Role of NITI Aayog in the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda

Abstract

The NITI Aayog—National Institution for Transforming India—is the Think Tank of the Government of India, which has the responsibility of overseeing implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the country. NITI Aayog’s role in the context of the SDGs naturally gels well with its overall mandate of providing policy guidance, monitoring programme implementation and strengthening innovation across varied development sectors. While India’s federal context ordains that States and Union Territories (UTs) are predominantly responsible for implementation of SDGs, NITI Aayog has made significant contribution to the pursuit of SDGs by sensitising different stakeholders, regularly reviewing progress, providing need-based technical support, facilitating mutual learning among States/UTs and ranking the performance of States/UTs on SDGs on a set of select indicators. It has played a critical role in bringing together diverse stakeholders and setting off collaboration among them for specific objectives. The chapter projects future directions based on an analysis of current status and preparedness of relevant stakeholders, more specifically the State governments. It also gives key details of how the questions of monitoring, indicators and data have been addressed as far as SDGs are concerned.