A newly launched UN report has recommended that Pacific island countries must take serious considerations to the nine key recommendations in order to cut poverty and inequality in the region.
The report titled, “The State of Human Development in the Pacific: A report on Vulnerability and Exclusion in a time of rapid change,” was launched yesterday in Apia Samoa by the UN assistant secretary general and UNDP director, regional bureau for Asia and the pacific Haoliang Xu.
Xu said the report brings together new data and analysis at the regional level for the first time and highlights a number of development challenges that confronting the pacific region.
He said these challenges include:
– The rapidly changing social and economic landscape across the Pacific
– Shifting of economies from traditional systems built on exchange of products to market led-cash-based systems
– Migration of young people to cities and towns to find jobs leaving women, the old and young behind vulnerable
– Decline of traditional family and social protection systems and
– Climate change threat to agriculture production and traditional livelihoods.
Xu said addressing these challenges is a daunting task for governments in the region.
However, he said the report has recommended nine key actions that can be taken to address these challenges.
The nine recommendations pointed out in the UN report include:
– give priority to social protection and poverty reduction
– put social protection on top of policy agenda
– develop a better understanding of vulnerability and exclusion
– promote broader access to basic education for children and youth
– expand employment opportunities for youth snd women
– provide adequate health services for prevention and care
– adopt new generation of multidimensional poverty reduction programs for those most in need.
– use innovative policies and technology
– adopt ‘Green-Growth’ policies that are inclusive
“As the Pacific region seeks to address the challenges of vulnerability and exclusion in a time of profound social and economic change in the Pacific, I hope that the analysis in the report, as well as the recommendations will be very useful to all decision makers, particularly those that are meeting here in Apia next week,” Xu said.
DANIEL NAMOSUAIA
Apia, Samoa
