Sustainable development: Uks calls for inserting gender in MDG reporting

Underscores media’s failing in keeping govt on toes for achieving MDGs

ISLAMABAD: Uks Research, Resource and Publication Centre on Women and Media on Wednesday launched an annual diary which highlights findings of its work on the millennium as well as sustainable development goals. The diary underscores the need of focusing on gender as a cross-cutting theme in media coverage of these goals. 

The diary benefits from key findings of Uks’ earlier work titled “Millennium Development Goals-Specific Content in Pakistan.”

At the launch of the diary titled “Women of Pakistan - Millennium Development Goals - Missed the MDGs, Must Achieve the SDGs” the annual reporting of the MDGs in newspapers, newsletters, reports, magazines, journals, books and on the internet, was a difficult task for the organisation to pull together.

The diary states that the yearly content found was mostly event-based reporting with very few analytical articles, editorials or columns asking the right questions.

Uks Research Centre Director Tasneem Ahmar said media coverage of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) must have gender as a crosscutting theme.

Adding to that, she said gender should be integrated into media policy planning, programming, implementation and information dissemination.

In her note, Ahmar writes that one did not see media critiquing the various governments on how the country performed and whether these governments were on track to achieve the MDGs.

Moreover, the media did not report on the human face of the MDGs — exploring and seeking what the goals really mean to people.

Ahmar, while addressing the gathering that had come for the launch, said women had to be a part of the campaigns to achieve greater results.

Shaista Yasmeen, while speaking to The Express Tribune, said there was barely any reporting on the MDGs in Urdu or other regional languages or any investigative reporting on the issue.

“We have missed the bus as far as the MDGs are concerned,” said rights activist Tahira Abdullah.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2015.