©Afreepress-(Lomé, Saturday 26th August 2017)- On Thursday, 24th August 2017, the “United Nations Information Centre (UNIC)”, organized a training session with the theme, “Gender and Sustainable Development Goals” at their premises in Lomé, Togo. This meeting was organized to discuss with participants, their 17 objectives for Sustainable Development and to train them on the strategies to use to eradicate poverty in the country.

The CINU aims at promoting women’s empowerment, gender equality and abolishing discrimination among women in the country and this led to the birth of a new program, “Objectives of the Millennium Development”. They believe that meeting their goals with the appropriate strategies would help in the transformation in lives in the country by 2030, hence development.

Led by the speaker, Mrs. Anne Youroufi KPEDJI, the 17 goals or objectives were presented and these included; Eliminating poverty, eliminating hunger, Ensuring good health and well-being, ensuring access to quality education, ensuring equality among sexes, guaranteeing access to water and sanitation, providing reliable and durable modern energy services, providing long lasting and decent works for women and protecting their rights to work, providing flexible and resilient infrastructures, reducing inequalities from one country to another, ensuring durable cities and communities, promoting responsible production and consumption, creating relative measures in the fight against climatic change, promoting aquatic life, preserving and restoring terrestrial ecosystem, achieving efficient, peaceful societies and legal systems, strengthening and improving the means of implementation and partnership.

She added some other goals they are also considering, such as, stopping violence among women, of which it has been realised that 35% of women suffer, ensuring access to economic resources, stopping prejudicial practices such as forceful marriage of children and female genital mutilation, putting in place public services for domestic works, seeing to it that women participate effectively in functions especially politics, and many more. “Every 8 hours, a lady dies in Togo”, Mrs. KPEDJI said. This means that there is a need to ensure good and healthy birth processes for ladies.

The tracks to ensure the implementation of these objectives were not left out. Some include; the development of relevant indicators and the strengthening of state capacity for data collection, the redeployment of fund priorities, and a participatory approach that places great emphasis on women’s associations.

It should be noted that after the negotiation process which lasted for more than two years, the leaders of UNIC reunited at New York on the 25th September, 2015 at the General Assembly of Nations to finalize on the 17 objectives for sustainable development by 2030.

Patricia I.