Bernt Aasen, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, is scheduled to be in Guyana on an official visit tomorrow to strengthen local and regional ties towards advancing programmes for the development of women and children.
According to a press release from UNICEF, Aasen is expected to meet the president and senior government officials to discuss key issues related to UNICEF-supported programmes and partnerships in the country. He will also meet with partner ministers for programmes the agency supports and participate in the launch of the Rights of the Child Commission Strategic Plan.
In January, UNICEF embarked on a new five-year programme of support to the Guyana Government from 2012 to 2016. “The overall goal of the current programme of cooperation is to contribute to the progressive realisation of children and women’s rights, in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of discrimination against Women (CEDAW), with special focus on disparity reduction, elimination of inequities and enhancement of inclusiveness in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals,” the release said.
Over the five-year period, UNICEF will work with the government to provide capacity building support for results-based planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of equity and gender-sensitive policies, legislation and programmes for children and women. This support is organised around Guyana’s established national priorities for human and social development.
A critical component of the programme in Guyana is to address the underlying challenges to the formulation and implementation of equity-sensitive programmes by strengthening the availability of data, and specifically information disaggregated by geographic location, gender, and ethnicity especially for the hinterland regions, where the most disadvantaged children live.
