Over the past few weeks the Ministry of National Development has been holding public consultations to update the national poverty elimination strategy and action plan for the next four years. The consultations have gone countrywide and today they made a final stop in the Belize District. The venue is the Bird's Isle and economist in the Ministry of National Development Carlos Bol explained what the aim is.
Carlos Bol, Economist
"We have been to all the districts, Belize District is the one we are finalizing today and the consultation phase will be culminating with a national consultation which will be held tentatively in Belmopan on May 21st. The objective of the consultation of the district is to get from the people their perspective on what they think poverty is to them and how they can suggest to us what programs or strategies can be developed in order to reduce poverty in Belize.
Primarily for the district consultations are the community based organizations, the district leaders, especially village chairman, NGOs as well, and part of civil society. This is just one phase because we have the consultations divided into three phases. The other phase includes one to one interviews with policymakers at the policy level including the mayor's association, some of the head of departments and managers of some of the organizations and then we have a session with the voiceless and vulnerable people. We consider them as the incarcerated people, we have people living with HIV/Aids, we have poorest of the poor, so we are trying to target as much people as we can. We are trying to make it a participatory approach."
The national consultation on the poverty elimination strategy will take place in Belmopan on May 31st.
