The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) workgroup, guided by the Department of the Interior Affairs and Kingdom Relations (BAK), and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) is hosting a two-day MDG Acceleration Framework Methodological (MAF) Workshop.
The workshop is taking place at the University of St. Martin (USM) from 8.00am to 5.00pm on Tuesday, 18 February and Wednesday, 19 February. The Prime Minister will do the official opening of the workshop.
The overall objective of the workshop is to bring together senior technical representatives from ministries, institutions, Non-Governmental Organizations, private sector and development partners.
The five points of emphasis is to provide a clear understanding of the application of the MAF methodology to the participants, including technical experts who will be involved in the preparation of the MDG Acceleration Action Plan for Sint Maarten.
Secondly, quick start the process for the preparation of the MAF on accelerating MDG 1 (poverty reduction) and MDG 7 (environmental sustainability), with a focus on sustainable community development.
Thirdly, to bring together relevant decision makers, technical experts and partners to build a common understanding of their role in the MAF process.
Fourthly, to allow participants to discuss and propose criteria for prioritization of interventions, bottlenecks and accelerated solutions with the country case scenarios; and to reach an agreement on the next steps in the process.
The two day methodological workshop will feature presentations, hands-on working groups and plenary discussions.
The working group sessions will be directed toward attaining initial agreement on the identified high impact interventions, and will start up the bottleneck analysis for the priority interventions.
The MDG 1 caters to the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, and MDG 7 focuses on ensuring environmental sustainability.
The validation of priority interventions will be obtained during the group discussions and plenary sessions. Overall expected results are: Capacity building of experts on the application of the MAF methodology; and identification of roles of relevant partners in the MAF process.
Discover which bottlenecks are preventing MDG 1 and MDG 7 from achieving their expected targets; Prioritizing bottlenecks and solutions to be addressed in the Country Action Plan; and agreement on next steps and timelines.
Amongst the visitors will be Isele Robinson-Cooper (Program Officer for Poverty and Social Policy of the regional office of the UNDP (for region of Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, Aruba, Curacao & Sint Maarten, Gonzalo Pizarro (UNDP) and Sarmite Bulte (UNDP Consultant) who is to guide and advise the MAF process.
For more information, regarding the MDG process, interested institutions and others can call Drs. L.R. Morales at 542-0896 or write to nationaldevelopment@sintmaartengov.org