- RUDOLPH BROWN/Chief Photographer
Juan Carlos Espinola (left), the United Nations resident coordinator and UNDP representative, and Dr. Pauline Knight, director, social and manpower planning, converse at the launch of the progress report of the U.N. Millennium Project and National MDG Progress Reports, yesterday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, New Kingston.
Leonardo Blair, Staff Reporter
JAMAICA'S WORKING population consists of almost 70 per cent of the island's poor.
Even though extreme poverty levels have been slashed by almost 50 per cent between 1990 and 2001, Dr. Pauline Knight, director of social and manpower planing at the Planning Institute of Jamaica, told reporters yesterday that some 69 per cent of the poor are working.
In her presentation on Jamaica's progress in meeting several targets set under the United Nations Millennium Project, Dr. Knight said the majority of the working poor are under-employed in the informal sector and are seriously in need of 'decent work'. Without economic growth and the creation of more jobs, this situation is likely to continue.
SERIOUS PROBLEMS
Juan Carlos Espinola, U.N. resident coordinator and UNDP resident representative, while pointing to certain strides made by the Caribbean in the report, explained that Jamaica still faced serious problems.
"Certainly in the Caribbean and Jamaica, there are challenges being faced in education, HIV/AIDS and crime and violence, including persistent pockets of poverty," said Mr. Espinola.
He pointed out also that the region is extremely vulnerable to natural disasters and official development assistance is now being transferred to other parts of the world.
The U.N. Millennium Project was commissioned by the United Nations Secretary-General in 2002 to develop a concrete action plan for the world to reverse the grinding poverty, hunger and disease affecting billions of people.
The project's report proposes straightforward solutions for meeting the millennium development goals by the 2015 deadline.
Some of the development goals include: halving extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal primary education; achieving gender equality and creating a global partnership for development.
