PHOTO CUTLINE: Group photo of NDP Dialogue Champions. DCOMM
National Development Program (NDP) Dialogue Champions attended their first dialogue session for 2014 with representatives from the Department of Interior and Kingdom Relations (BAK) namely Okama Ekpe Brook and Tom Woods.
Dialogue Champions are people who have enthusiastically accepted the challenge of working collectively and together in planning, convening, organizing and writing the country’s NDP.
The Dialogue Champions come from different professional backgrounds in civil society, government departments and private sector organizations.
The NDP is facilitated under the auspices of the project, "Building a Nation: Sint Maarten National Development Plan & Institutional Strengthening."
The first dialogue session with NDP Champions focused on the project overview; cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme; designing NDP strategies on sustainable development and Millennium Development Goals focus.
The projects main outcome is a national vision; a national development plan; capacity building in areas of result based and evidence based management; development of DevInfo Database; strengthened national capacities to achieve millennium development goals; and aid effectiveness, development financing and donor coordination.
The Dialogue Champions took part in trainings last summer as part of the strategy to build the capacity of local people and provide skills to develop the country’s NDP in a participatory process.
The NDP is being developed through community engagement/people participation. The NDP is a people’s project that is putting institutions in place that not only enable everyone in St. Maarten to come together to build a national development strategy but to have an on-going participation in its implementation.
The NDP is being led by BAK of the Ministry of General Affairs.
For further information please refer to: na*****************@si************.org, and/ or call 542-0897.