NUML SDG's Marathon 2022: Sustainable Development Goal-8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth)

SDG-8; Decent work and economic growth

by

Junaid Ahmed Dashti, Abdullah Saeed Abbasi   

BS (Public Administration and Governance)-4(Morning)

It promotes sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all. So this goal promotes the work that is legitimate by the law, sustainable don’t causes harm to the environment and don't damage the resources for future generation and the work should be productive that the economy grows.

Progress Made by Pakistan:

Pakistan as a member of United Nations has committed to take urgent action on UN's SDG's. So Pakistan also committed to achieve SDG 8 by 2030 as it is, "Decent work and economic growth"

Pakistan is a developing country with semi-industrial economy. Primarily export commodities include textiles, leather goods, sport goods, chemical and carpets.

Pakistan is currently going to a process of economic liberalization including privatization all government corporations aimed to attract foreign investment and decrease budget deficits. The Pakistan's government on May 2021 predicted that future growth rates will be 5% on the highest in South Asia. According to the World Bank, poverty in Pakistan decreased from 64.3% in 2001 to 21.9% in 2018.

In 2020, CPEC phase 2 has been started with new billion dollar agreements.

In ease of doing business which is necessary for economic growth, World Bank (WB) and International Finance Corporation's Flagship report 2020 ranked Pakistan 108 among 190 countries around the globe. It indicates a continuous improvement from 136 last year.

                      Fiscal Year                                                                                   Growth Rate

                      FY2015                                                                                          4.065%

                      FY2016                                                                                          4.56%

                      FY2017                                                                                          4.61%

                      FY2018                                                                                          6.10%

                     FY2019                                                                                           3.12%

                    FY2020                                                                                           -1.00%

                    FY2021                                                                                             5.57

Progress Made by NUML:

NUML's contribution toward the SDG 8 is mentionable. The efforts made by NUML include Incubation Center and NUML Career Development and Placement Services (NCDPS). NUML incubation center provide advisory services, consultancy, technology transfer development and business entrepreneurs, angel investors, advisors and mentors for innovation, idea generation and business creation.

NUML Career development and placement services (NCDPS) did a lot of activities including the skill for All-Hunarmand Pakistan program, Agahi awards, Tale Taleem, Student Professional Development Workshop and On-campus Recruitment Drive.

CAMPUS DRIVE

We initiated awareness campaign on 23rd February 2022 at 10 am. We started our drive at NUML University, Islamabad. We conducted an interview session with students of NUML University, Islamabad. We approached the students of different departments. The main aim behind these interviews was to know and highlight student perceptions about sustainable development goals. We had prepared brochures for the awareness campaign. We distributed the pamphlets among the students. After introducing ourselves and our project to them, we asked various questions from these students;

•         I.            From which department you are?
•       II.            Do you know about SDG’s?

 Following are the points that we discussed with the Students during the campaign:

•         I.            Firstly, we introduced and explained the main agenda behind our social action project.
•       II.            We made them realize that SDG’s are important for Pakistan to turn into a developed country. If Pakistan doesn’t follow the SDG’s then country faces severe crises.
•     III.            We asked them to preach this message to other people as well.

The students showed a positive attitude towards our social action project campaign, and they appreciated us by saying, “Keep up the good work.” We thanked the students for giving us their valuable time.

OPINIONS:

We reached 30 people out of which 21 were boys, 6 were girls and 3 were faculty members. 42% know about sustainable development goals and 58% don’t know about sustainable development goals.

  

      STUDENTS OF IR                STUDENTS OF GPP    STUDENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

   

Dr. Syed Waqas ALI Kausar                   Sir Zahid Shah                             Mr. Yasir Ameen

(HOD of GPP Department)           (Faculty of English Language)    (Faculty of GPP Department)

ONLINE WEBINAR:

We conducted online webinar on 23rd February 2022 at 5:30-5:50pm on google meet. We invite people through sending them poster, which is mentioned below;

   

25 people joined the webinar and webinar carryon for 12 minutes. Students of NUML University, PIEAS University, IQRA University, BAHRIA University and students from different universities and schools were joined. We aware them about SDG’s and especially about SDG no: 8, which were “Decent work and Economic Growth”.

IMPACT OF OUR PROJECT

 Our awareness campaign reached the maximum number of students through over awareness walk in university.

As a result, students became aware about sustainable development goals and they aim to play their role to make their country moves towards sustainable growth.

Recommendations:

To sustain the economic growth and make sure the decent work; Pakistan government need to make the business easy to access and participatory to attain the agenda 2030 of SDG's;

        I.            Pakistan needs to encourage the female participation and increase opportunities for them in the business sector.

      II.            Provides loan and subsidies to the youth to start their own businesses

    III.            Need to encourage and facilitate the domestic and international business and avoid the unnecessary red tap process.

    IV.            Boost up the local product and companies and levy less takes on local product, example made in Pakistan.

      V.            Reduce the import and increase the export to take the economic deficit by levy more taxes on imported goods. Government institutions should need to provide enabling environment for businesses and help their local businessman’s to grow up their businesses.

Conclusion:

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), comprising 17 inter-related development goals and 169 specific targets, provide a “scheme to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all”. Goal 8 i.e. Decent Work and Economic Growth is aimed at achieving full and productive employment while ensuring decency at workplace for all, irrespective of gender and social class. Though the plans, like encouraging entrepreneurship and skills, job creation, eradication of forced and child labors, security at workplace etc, are illuminating. As Pakistan is still categorized in underdeveloped countries so it means it lack behind in SDG's which may be economic growth, poverty, hunger, education, security etc. Most of the developed countries has had almost copied with these goals or near about to complete till 2030. . I think these 17 goals needs a dire proper implementation in a sustainable way so our country be excluded from underdeveloped countries.