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Afrocolombians and the MDGs - December 2011
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UNDP Colombia Representative, Bruno Moro, recently presented the office’s latest study on the MDGs entitled, Afrocolombians and the Millennium Development Goals, to the president of Colombia and other government officials. The report outlines the disparities that exist between Afrocolombian and other populations in the country, including higher poverty rates, lower quality of life, and higher rates of unmet basic needs. At the same event, President Santos announced new efforts to decrease the disadvantages experienced by the Afrocolombian population in the country. He spoke about the launch of a new system to monitor cases of racial discrimination as part of the National Plan against Racial Discrimination and Racism, recognized the Law Against Discrimination, and acknowledged UNDP’s recommendations to improve statistical reporting so that ethnic groups can be identified and characterized. See more information here. |
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Delivering As One Conference - November 2011
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The Fourth High Level Conference on Delivering as One was held in Montevideo, Uruguay on November 9th through 11th. The Delivering as One initiative was set in motion to enhance cooperation between UN agencies at the country level and improve programme efficiency. It began with 8 pilot countries in 2007, including Uruguay, and similar initiatives are now underway in more than 20 countries. The goals of the conference were to share experiences from different countries, including achievements and challenges, and to take a closer look at the results of the country-led evaluations that have been performed as part of the initiative. More information about the conference is available here. |
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Loans Approved for Climate Change Projects - November 2011
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The Climate Investment Funds announced the approval of loans and grants for Bolivia, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Lao PDR, Mali, Mexico and Nepal in order to implement programmes to limit and adapt to climate change. Bolivia has been approved to undertake water resource projects and increase resistance to climate change in the Rio Grande basin area. Jamaica will use the funds for risk information and management, Honduras is set to scale up grid-connected renewable energy sources, and Mexico will implement low-carbon strategies in forest landscape management. See more info here. |
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2011 Human Development Report Launched - November 2011
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On November 2nd, UNDP Administrator, Helen Clark, launched the 2011 Human Development Report entitled, Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All. With regards to the LAC region, the 2011 report finds that Latin America remains the region with the most unequal incomes, although significant progress has been made in reducing these gaps. With an environmental focus, the report also warns of the potential effects of deforestation and climate change on the region’s development progress. On the positive side, some countries, like Brazil, have been able to reverse deforestation trends and the region shows the highest public spending on education among the developing world. The full report is available here. |
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XXI Ibero-American Summit - October 2011
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The 2012 Latin American Economic Outlook (LEO) report was presented by OECD and ECLAC at the 21st Ibero-American Summit in Asunción, Paraguay. The report emphasizes recommendations for improving economic competitiveness and diversification in Latin America, as well as education and institutional systems in order to maintain growth and address inequality. ECLAC released another publication for this summit entitled, Ibero-American Space: Towards a New State Architecture for Development, which provided comments on the role of the State in promoting development goals. More information about the LEO report can be found here and the second report is accessible here. |
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Presentation on Brazil's Social Policies - October 2011
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Mr. Pedro H.G. Ferreira de Souza from the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) gave a presentation at the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth which gave an overview of poverty, inequality and social policies in Brazil. The presentation described social policy changes and their effects between 1995 and 2009, including education reforms, social security policies and social assistance programmes, which currently make up 16% of the national GDP. Mr. Ferreira de Souza concluded that pro-poor policies must be used to further reduce the inequalities that are prevalent in Brazil. See the press release here and the presentation here. |
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Knowledge Sharing Call 2011 - October 2011
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The RSC LAC Knowledge Management group recently announced the winners of the 2011 Knowledge Sharing Call for development solutions in the region. Among the honorable mentions were the experiences of Argentina in a community outreach component of the National Security Plan and Venezuela’s experience in improving the health of indigenous populations and achieving the MDGs through a social network of technical cooperation and education. The knowledge management team plans to publish a catalogue featuring 26 different experiences submitted for the initiative. More information about this initiative can be found on the Knowledge Management Teamworks page here. |
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Economic Survey of Brazil - October 2011
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The OECD in late October presented their latest Economic Survey of Brazil to the Finance Ministry at an event in Brasilia. Despite high gains against poverty, the report predicts that economic growth will slow unless Brazil takes certain policy actions. The report called for the maintenance and extension of the Bolsa Família cash transfer programme, which has been important for promoting financial inclusion. It also pointed to the challenges that remain in controlling inflation, improving investment and the country´s pension system. See the press release from the presentation here and access the report here. |
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International Conference on MDG Statistics - October 2011
