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Bahrain should set 'new development goals'

Manama, May 26, 2011

Bahrain has met almost all the international goals and standards for human development and should now aspire to become the first Arab country to upscale those targets, said a UN development expert.

The country should now look to upgrade the international Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and align them with its Economic Vision 2030, said UN Development Programme's (UNDP) resident representative and UN resident co-ordinator Sayed Aqa.

'Bahrain has met almost all of the international goals and standards with the exception of environment and women and we are proceeding there,' he told our sister newspaper Gulf Daily New (GDN).

'The next step for Bahrain we have discussed with the government is to adapt the international MDGs to the Bahraini context and to upscale the goals to be aligned with Vision 2030.

'Bahrain should adapt MDGs and have national targets and not be satisfied with international goals.

'For example, if the global target is to cut poverty by half then in Bahrain it should be 100 per cent.

'All goals should be upscaled and additional goals for Bahrain should be put according to the vision and government plans to make Bahrain an example in the region because no Arab country has done what we call MGD plus or upscale MDG targets.'

Aqa is leaving Bahrain for the UN headquarters in New York after completing more than five years at the UN House in Manama.

He said that Bahrain was still working on meeting the international standards on the environment.

Aqa said climate change and global warming were two key issues that were central to the country's development.

If climate change resulted in sea level rise this would be detrimental to Bahrain because it is a small island, he said.

'According to well researched reports if the sea level rises by one metre, 60 per cent of Bahrain will submerge under water and carbon emission plays a large role,' said Aqa.

'There are the government policies they can do certain things, but people can do a lot.'

He said in Bahrain people were not accustomed to the idea of conservation and the usual practise was overuse of electricity, especially in terms of lighting and air-conditioning.

Aqa said another important environment issue for Bahrain was water scarcity because it is one of the top eight seriously under stressed water countries in the world.

'Here we consume water without thinking about it,' he said.

'There are little water resources, its all desalination and it's energy intensive and not sustainable for Bahrain, so water management is a major issue in terms of the environment.'

Aqa said Bahrain had made many significant achievements during his five-year tenure here, particularly in terms of human rights, women's empowerment, political development and youth development.

Some of the highlights of his work in Bahrain include UNDP capacity development and strategic planning and information management programmes for parliament and Shura Council.

Programmes for the Industry and Commerce Ministry on trade negotiations, Free Trade Agreements, standards and capacity development had also enabled Bahrain to better position itself in the global market in terms of exports and imports and other negotiations, he said.

Microfinance was another successful initiative, said Aqa.

It was started by the UNDP with three local non-governmental organisation and now has more than 6,000 people, mostly women who are benefiting from this programme.

'They get loans and some have improved their businesses from small to medium,' said Aqa.

'The most significant achievement I would say is that as a result of that pilot programme now two banks have been created in Bahrain, the Family Bank and Ebdaa Bank.

'They both now give loans to small business and that is a result of the success, so now we can reduce our engagement and have a true national process.'

He said other milestones include the establishment of an NGO centre that provides training to NGOs.

UNDP programmes for the Supreme Council for Women have also been successful, including leadership skills training for women candidates.

Aqa said this initiative had now emerged into a full fledged programme that addresses four key areas: political empowerment of women, economic empowerment of women, gender mainstreaming across all sectors and capacity development.

One of the top accomplishments of Aqa's time in Bahrain was the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) for human rights, he said.

'The programme on human rights that we had with Foreign Affairs Ministry that was a ground breaking initiative because Bahrain was first country to be reviewed and no previous experiences and our programme became global model for other countries,' said Aqa.-TradeArabia News Service




Tags: Bahrain | economy | UN | Millennium Development Goals | Environment | government |

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