For the past three weeks, UNICEF has been all over the news. Well, it's part of the organization's mid term review with UNICEF and other local NGO's reviewing the progress made to put children at the center of development and democracy. Still, studies show that children remain among the most marginalized portion of the population. Speaking today at the mid term event - the prime minister said that children must get out of poverty and for that to happen, adults must see past the fog of despair.
Hon. Said Musa
"We have to be careful with that. We have to be careful that we don't fall victim and prey to the doomsayers to realize that Belize has been making advances, and yes we have serious problems, in the social and economic sector but they are problems that are manageable and that can be overcome."
"Poverty is the real issue that affects children. The are no two ways of getting around to that. We can talk about everything else but until we address the socio-economic condition of that one third of our population living in poverty. Because the truth is children are the ones most affected by poverty. They suffer the brunt. The parents are struggling on their day to day survival issues, they don't even want to send them to school, or they use them to work on the farm or whatever. So children suffer the most from poverty. That's the one we have to attack and that's, as I said today, we can't tackle poverty effectively until we tackle the issue of inequality as well. Growing inequality in the society and the gap the widening gap."
The highlight of this morning's meeting was the signing of the agreement to renew the mutual committment between the Government of Belize and UNICEF with regional director Alfredo Missair representing the U.N. organization.