Statement by
Luc Stevens
UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative
Launch of
The Millennium Development Goals Report for Aqaba Governorate 2007
Aqaba, 11 May 2008
Your Excellency Dr. Bilal Bashir, Deputy Chief Commissioner of Aqaba Special Economic Zone
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
It gives me great pleasure to launch the first report in the Arab region to localize the Millennium Development Goals at a level of a governorate, in collaboration with the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority and the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation.
Before referring to the report, allow me first to say a few words about the Millennium Development Goals, in brief called the MDGs. The MDGs represent the most important commitment of all UN member states at the 2000 Millennium Summit to the people they represent. The commitment is about those eight goals that aim for ending poverty and hunger, empowering all with education, protecting women’s rights, saving infant and children’s lives from illnesses that can be prevented through immunization or clean water. MDGs are about stopping high infection rates of HIV, controlling the spread of TB and preventing malaria. They are about protecting our environment and ensuring that everyone has access to clean water and sanitation.
If anything, the MDGs are about people and achieving the goals should translate into a better quality of life for all by the year 2015. MDGs are also about development partners pooling their resources towards greater success in improving service-delivery and improving the ability of the Government to sustain economic growth.
Now, more than ever, the MDGs are becoming more relevant. With the current crisis, such as the global food price challenge, countries need to make sure they curb the impact especially on the most vulnerable by abiding to their commitments.
There is a role for all of us worldwide. Industrialized countries have to meet their commitments with fair trade, debt relief and increased official development assistance. Developing countries also have an obligation towards economic, political and social reform in order to enhance the choices and capabilities of their citizens.
MDGs provide the global framework for development cooperation, but more so within countries through partnerships with different partners such as private sector, civil society organizations and many others.
In order to have this cooperation and ensure the involvement of all, UNDP is mandated to provide the needed support for countries to achieve these goals through monitoring each goal, measuring its state of progress and track and define what change would be needed.
UNDP is the scorekeeper of the MDGs within the UN Country Team worldwide and also in Jordan. We have supported the government of Jordan to produce its first MDG Report in 2004. The report showed the state of progress nationally. It was evident in that report -and other country documents- that Jordan suffers from regional disparity. Based on that and to achieve the goals, it was apparent that there is a need to go to the sub-national level to measure the state of progress, hence providing a baseline for future planning and implementation to reach our targets at that level.
This brings us to the purpose of the meeting today. The MDG report for Aqaba was prepared within the framework of the UNDP project in partnership with ASEZA and Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation. The project included awareness and capacity building activities on the MDGs, how to strategically plan toward their achievement and the cycle of policies whereby the MDGs can fit in. In addition the Report was prepared following an approach that aimed to create dialogue between the governmental and non-governmental organizations working in Aqaba around MDGs and local development priorities.
The Report we present today is the fruit of this consultative effort in which it identified the local needs through local organizations that are closer to the reality and are most capable of defining the development priorities and the recommendations for the future of their Governorate.
The MDG Report of Aqaba will serve as an awareness and as an advocacy tool. Awareness because there is a need to raise general knowledge of citizens and organizations everywhere of the global commitment made towards the MDGs. Advocacy, because there is a continuous need to advocate for policy reform that places people at the centre of development. Governments are responsible for implementing the needed reform that induces the required change. They have a duty towards their citizens to fulfill their commitments of a better life and future for their citizens. In addition, citizens represented by civil society organizations have a right to hold their governments accountable for delivery of their promises, have an obligation to claim their rights and a role in implementation and monitoring of actions toward the MDGs. The wide distribution of the Report becomes important for this purpose.
By localizing the MDGs, the report identified indicators that are specific to the Aqaba context, based on the Governorates’ needs and priorities, making them more relevant as a framework for local planning. In this sense, this Report becomes as well a basis for further prioritization and localization to translate the recommendations into workable strategies and implementable actions.
The Aqaba Governorate MDG Report sheds light on the achievements and challenges facing the Aqaba Governorate in achieving each one of the Millennium Development Goals, which will be presented to you in the following presentation. The Report showed also that disparities within Aqaba exist where certain districts are doing better than other. However, Aqaba enjoys distinct characteristics and comparative advantages. It has succeeded as an investment and tourism hub that makes significant contributions to the national economy. The vision of ASEZA is to use these advantages to achieve social welfare and improve living conditions in a sustainable manner. It is in this vision that the opportunity lies in Aqaba to build on successes and overcome the challenges so that slower areas would catch up with the more advanced areas.
I wish to confirm that UNDP is ready to continue the collaboration with Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority to take forward the recommendations of the report and to continue in providing the needed capacity development initiatives that support both governmental and non-governmental organizations in fulfilling their role toward these Goals.
Aqaba has been a pilot in the country, and I believe that this is a good occasion to announce that UNDP is currently preparing the MDG Report for the Zarqa Governorate whereby statistics are collected and consultative sessions are currently being conducted for the same purpose.
Finally, I would like to thank our partners, the Ministry of Planning & International Cooperation and the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority, especially the Local Community Directorate. I also wish to thank all the organizations and most of all the Technical Committee members who have participated in the preparation of the Report.
Thank you.
More on the precedings of the launch of MDG Aqaba Report: