In other news related to the European Union, today the Prime Minister and the Ambassador of the EU to Belize signed a financing agreement of 13.5 million US dollars.
It's to reaffirm the partnership between GOB and the EU in achieving targets of the Plan Belize medium term development strategy.
Today, the Ambassador, Marianna Van Steen, spoke about the two main priority areas that this financing agreement will tackle.
H.E. Marianne Van Steen, Ambassador, EU to Belize
"We've agreed that the main priority, the main needs there are in this country is the south. I mean the south really needs an extra push, needs help with its local development plans, needs help with micro credits, needs help with let's say the most vulnerable participants of society, the women, the children, to give that extra push to allow them the possibility to participate more in society and to create livelihoods for them, economic opportunities, so that is one of the big part, there are two big part, but one big part of the funds will be used in order to incentivize a sustainable development, it needs to be green, we don't want to impact negatively the environment through the development of the south so a sustainable development of the south with social and economic opportunities for the people living there so that's our first big intervention. And the second one, not in terms of timing because they will all happen at the same time, is of course the west and the border, we all know what is going to happen, we don't know what is going to be the outcome of the ICJ but it is high time for the country to prepare so we think it's important that it is some strategic thinking about a kind of integrated border management. The government needs to know exactly what to do and how it can facilitate border crossings in the future and there's lots of different agencies and ministries and civil society who are involved but they should all be brought on the same line."
"For the moment we are very much committed to strengthening border management, to have a strategy and to help the country to actually have a border on that side which has not been really 100% clear to everyone."
