Agenda presented for human development
The term “human development” covers a lot of ground, and today those officials, both in and out of government who fall under that topic’s wide umbrella, met to formalize the direction in which they’ll be heading. Ann-Marie Williams reports.
Ann-Marie Williams, Reporting
Belize leads the charge among her Caribbean sisters in developing a twenty-year human development agenda. The agenda will provide the nation with a framework for establishing and implementing development needs, indicators and targets in all sectors.
According to UNDP’s local programme officer, Dylan Vernon, a number of organisations comprise the working group for the agenda. UNDP is one of them.
Ann-Marie Williams
“The consultation is usually moved from a top-down approach to a bottom-up, how is this process going to happen and who are some of the people at the bottom?”
Dylan Vernon, Programme Officer, UNDP
“The whole idea is that the people who know most about needs and about setting targets for development, are people in urban and rural communities. And so the process is designed in such a way that it begins with community consultations. It’s basically looking at people in communities, urban and rural, who are the people who vote in elections, who are the people who on an day to day basis makes this country work.”
Human Development Minister Dolores Balderamos Garcia, believes that a long-term agenda for human development is necessary to make this country work.
Dolores Balderamos Garcia
“We need to know where we are going in terms of human development. I don’t think we can just move bump along with five year plans, it’s clear that it has not worked. And the good thing about this initiative of the National Human Development Agenda, is people participation; partnership with civil society and communities taking charge and taking responsibility for contributing to what their own goals are and how they’re going to get there.”
Technical assistance has been pledged by ECLAC, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Asha Kambon, ECLAC
“We have been working with the, it’s called the National Human Development Working Group, assisting them in understanding the framework, in developing the framework, so they now have what is a very robust framework for setting out this human development agenda. Something that comes out of people themselves, so if there is a particular community, women voice their concerns about wanting, say for instance to better get their children educated; to improve the nutritional status of their children; or to improve their own well-being and improve their own safety. If that’s a concern, it will be articulated and we’re going to make sure it gets into the agenda.”
The first phase of the human development agenda is expected to be completed by November. Ann-Marie Williams for News 5.
