GUYANA will be issuing a national Progress Report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) during the first half of next month, Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh has announced.The Minister made the announcement last Wednesday at the Foreign Service Institute during the signing of the country’s new United Nations Development Assistance Framework for the period 2012 to 2016. Asked later to elaborate on the matter, Dr. Singh said the proposed Report, the latest to date, will provide a comprehensive and current update on Guyana’s progress towards achieving the goals and associated targets as set by the UN, and will also identify those priority areas where progress needs to be accelerated if the 2015 targets are to be achieved. Guyana had previously issued progress reports on the MDGs in 2003 and 2007.

Among those goals on which Guyana has already made tremendous progress, the Finance Minister said, are access to primary education; food security, potable water and sanitation; promotion of gender equality and women empowerment; and environmental sustainability.

As he went on to explain, Guyana has virtually achieved universal access to primary education; increased access to safe water supply and sanitation; implemented a number of policies aimed at achieving gender equality; and has mainstreamed environmental sustainability into its policy framework.

The proposed Report, he said, 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.
It will also identify cross-cutting issues observed in assessing progress towards attainment of the goals.

Dr. Singh 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, the sum of $24.3 billion was allocated to the education sector, while a total of $14 billion was allocated to the health sector, $3.6 billion to the housing sector, and another $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 had occasion to point out that unlike several other countries currently cutting back on social spending because of fiscal constraints, Guyana is in fact increasing its social spending, which is a reflection of the Government’s ongoing commitment to ensuring affordable access to high-quality social services.

He however noted 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 also emphasised 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  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.