DILI, 15 september 2022 (TATOLI)- The United Nations Development Programs updates the President of the Republic, José Ramos Horta about its ongoing assistance to the Government of Timor-Leste.
UNDP Resident Representative in Timor-Leste, Mukhtuya Altrangerel said the discussion was focused on the importance of economic diversification and inclusive growth for Timor-Leste.
“We discussed many topics with President of Timor-Leste José Ramos Horta such as empowerment of youth, especially youth enterprise development, and employability, climate change, and climate adaptation, the resilience of community assets and community livelihoods towards disasters, including climate-induced disasters,’’ UNDP resident representative in Timor-Leste, Nunkhtuya Altrangerel told journalists at President Palace in Bairu Pite, wednesday.
She added that UNDP has been a longstanding partner of the people and the governments of Timor-Leste since the restoration of independence: “UNDP’s main areas of assistance are technical assistance to elections. We provided technical assistance to all elections since the restoration of independence; we also provide partnership support to governance, including support to the national Parliament, and institutional development of the national parliaments,”
“We also work very closely with the national parliaments and the government on the decentralization agenda. We supported ratifying two important decentralization bills in partnership with the European Union. We also provide support and partnership at the regional and sub-national levels, including through providing renewable energy, and photovoltaic energy to rural livelihoods, and community assistance to the people in Oé-Cussee,” she said.
Altangerel reaffirmed UNDP’s commitment to continue working with Timor-Leste’s Government to assist digitalization, especially ICT and digital literacy for youth and enterprise development.
“In the future, we will be assisting digitalization, especially ICT and digital literacy for youth and enterprise development,”
According to the UNDP’s representative, Timor-Leste needs to have a growing beat middle class, which can only be supported by the increasing enterprises in the private sector; “so supporting the private sector engagement for exports of Timorese goods and services to the outside world is going to be another future area of cooperation,”
“In addition, Timor-Leste is one of the most vulnerable to climate change countries and therefore climate mitigation adaptation programs are going to be most important for UNDP in the future as well,”
In turn, President Horta encouraged UNDP, to focus its attention on the most vulnerable people: “President Horta encourage us to focus our attention on the most vulnerable people, indeed most valuable people, people with disabilities, people living in rural communities, who need our assistance and support,”
“We also want to hear, that he encouraged us to work on the digitalization agenda including promoting digital infrastructure for ICT and also science, technology, and smart learning and skills development for youth. We also discussed the upcoming mission by the Assistant Secretary General, UNDP Director of Asia Pacific Bureau, Kanni Wignaraja, who will be visiting Timor-Leste from the 17th of October until the 21st of October and these are our main priority areas of UNDP and the annual budget and delivery of UNDP are about 20 million U.S. dollars,” he said.
Journalist: José Belarmino De Sá
Editor: Nelia B.
