The interdepartmental committee for sustainable development within the Government of Romania approved the indicators that will form the basis of the implementation of the National Strategy for the Sustainable Development of Romania for 2030, said on Wednesday, after the Government meeting, Laszlo Borbely, state councilor and coordinator of the Department for Sustainable Development within the Executive.

“We are in an important period regarding the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. This seems a little theoretical, technical, but it depends on each of us what attitude we have towards our lives. We are recognized at the regional and world level as a regional hub regarding the implementation of the Agenda. Last year, in December, we received an award from the UN, at the European level, for making public administration more efficient and for innovation. At the moment, we have completed the inter-institutional relationship, we have an interdepartmental committee, an Advisory Council formed by (experts) in sustainable development, 34 people trained in the academic field who helped us finalize these indicators. We also have the civil society – the Sustainable Coalition – with 120 entities with whom we have an ongoing relationship. What we decided today at the level of the interdepartmental committee, in the Government of Romania, is that we approved the indicators, because without knowing in which stage you are, still failing with education, health, the 17 objectives, you cannot take the next step. We did a first assessment in 2020 with the National Institute of Statistics and now we have 99 main indicators and 192 secondary indicators that we can track,” said Borbely, according to Agerpres.

The Government representative explained the mechanism through which the approved indicators will be able to be monitored, and depending on certain developments, decisions can be made at the political level.

“We have an aggregator which is, in fact, an institutional memory of sustainable development that is also useful for the press. There are Eurostat indicators at the European Union level and these indicators of ours, updated periodically. For example, we see in the poverty risk rate that in 2007 when we joined the European Union, was of 40%, now we are at about 30%, so we have reduced it, but we are still among the last, unfortunately. Also, in terms of the share of energy consumption from renewable sources, we are quite well compared of the European Union, at around 25%. We can also make a comparison to the intensity of CO2 emissions levels. In addition to having targets, you must also have a plan until 2030. We have the job definition of expert in sustainable development. What do we do with this job? We have 22 cores at the level of various ministries and institutions with which we have completed the strategy and action plan. The first 160 people will finish postgraduate courses in September and will be experts in sustainable development. We have in the PNRR (National Plan for Recovery and Resilience, n.r.) a Center of Excellence that we will create and that will bring expertise to the political decision-makers, with studies and analyzes to facilitate the decisions that are taken in different fields. I hope that, by the end of 2026, we will have 2,000 experts and 80% at the local level,” the official emphasized.

The National Strategy for the Sustainable Development of Romania 2030 (SNDDR 2030) is the key document adopted by Romania in accordance with the objectives of the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and with the strategic documents of the European Union, in all sectoral policies, for sustainable development at the national level, for the 2022-2030 period.