UN Development Programme supporting the Caribbean

 

THE United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been scaling up its support to the Caribbean.
 
Helping to achieve the eradication of poverty, and the reduction of inequalities and exclusion, UNDP has deployed very capable national and international staff through its network of offices across six countries in the Caribbean and from the regional hub in Panama, under the leadership of Regional Director Jessica Faieta.
 
Word of this came from Administrator of the UNDP, Helen Clark, during a recent visit to Barbados to launch the 2016 Caribbean Human Development Report.
 
“We have relocated staff from UNDP headquarters in New York to the Panama regional hub to respond more efficiently to requests for technical support from Caribbean governments. We have increased our expertise in the areas of disaster risk reduction, citizen security, and climate change with the recruitment of new international staff dedicated to the Caribbean.”
 
Together with Caribbean governments and regional institutions, Clark disclosed that the UN Development agencies have also developed a five-year UN Multi-Country Sustainable Development Framework, which identified priorities for action from the UN Development System in the Caribbean. 
 
“All these issues are reflected in the report… Thus this report presents another opportunity for all partners to engage in substantive discussions around how to translate the UN Multi-Country Sustainable Development Framework into concrete support for national and regional development initiatives,” she said.
 
“The UN Development System is already rolling out its support to countries in the region to mainstream the SDGs in national planning and policies, and accelerate progress on the Goals. This report and the practical tools which accompany it support these efforts. One of the analytical tools, Poverty Risk Analysis, or POVRISK, uses household-level data over time to estimate the risk of people falling back into poverty – and the key factors associated with that risk.”
 
The UNDP Administrator also stressed that the eradication of poverty in the region requires not only lifting people out of poverty, but also keeping them out of it.
 
According to her, a new generation of public policies is required to address structural issues.
 
“These structural issues are limiting the Caribbean’s economic transformation, and inhibit the efforts of governments to ensure a more equitable, inclusive, and environmentally sustainable future for Caribbean countries.” (TL)

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