The Civil Society Organisations’ (CSO) Shadow Report on the Voluntary National Review (VNR) on progress made towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been launched in Accra.

The report noted that although the country had a strong national-level institutional arrangement, there were weak local level coordination.

The situation if not checked, could undermine accountability and inclusiveness as well as efforts of achieving the targets.

It also revealed that there was a low level of awareness and knowledge on the SDG goals among households at the local levels and that politicization of development issues had hindered citizens’ mobilization around SDGs.

A speech read at the launch, on behalf of Professor George Gyan Baffour, the Minister of Planning, said the partnership between Government and CSO’s had contributed to the significant progress made by the country towards achieving the SDGs.

He gave the assurance that the government would continue to strengthen partnership, and working to complement each other to accelerate the progress of the global goals.

“Government sees the VNR Shadow Report as providing an opportunity to further engage and scrutinize the VNR Ghana Report. It also provides the opportunities to review the strategies and structures that have been adopted as well as the partnership that has been created for the implementation and monitoring of the SDG’s,’’ he said.

Mrs. Beauty Emefa Narteh, Co-Chairman of the CSOs Platform on SDGs, said the objective of the report was to review the country’s progress towards achieving SDGs and also reflect on CSO’s perspective in complementing the Government VNR Report.

Mrs. Narteh said the findings and recommendations outlined in the report were a critical overview of “our strength as Civil Society and the pathway to effective advocacy and gaps needed to be filled in efforts to achieve the SDGs."

For the first time, Ghana would join countries including Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire to present individual reports on how far it had fared with the implementation of SDGs at the United Nations High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) in New York next week.