Ms.
Asha Kambon
Senior
Social Specialist, United Nations Economic Commission
for Latin America and the Caribbean
Ms.
Asha Kambon, Senior Social Specialist with the United Nations Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN ECLAC) delivered an
address on behalf of the Resident Representative for ECLAC.
Ms. Kambon congratulated ICSW and the CPDC for taking the initiative which
allowed for a review of developments since the Copenhagen Summit by members
of civil society in the Caribbean.
Ms. Kambon informed participants of the
role of ECLAC in assisting regional governments in meeting several of
the commitments undertaken at Copenhagen. She noted that over the past
five years ECLAC has been in the forefront of monitoring the progress
of the implementation of various aspects of the Copenhagen Commitments
and through this process has been able to offer technical advice to many
governments in the region.
She stated that in May, ECLAC was to hold a sub-regional review in Santiago,
Chile, of progress since Copenhagen in preparation for the forthcoming
UN review in Geneva. The aim of the Santiago meeting was to:
- review
progress in the programme of action;
- assist CSD member states in preparing for the special 5-year review of the Copenhagen Summit by the United Nations General Assembly.
She stated that the major areas of focus were:
- Poverty Eradication
- Women
in Poverty
- Productive Employment
- Social
Integration
- Globalization
- Governance
Ms.
Kambon noted that a major concern was the very slow progress made in the
Caribbean towards achieving the targets set out in the various commitments
made at Copenhagen. In particular she said that a number of governments
in the region argued that due to severe setbacks in regional economies,
implementation was limited at best. She noted that these features were
not exclusive to the Caribbean region but reflected the situation among
developing countries as a whole.
She indicated that another area of major
concern to practitioners in the region was the lack of adequate and reliable
data on social development in the region. Ms. Kambon said that much of
this was as a result of the failure and in many cases the lack of capacity
of governments to keep regular and consistent information on social issues.
She said that it was in this area that ECLAC sought to produce the greatest
level of assistance to governments and other key sectors working on these
topics. She indicated that because of this assistance, ECLAC was able
to conduct a number of studies on poverty and social development in the
region which included:
- Country
poverty assessment for Belize, St Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines
and Grenada
- A survey
on living standards in Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago
- A survey
of living conditions in Jamaica
- A survey
of social and income inequality in Barbados
- A survey
of poverty in the Dominican Republic
- A food
and security and living standard survey in Haiti
- A poverty assessment study in Suriname
Ms.
Kambon concluded that integration of social development with economic
development was still a long way from being achieved at the policy making
level in many countries.
She closed by emphasizing that ECLAC looked
forward to the outcome of the discussions to further inform the review
process in the region.
