Millennium Development Goals
[photo
credit: Martine Perret/UNMIT 2008]
Timor-Leste is one of the MDG focus countries because
of its characteristics as a post-conflict country that requires urgent
improvement of living conditions for people. Following the restoration
of independence on 20 May 2002, Timor-Leste genuinely committed to
attaining the MDGs. Being the newest member of the United Nations
in 2002, Timor-Leste only formally began the process of achieving
the MDGs when all other countries were already half way in the process
of economic development.
In 2004, in partnership with the UN Country Team, the Government of
Timor-Leste was one of the very few countries to report on the progress
of the MDGs in the country. The MDG Report, together with the second
National Human Development Report commissioned by UNDP, had great
impact on the national policies. The Government issued a strategic
document called “Combating Poverty as a National Cause, which
was launched at the Timor-Leste Donors’ Meeting in April 2006.
With 80% of the population living as the subsistence farmers and 70%
of the population in the rural areas, it is critical to monitor the
progress of the MDGs and to have the adequate means and skills to
develop realistic plans to achieve the MDGs both at the national and
district level.
Current Programme
Timor-Leste’s National Development Plan (NDP)
2002-2007 committed itself to the achievement of the MDGs, with a
strong focus on poverty reduction and the economic empowerment of
women. The Government made a concerted effort to strengthen links
between policy formulation and programmes to achieve Goal 1, which
is one of the twin objectives of the NDP, yet the capacities to translate
these objective into annual budgetary allocations and execution remain
a challenge.
Timor-Leste suffers from lack of data, which sometimes
makes it difficult to formulate development policy. Although the country
has adopted the DevInfo and hundreds of studies have been conducted
since 1999, the current system requires improvements in regular data
collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination at a disaggregated
level and down to household level. In response, The Government of
Timor-Leste and the UN country team seek to enhance the capacities
of the National Statistics Directorate (NSD) in monitoring the implementation
of poverty reduction policies and programmes to address those issues,
thus the MDG process, while enhancing transparency and promoting accountability
through dissemination of the results on the implementation of poverty
reduction policies and programmes to the people. By having more accurate
and disaggregated data both at the national and district levels, there
will be a stronger analytical base for MDG target setting/refinement.
A draft report on the MDG targets has now been produced
based on 2004 Census and the latest Timor-Leste Survey of Living Standards
2007. Parallel to this exercise, a draft report on the MDGs in one
of the pilot districts, Oecusse, has been produced. Both reports will
be available by January 2009.
The Government has launched a series of measures
to alleviate hardships in the country. Given its global mandate of
mainstreaming HIV/AIDS in development work, UNDP Timor-Leste has supported
setting up of the National AIDS Commission (NAC) in 2006 and continues
to assist strengthening NAC secretariat. It adopted international
procedures on HIV/AIDS such as international precautions, PEP, Mother
to Child transmission, GIPA, etc.
UNDP Timor-Leste is also working with the Inter-Ministerial
Working Group for Environmental and Natural Resource Management which
is expected to become an active forum to ensure steps towards achieving
sustainable development for policies and programmes. Timor-Leste has
signed to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, under which it
must report on the status of its biological diversity and where it
stands under the CBD targets.
MDGs in Timor-Leste
Read more about the status of the Millennium Development
Goals in Timor-Leste.
