CARIBBEAN                              COMMUNITY                            SECRETARIAT

THIRTY- FOURTH MEETING OF                                                    

THE STANDING COMMITTEE OF

CARIBBEAN STATISTICIANS                                                  SCCS/2009/34/4     

Castries, Saint Lucia

26-28 October 2009                                                                      20 October 2009

STATUS REPORT ON THE CARIBBEAN SPECIFIC MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS (CSMDGS)

1.         Background to the Development of the Caribbean Specific Millennium Development Goals (CSMDGs) and Adoption by the Seventeenth COHSOD

The Caribbean Specific Millennium Development Goals (CSMDGs) was adopted at the Seventeenth Meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD), in November 2008 held in Georgetown, Guyana.  The development of Caribbean Specific Targets and Indicators resulted from  a decision of the Twelfth Meeting of the COHSOD held in Georgetown, Guyana in April 2005 which considered the status of implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); and

    “Endorsed the view that the MDGs should be seen as an integrated framework

     and not as a set of individual goals”

The Twelfth COHSOD had also, inter alia –

“Recommended that

(i)         indicators be reviewed with regard to their relevance for the CARICOM Member States;

(ii)        an indicator on gender-based violence be included;

(iii)       priority be given to the strengthening of the data collection systems including system for the registration of births and deaths, and the training and retention of human resources.” 

As a follow-up to the Conclusions of the Twelfth COHSOD, the following initiatives were  undertaken -

(i)                  Meeting of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) which resulted in the production of one set of Caribbean-specific MDGs;

(ii)                Meeting of the Task Force on Gender and Poverty chaired by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and in which the CARICOM Secretariat as well as other regional organisations participated, convened in May 2005 which also resulted in the inclusion of targets and indicators reflecting gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive health and rights;

(iii)               A Meeting of a Technical Working Group of Caribbean Statisticians to review the Proposed Indicators for the Measurement of the Caribbean Specific Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was convened by the CARICOM Secretariat and was funded by and held at the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), in Barbados in January 2008.

2.         Social/Gender and Environmental Workshop, in July 2009, in Antigua and Barbuda

A Workshop was convened in Antigua and Barbuda in July 2009 to strengthen capacity in the Compilation of Social/Gender Statistics considered the core Social/Gender indicators which included the official United Nations Millennium Development Goals (UN MDGs). The Social/Gender work group recommended that the CSMDG Indicators not currently included in the CARICOM Core List of Social/Gender indicators should be included in the existing Core list of Indicators.

3.         CARICOM Statistics Unit - Work Programme 2010-2011

The Statistics Unit plans to collect/compile data on the CSMDG indicators for Member States and Associate Members in the 2010/2011 period along with the metadata which is to be harmonized.
ACTION REQUIRED

The Meeting is invited to:

(i)            consider the report on the Caribbean Specific Millennium Development Goals Indicators; and

(ii)          support the next round of data collection on these indicators.

******