Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Aug 15, 2011 News
– Finance Minister
Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh earlier this week announced that Guyana will be issuing a national Progress Report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) during the first half of next month. A GINA release said that the Minister made the announcement on the occasion of the signing of the country’s new United Nations Development Assistance Framework for the period from 2012 to 2016, last Wednesday at the Foreign Service Institute.
In a subsequent invited comment, Minister Singh explained that this new MDG Progress Report will provide a comprehensive and current update on Guyana’s progress towards achieving the goals and associated targets, and will also identify those priority areas where progress needs to be accelerated if the 2015 targets are to be achieved. Guyana has previously issued MDG progress reports in 2003 and 2007.
According to the release, the Finance Minister in his comment identified a number of MDG goals where Guyana has already made tremendous progress. These include access to primary education, food security, potable water and sanitation, promotion of gender equality and women empowerment, and environmental sustainability. The Minister explained that Guyana has already achieved virtually universal access to primary education, has increased access to safe water supply and sanitation, has implemented a number of policies aimed at achieving gender equality, and has mainstreamed environmental sustainability into its policy framework.
The Report will document these achievements in detail, providing both data on the relevant indicators, along with a description of a number of the programmes implemented by Government in order to achieve the progress made, Minister Singh stated. The Report will also identify crosscutting issues observed in assessing progress towards attainment of the goals.
The Minister explained that, as a result of Government’s policy emphasis on the social sector over the years, and given the steady increases in public expenditure on social programmes, marked advances have been made towards achieving several of the MDG targets.
In the $161 billion 2011 budget, which was presented in the National Assembly in January this year, an amount of $24.3 billion was allocated to the education sector, while the health sector was allocated a total of $14 billion; $3.6 billion was allocated to the housing sector, and $1.5 billion to the water sector. In addition, several other social programmes targeting the most vulnerable in society were also announced in the budget. On several occasions in the past, Minister Singh has pointed out that, unlike several other countries which are currently cutting back on social spending because of fiscal constraints, Guyana is in fact increasing its social spending, reflecting the Government’s ongoing commitment to ensuring affordable access to high quality social services.
The Finance Minister pointed out, however, that if the gains made so far are to be sustained and advanced, continued emphasis would need to be placed on social and other programmes, and additional investments made in the various sectors, in order to maintain the momentum in progress against key indicators. He highlighted the need for continued and further scaled up investment in education, the public health care system, housing, and infrastructure, as critical to the attainment of the goals within the MDG framework.
The MDGs represent a framework of social indicators agreed to by the international community arising out of the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 where leaders from around the world committed to the UN Millennium Declaration. The goals cover reduction of the incidence of poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality rates, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing a global partnership for development.
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