Great Bay (DCOMM):--- On May, 17th, the Millennium Development Goal Workgroup (MDG) came together to celebrate the publishing of the final version of the first MDG Report for Sint Maarten and Curacao, and to discuss the following steps to address Sint Maarten's development issues.
Okama Brook, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Liaison Officer for Curacao and Sint Maarten, was very happy to meet with the MDG workgroup. The latter has gone through the process of completing several development trajectories in order to meet the outputs.
The MDG Workgroup is being led by Loekie Morales, Program Manager and European Union (EU) and UNDP development cooperation focal point for the Government of Sint Maarten.
A copy of the report was presented to the Sint Maarten Hospitality and Trade Association (SHTA) President Emil Lee, who took part in the process that led to the final MDG report for the country.
Sint Maarten is exploring the possibilities in working together with the UNDP on topics such as: a National Development Plan, Nation Building, an implementation trajectory for the MDGs that are lagging behind among some other areas.
Between May 27th and 30th, UNDP experts will evaluate the components of the program from last year such as the DevInfo workshop, the One United Nations System Workshop, the MDG workshop and Lecture, the process of the MDG Report, and the Change Management Workshop.
Loekie Morales told the Department of Communication on Wednesday the following: "We will take the lessons learned from this program to the next level in national development.
"The MDG report will serve as a basis for our National Development Plan. We are ready to execute and incorporate the findings of the MDG report into the upcoming National Development Plan, whereby the needs of the people will be taken into consideration."
UNDP Liaison Officer Okama says: 'The UNDP supports Sint Maarten with whatever assistance we can provide in the trajectory to realize a good National Development Program.
'UNDP considers a democratic dialogue as an essential tool in the national development of the country. The people need to have an input in the direction of the development of their country'.