Great Bay (GIS):--- On February 3, the Council of Ministers will receive the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report for St. Maarten (and Curaçao, a joint project) by the MDG Workgroup.
On February 7th and 8th, members from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) will be on St. Maarten for a final work visit.
The Millennium Declaration, endorsed by 189 world leaders at the United Nations in September 2000, is a commitment to work together to build a safer, more prosperous and equitable world.
The Declaration was translated into a roadmap setting out eight time-bound and measurable goals to be reached by 2015, known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The MDGs provide concrete, numerical benchmarks for tackling extreme poverty in its many dimensions. St. Maarten became involved in the MDGs when Prime Minister Emilie de Jongh-Elhage reaffirmed the (former) Netherlands Antilles’ commitment in achieving these goals.
After the dismantling of the Netherlands Antilles, St. Maarten recognized the importance of remaining involved in the MDGs. The MDGs are broken down into 21 measurable targets with 60 indicators that are aimed at combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and gender inequality.
The MDGs also provide a framework for the entire international community to work together towards a common end – making sure that human development reaches everyone, everywhere.
In 2010, representatives from the various Government departments and Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) on St. Maarten collaborated to collect data that relate to the indicators of the MDGs.
This was done in full cooperation with DEVCO and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Once the data was compiled, an MDG report was written for St. Maarten and Curaçao. The report provides an insight on which Millennium Goals St. Maarten is on track with and which areas will need extra effort in the coming years.
The indicators will enable St. Maarten to share data and compare the progress of the country regionally and internationally. The report highlights that St. Maarten is performing relatively well on goals 1, 3, 4 and 5. On the contrary, goals pertaining to education, HIV/AIDS and other diseases, environmental sustainability and global partnership need strengthening.
The members of the MDG workgroup have put forth enormous efforts and are pleased that this report has come to completion.
In addition, the department of Public Health within the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labor is ensuring that the necessary surveillance is conducted to combat diseases such as Dengue Fever, HIV/AIDS, Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and vaccine-preventable diseases, to name a few.
More specifically, when assessing St. Maarten’s progress on goal 6, the Department is aware that in order to get on track, cooperation is needed among vital stakeholders such as physicians, hospitals, Collective Prevention Services (CPS), Public Health and the HIV/AIDS Program Management Team. HIV/AIDS continues to be a problem in the entire Caribbean region.
Through government funded programs and with assistance from physicians and NGOs, efforts are being made to halt the spread of HIV. In addition to awareness campaigns, St. Maarten offers free HIV testing and access to medical treatment.
The eight MDG goals are:
Goal 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Reduce by half the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day.
• Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
Goal 2 Achieve universal primary education
• Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling.
Goal 3 Promote gender equality and empower women
• Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015.
Goal 4 Reduce child mortality
• Reduce by two thirds the mortality of children under-five.
Goal 5 Improve maternal health
• Reduce maternal mortality by three quarters.
Goal 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• Halt and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.
• Halt and reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
Goal 7 Ensure environmental sustainability
• Integrate principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse the loss of environmental resources.
• Halve the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
• Improve the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020
Goal 8 Develop a global partnership for development
• Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system.
• Address special needs of the least developed countries, landlocked countries and small island developing States.
• Deal with developing countries’ debt.
• In cooperation with developing countries, develop and implement strategies for decent work for youth.
• In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications.
