Santo Domingo – The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development (MEPyD), with the support of the Andalusian Agency for International Development Cooperation (AACID) implements in several municipalities of the province of Barahona, a Localization Strategy of the 2030 Agenda that seeks to contribute to overcoming the COVID-19 crisis from a perspective of inclusion, social cohesion and resilience.
The UNDP, AACID and the MEPyD carried out a follow-up visit to the initiative, where the Municipal Development Councils of Polo, Vicente Noble and Barahona, were able to present the progress of their updated municipal development plans under this methodology, and express how they have used the SDGs and their goals for the preparation of their diagnoses and definition of their action proposals, resulting in more comprehensive, inclusive and precise plans regarding the development challenges in each municipality and the strategies to address them.
This integration of the SDGs into local plans allows municipalities to show their real needs and link them to the 2030 development Agenda to identify the necessary alliances that allow the achievement of the objectives in a sustainable way and putting people at the center .
During their visit, the UNDP, AACID and MEPyD team were able to learn about the experience of the Polo municipality in Barahona, a coffee-producing municipality with challenges in overcoming poverty, generating jobs and livelihoods for its inhabitants, access to education and basic services. With the leadership of the Mayor’s Office of Polo, the municipality has formed a Municipal Development Council, also called the ODS Platform, made up of representatives of the neighborhood council, churches, civil society and local and central government, which has worked to make these challenges visible in the development plan and identify actions to mitigate them.
“For us, this plan is more than a paper or an exercise. It is about the future we want for Polo, and for which we are going to work. For this reason, we have ensured that we have the vision of the entire community, because it is not something we can achieve alone ”, said Danilsa Cuevas, mayor of Polo during the presentation.
For his part, Xavier Hernández, deputy resident representative of UNDP, expressed the importance of taking the 2030 Agenda to the local and regional level: “From UNDP, we are convinced that sustainable and inclusive development will only be achieved if we work from the territories. To do this, it is essential to work on integral transformation processes at and from the local level ”he highlighted.
The general director of the AACID, María de la Luz Ortega, appreciated the progress that has been made with the localization strategy. “This joint work between UNDP and AACID also aims to enhance a successful territorial model by joining forces and promoting the potential of Andalusia, its institutions, its actors and its solidarity approach”, he highlighted.
As part of the visit, the Andalusian Cooperation Agency participated in high-level meetings with government entities such as the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development (MEPyD) to discuss the articulation of the different initiatives that AACID supports in the Dominican Republic.
The commission was made up of representatives of the institutions that support the implementation of the strategy. On behalf of the AACID, in addition to the general director, were present Olga Pozo, director of Latin America and the Caribbean and Raúl Muñoz, coordinator of Central America. On behalf of the MEPyD, were present Leonid Díaz, in charge of the Department of Municipal Development Councils of the Vice Ministry of Territorial Planning and Luis Ortega, in charge of the sustainable development department of the General Directorate of Economic and Social Development, and for the UNDP, they were accompanying Juan Carlos Lopez, from the UNDP Regional Center for Latin America and the Caribbean, Xavier Hernández, deputy resident representative of UNDP in the country, María Eugenia Morales, officer of environmental sustainability and resilience programs, Magdalena Martínez, coordinator of the localization strategy of ODS, Víctor Rodríguez, private sector specialist and Jeferson Romero, field consultant for the localization strategy.