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The International Conference on the Millennium Development Goals Statistics (ICMDGS) was held in Manila, Philippines this past October. This conference served as an opportunity for participants from 21 countries to share best practices on MDG data collection. Representatives from the LAC region included Mexico, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic, who presented on data disaggregation by ethnic groups, national indicator proxies and MDG data exchange. See more information about the conference and copies of the presentations here. |
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Hunger, Poverty and Migration in SICA Countries - October 2011
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This international conference was hosted by the World Food Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization and UNDP’s LAC Regional Service Centre. During the conference, participants discussed how irregular migration has contributed to social structure and economic shifts in the region, which make the population more vulnerable to social exclusion and therefore at higher risk for poverty and hunger. Among the recommendations from the conference was a call for governments to improve social protection coverage in order to prevent irregular migration and improve MDG achievement, and a call for better monitoring of migration so that its implications can be analyzed more thoroughly. A full summary from the conference can be found in Spanish here. |
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Guyana Launches its 2011 MDG Progress Report - September 2011
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The 2011 Guyana MDG Report was launched on September 8th outlining the advancements that the country has made in achieving the eight goals. The report also indicates that Guyana has already met the targets for nutrition and child health, and is on track to achieve the goals related to education, water and sanitation and HIV/AIDS. The UNDP Regional Service Centre in Panama offered support to the Guyana CO during the structuring process of this report, together with the UN Millennium Campaign. An electronic copy of the full reports can be found here. |
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Santiago Cruz UNDP Colombia's Good Will Ambassador - September 2011
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UNDP Colombia invited Santiago Cruz, a renowned national singer in Colombia, to join its mission as a Good Will Ambassador. In this emotional event that took place in Bogotá, UNDP Colombia's Resident Representative Bruno Moro, expressed that “this announcement is great news for the country because Santiago Cruz, besides being a very popular musician, winner of several awards at both international and national levels, belongs to an extraordinary youth that lives, feels and loves his country with generosity, good judgment, solidarity and creativity”. See Santiago Cruz´s communication here. |
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Focusing on People-Drive Development Turns in Profit - August 2011
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New players, new partners and new relationships were the talk of the Society for International Development World Congress in Washington DC, at the beginning of August. In the meeting it was clearly stated that private capital investment is correlated with reductions in poverty and with increases in living standards. Elizabeth Littlefield, president of the Overseas Private Investment Corp., said at one of the conference's panel discussions that the development community has traditionally split itself off from the private sector and thought of itself as only [official development assistance] and government-to-government assistance; "those days are over", she said. Go to the event's website here. |
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The Future of Macroeconomics in LAC - August 2011
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In August, Dr. Gerardo della Paolera, the President of the Global Development Network (GDN), and Dr. Mario Bergara, President of the Central Bank of Uruguay co-chaired a roundtable on “The future of Macroeconomic Policy in Latin America”. The roundtable was held during the XXVI Annual Conference of Economy organized by the Central Bank of Uruguay from 18-19 August, 2011. The session had two panelists, Professor Maurcio Garci from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Andrés Neumeyer, GDN Board Member and Professor of Economics at Universidad Torcuato di Tella, Argentina. Read the GDN Newsletter here. |
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MDG LAC Community of Practice Meeting - July 2011
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On July 19th and 20th RBLAC and the LAC Regional Service Centre organized in Panama a two-day regional meeting on the LAC Community of Practice on MDGs and Poverty reduction (COP). This meeting, benefited from participation of 20 countries from around the region, 6 UN agencies/funds/programmes, and BDP and other parts of the regional Centre. Besides the illustration of national MDG-related work from across the region, the COP provided a platform to illustrate new corporate priorities by the LAC Regional Director, and to contextualize them to the region, defining prioritized lines of demand by our COs in their work on MDGs and Poverty Reduction. See the event´s agenda and links here. |
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MDGs After 2015 - July 2011
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In July, Olav Kjørven, Assistant Secretary-General and Director of UNDP's Bureau for Development Policy, published an article in the Norwegian newspaper, Afenposten. Besides highlighting the successes that have been brought by the MDGs, Mr. Kjørven questions whether the MDGs should they focus on providing the poorest with a more dignified life, but better consider challenges such as discrimination and the environment, or if instead rich countries should choose an agenda for themselves, where they include targets to reduce ecological footprint and strengthen the protection of human rights globally? "Only the UN can create legitimacy for a set of goals post-2015" he says. Read the article in English here. |
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Costing MDG 3 in Belize - June 2011
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A joint initiative of UNDP Belize, and UNDP's Gender and Poverty Practices was set in motion recently to develop national capacities in the process of needs assessment and costing of MDGs and the integration of gender dimensions in the management processes of national economic policy. The capacity sessions targeted middle and senior level policy makers from various Ministries including Finance, Economic Development, Human Development, Health and Education, Environment, National Women Commission and the NGO community. This exercise was carried out in Belize in June 2011. Read more on UNDP Belize´s website or in Spanish on the Genera website. |
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