDG agenda. The Minister said the sub-regional centre will assist southern African countries to start unlocking bottlenecks that hinder smooth implementation of the SDGs and help achieve the goals. The launch, which is a one-day event brings together over 200 government officials, international organisations, development financing institutions, statistics institutions and experts from southern Africa and beyond, to discuss the major themes relevant to SDG implementation in Africa with focus on the sub-region. “As part of delegates, all the ministers charged with the coordination of SDGs implementation predominately ministers responsible for national development within the region, have been invited to attend this important event,” Chiteme noted. Rwanda is home to the SDG Centre for Africa and President Kagame serves as the Chairman of the board of the SDG Center for Africa. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
