Republic of Cyprus Second Voluntary National Report - Sustainable development goals

9 4. GOVERNANCE – INSTITUTIONAL MECHANISM COORDINATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS As a lesson learned from the 2017 VNR Report, Cyprus has taken further steps towards establishing coordination and monitoring mechanisms for the successful implementation of the SDGs in Cyprus. At the central Government’s level, relevant responsibilities have been assigned by the Council of Ministers to the Directorate General for European Programmes, Coordination and Development (DG EPCD) of the Ministry of Finance. As a first step, the DG EPCD initiated a mapping exercise in cooperation with line Ministries (responsible for each SDG) in terms of national policies, strategies and action plans relevant to the SDGs. This primarily enabled the National Coordinator (DG EPCD) to obtain a clearer picture of the policies in place and the extent to which they address the 2030 Agenda targets, identify policy gaps in different SDG areas and assign the monitoring responsibility for each SDG target and indicator according to the competences of the Μinistries. As part of this 2021 VNR preparation, the existing Governance Mechanism has been utilised in order to gather the necessary information on current Government strategies, policies and regulatory frameworks in all SDG areas as well as the current status of implementation and progress made since the previous VNR on the Goals, including good practices, lessons learnt as well as the impact of Covid-19. A NEW NATIONAL GOVERNANCE SYSTEM FOR THE SDGs IMPLEMENTATION IN PROGRESS The national Coordinator (DG EPCD) took the initiative in October 2019 to seek expert support in establishing a Governance and Monitoring Mechanism for the effective integration of SDGs into national policies and for their successful implementation. A new project named “Implementation and mainstreaming of the SDGs in the national policy framework in Cyprus” was launched in December 2020, in cooperation with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). The new Governance System, as well as a strategy for increased awareness, is expected to be completed in Autumn 2022. More specifically, the project is expected to support the initiatives of national authorities to design their reforms according to their priorities, also taking into account initial conditions and expected socioeconomic impacts. Additionally, the project is expected to draw specific recommendations on how to reflect key environmental and social issues in the development of the country’s growth strategy, and accordingly inform sectoral growth strategies, as well as horizontal reforms. NATIONAL FRAMEWORKS Under the European Semester The most important horizontal form of annual planning is reflected in the National Reform Programme (NRP) prepared in the context of the European Semester process of economic policy formulation in the EU. In the context of initiating the annual planning cycle, the Government’s Strategy Statement is issued each April setting the principal Governmental framework guiding the revolving 3-year strategic plans for the Government Services. As of 2019 the SDG priorities have been included in the Strategy Statement, with the aim to further incorporate them within all sectoral and horizontal strategies of the Government. This initiative came in anticipation of the EU to monitor progress in each member state with respect to the SDGs in the annual evaluation of the