By Shauna Jemmott

GOVERNMENT is accelerating efforts to eliminate extreme hunger and poverty through the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment, in order to attain the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).This is according to Minister of Social Protection, Volda Lawrence, who recently addressed a Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) conference held at the GTU Hall on Woolford Avenue in Georgetown.

Minister Lawrence told the gathering that women from across Guyana are encouraged to support the Government in accomplishing the Caribbean Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations MDGs to which Guyana is partner.

The United Nations Millennium Project website www.unmillenniumproject.org lists the goals as: eradicating extreme hunger and poverty; achieving universal primary education; promoting gender equality and empowering women; reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing a global partnership for development.

In September 2000, at the Millennium Summit, various governments across the world “committed their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets.”

“The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the world’s time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions — income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion — while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability.

“There are also basic human rights: the rights of each person on the planet to health, education, shelter, and security.”

The UN said though the world made significant progress in accomplishing many of the goals, there are huge disparities across and within countries, making progress far from uniform across the world.

The universal organisation named poverty as the greatest challenge for rural areas, even though urban poverty is also prevalent, increasing, and “under-reported by traditional indicators”.

The report stated that between 1990 and 2002, average overall incomes increased, the number of people in extreme poverty declined significantly, child mortality rates fell, life expectancy rose, and there have been increases in adequate water supply and improvements in sanitation services for people in developing countries.

BEHIND
Though the 2015 deadline has passed, Guyana is far from accomplishing the MDGs, and Government continues to work within the perimeters of the declaration’s purpose.

According to a report on studies and perspectives by ECLAC, a UN Sub-regional headquarters for the Caribbean (http://caribbean.cepal.org), on the Caribbean’s post-2015 agenda, it was recommended that the Caribbean Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) provide a “unique opportunity to address social, economic, and environmental gaps in the sub-region (with) proper planning (being critical)”, since “the Caribbean sub-region is at risk of falling behind in the global quest for development as human development gains are being eroded”.

ECLAC said the Sustainable Development Goals’ process “will only be successful if member states promote a participatory approach that includes stakeholders comprising civil society, the private sector, and the local citizen”.

“The post-2015 development agenda presents a major opportunity for Caribbean countries to reverse decades of lagging economic performance and make the transition to balanced, holistic, and people-centred growth and development… if national, regional, and global will and resources can be mobilised around a set of SDGs with transformational potential, Caribbean development could, in the near future, attain an historic inflection point,” the report stated.

Government has already become creative in involving stakeholders and civil society in its post-2015 programme, to transform the lives of citizens. Minister Lawrence said now is the time for women to fit in to alleviate the endemic societal ills, and “inasmuch as the task seems insurmountable, (women) can be the torch bearers”.

“Each of you belongs to a community, to a church group, to a women’s group. If you aren’t allied to any action group, then now is the moment to become involved. You can spearhead the movement; you can encourage individuals who have particular talents or skills to enhance their entrepreneurial ability by aligning themselves with EMPRETEC or any other agency involved in the business of entrepreneurship.”

She said women must encourage others to make efforts to improve themselves and become self-sufficient, rather than wallowing in self-pity. Development resources, training and support programmes are available through various agencies.

“You need to mobilise and revolutionise the movement that will help to combat these social issues…through the provision and implementation of social, cultural, economic and educational programmes that will build awareness and provide training, so that in the medium and long term, solutions could be found,” Minister Lawrence said.