Ministry of Human Development and Social Transformation
Remarks by Hon. Peter Martinez – Minister of Human Development and Transformation – UNICEF AWP Signing Ceremony
Belmopan – 22 April, 2009
Ministerial Colleagues, Chief Executive Officers, Ms. Rana Flowers, UNICEF Country Representative and other representatives and members of the United Nations System, Heads of Department and other public officers, NGO and civil society representatives, invited guests, ladies and gentlemen.
I am very pleased to be a part of this signing ceremony this afternoon that marks another milestone in the longstanding relationship between UNICEF and the country of Belize. A relationship that has yielded many gains for children, women and families as a whole.
I must congratulate UNICEF for the integrated approach it is taking this year in its support to government. This will assist us greatly with our own efforts as government to have a coordinated response to the many issues that we are trying to address, particularly in the social sector.
I believe that a coordinated response is essential if we are to achieve the many development goals we have set for ourselves as an administration. We must move beyond the dialogue into action on this matter of inter ministerial coordination. I know this is much easier said than done as we are all overwhelmed with the concerns of each of our individual Ministries and to make it truly work – coordination entails some effort on the front end, ensuring that mechanisms and frameworks are in place and functioning. I firmly believe however that it is worth the effort and investment of time and perhaps even some resources.
There are already quite a few tools which can be used to achieve a coordinated approach. Primary among them is the National Plan of Action for Children and Adolescents, 2004-2015 (NPA). As many of us know this document was developed with bi-partisan input and much work has been done and continues to be done by the National Committee for Families and Children to ensure that this document guides all our actions with and behalf of children. The UNICEF Country Programme Action Plan, which is essentially the cooperation document between UNICEF and the Government of Belize, is also, quite fittingly, guided by this document.
I believe there needs to be a renewal of the commitment to the NPA. To turn what has been acknowledge in many circles, nationally and internationally, as an excellent document into a living, breathing movement to safeguard the present and future of our children.
The NPA has all the essential elements of a good national development plan. It is comprehensive in its intent – considering the needs of children through the lifecycle and looking at their development holistically by addressing the areas of health, education, child protection, HIV and AIDS, the family and culture. The targets are realistic as they were set with the input of technical persons in the various areas of attention, many of whom are still working in the system. The NPA has a very robust monitoring and evaluation framework, and a good framework for social sector coordination and planning also exists. There is even a modest allocation in the national budget for special NPA projects. Furthermore, if you do a comparative analysis between the UDP Manifesto and the NPA, you will see that there is an excellent fit between the two.
To reiterate, the NPA has all the essential elements of a good national development plan, we now just have to commit to making it work.
If we were to achieve the targets set out in the NPA, we would indeed achieve the social transformation of our communities and society as a whole. There is essentially nothing that is done on behalf of children that does not impact the development of the society as a whole. Let’s consider this for a moment –
If we talk about poverty alleviation: children bear the brunt of poverty in our country, over 40% of children are poor as opposed to 33% of the general population. So successful poverty alleviation measures need to include economic and social interventions that target the families in which these children live.
The major development indicators that tell the story of the equitable development of a country, that tells the story of the commitment of a country to the invest in its people, those indicators that are monitored internationally, that have a direct impact on a country’s ability to access funding and assistance – the majority of these indicators are directly related to the wellbeing of children – maternal mortality, child mortality, primary and secondary school participation, drop out and transition rates at primary and secondary level, incidence of malnutrition, to name a few.
If we think of the international frameworks for development that we have committed to as a country, the development of children features prominently in these. Six of the eight goals Millennium Development Goals for instance relate directly to children. Meeting the last two will also make critical improvements in their lives.
It is a well documented fact that the earlier an investment is made in a human being the greater the returns to the society. So it stands to reason that investing in our children means that we will achieve the development goals of our country faster.
Ladies and gentlemen I am keenly aware that I am preaching to the converted.
It is clear that we need to have a serious commitment to our children and the NPA offers a ready made tool.
There are already some inter-ministerial and inter-organisational collaboration directly related to the implementation of the NPA. I want to highlight a few my Ministry is currently involved in , as these are the ones I know best – the development of an early warning system for the identification and provision of interventions for at–risk children, continued work with NGO partners to provide services for child victims of commercial sexual exploitation and other forms of abuse, looking at options for the strengthening of the Programme for Toledo Children and Adolescents (TOLCA) which has the potential of becoming a model for local level implementation of the NPA. These are good beginnings, but these collaboration efforts need to be intensified and multiplied.
It is really not cliché to say that to ensure that the NPA really delivers for our children, it will take all of us working together at all levels. It will take policy and decision makers such as myself and my colleagues working at the macro level along with our CEOs and senior technical staff to ensure the policy direction, the implementation of enabling frameworks and the allocation or mobilization of needed resources. It will take a strong partnership between government and the NGO community to improve service delivery. It will take awakening or harnessing the conscience of the private sector into becoming good corporate citizens.
But it will also take communities coming together to work towards improving the welfare of their children, doing their part as duty bearers, but also actively demanding that an enabling environment be created to safeguard the rights of their children. To my mind, this is a very critical piece of the development puzzle. This is the only way we can achieve the social transformation that we all seek. The transformation has to happen neighbourhood by neighbourhood, village by village, town by town, city by city, engulfing the entire country. Therefore communities must be mobilized to actively participate in their development. They must be empowered so that we can break the cycle of this paternalistic mentality that we have as a people that we must wait on government to do everything for us. They must be supported by government and civil society so that they can be at the forefront of helping to make sure that every child gets what he or she needs to fulfil his or her full potential.
I readily concede that there is much that we need to do in this regard.
Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, let us use this occasion as we renew our partnership with UNICEF to also renew our commitment to our children. Let us pledge to work collectively to ensure that the NPA and all our national development plans really deliver for our children.
