Welcome to the United Nations
Building on the lessons learned from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) experience, the
Philippine Government is committed to the bigger challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) which integrate the social, economic and environmental agenda. The review report highlights the
initiatives of the government and other stakeholders to provide the policy and enabling environment for
the implementation of the SDGs, particularly on securing the buy-in from policymakers and stakeholders,
incorporating the SDGs into the national framework, improving indicators and data, and developing
institutional mechanisms.
Since the adoption of the 2030 Development Agenda in September 2015, the Philippine Government and
its partners have conducted communications and advocacy efforts to build awareness and engage
stakeholders in the new agenda. The NEDA Technical Secretariat, for its part, has conducted briefings
and orientations for its inter-agency committees, including Cabinet-level committees of the NEDA Board,
and other multisectoral and multistakeholder fora. Since the initial year of the SDG implementation
coincides with a new administration in the country, the more effective and persuasive tool for SDG
advocacy is the ongoing process itself of integrating SDGs simultaneously into the long-term vision and
goals (Ambisyon Natin 2040) and the national, sectoral and subnational plans and frameworks. This
involves a broader network of players and more opportunities to engage in the SDG discourse vis-a-vis
national priorities. Innovative strategies such as identifying new SDG champions among the new officials
or from the business or private sectors may be considered in the process.
The CSOs have also provided significant support to the SDG campaign. One organization held a
workshop on the child rights and SDGs, where a mix of CSO and government participants used the SDG
framework to identify advocacy opportunities to influence decision-makers in addressing priority issues
on child protection. Still another held a Voters' Education Forum on Food and Nutrition Security which
identified food and nutrition security policy proposals for prioritization in the legislative agenda of the
next Congress. The UNDP Philippines also initiated an activity which resulted in the CSOs developing
their work plan vis-a-vis the SDGs.
The country shares its good practice in mapping out SDG indicators for national monitoring. The
assessment and prioritization of the global SDG indicators based on national context have undergone a
participatory and iterative process, jointly led by the national planning and statistics agencies. A policy
statement was recently issued enjoining the government agencies to provide data support to monitor the
country's performance with respect to the SDGs and specifying the responsibilities of statistics agencies.
Through a series of technical workshops, the indicators have been assessed based on regularity of data
generation and availability of disaggregated data, among others. The resulting list of indicators serves as
timely inputs into the ongoing preparation of the successor Medium-Term Development Plan. A chapter
on the SDGs has been added to the updated Philippine Statistical Development Program 2011-2017 to
ensure government support in the generation of data. Moreover, the government plans to strengthen
mechanisms for SDG monitoring and reporting through an SDG webpage, development of the SDG
Watch that will monitor the relevant and available indicators, and identification of an SDG Focal Point
from each data-source agency to facilitate coordination and data gathering of the indicators, among
others.
Issues and concerns such as unavailability of data, lack of disaggregated data, lack of common definition
of terms, overlaps of indicators across SDG goals, and lack of measurement methods for some indicators
were raised. These apply to more than half of the total number of SDG indicators with most of these
falling under Goals 12 (sustainable consumption and production patterns), 14 (conserve and sustainably
use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development), 6 (water and sanitation) and I 0
(reduce inequality).
A number of goals in the SDGs do not require the government to deliver public services, but rather
develop and enforce the necessary policy and regulatory framework. And given the interrelatedness of
the goals and targets in the SDGs, government is considering creating a high-level inter-agency NEDA
Committee to plan and oversee the coordinated implementation of SDG-rclated policies and programs.
Horizontal and vertical linkages of the committee with concerned planning and budget coordinating
bodies and subnational councils, among others, will be clarified for policy and program coherence.
Notable is the proactive stance of the Mindanao group of NEDA subnational offices calling the attention
of the NEDA Central Office to involve them in the mainstreaming of the SDGs in the subnational and
local development planning and budgeting.
On the means of implementation (MOI), the government has yet to draw up an SDG Implementation
Roadmap that will serve as an overall framework to guide government and other key stakeholders on the
needed actions, resources, responsibilities and partnerships to ensure the success of SDG implementation.
The corresponding financing requirements of the SDG implementation and sources of funds will have to
be consolidated into a financial plan that will be an accompanying document of the roadmap and will be
linked to the yearly budget framework and public investment programming. The government is interested
to know the experience of other countries in coming up with their financial requirement for the SDGs and
how financial resources were mobilized especially innovative financing for the SDGs. The government
would also like to hear other countries' experience in applying models like the Threshold 21 (T2 J) for
simulation of long-term scenarios and Advance Data Planning Tool (ADAPT) for costing statistical
activities.
Philippines
