SANTIAGO, 3 September 2008: A regional seminar Contribution of Social Programmes to Achieving the Millennium Development Goals will be held September 8-9 at the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) headquarters in Santiago, Chile, to review the role of government in poverty reduction programmes.
The seminar, organized by ECLAC’s Social Development Division with support from the Agency for International Development Cooperation of Spain (AECID) and the United Nations Development Account, will be inaugurated on Monday, September 8.
Representatives of Social Development and Planning ministries from the region, international agencies, non-governmental organizations and academics will evaluate progress towards meeting the goal of reducing extreme poverty in Latin America by half, and analyze national case studies on poverty reduction policies and programmes, particularly Conditional Transfer Programmes.
During the seminar, ECLAC will present two new tools to help follow-up progress towards achieving the first MDG target of reducing extreme poverty by half by 2015:
The report “Progress in reducing extreme poverty in Latin America: Dimensions and policies for an analysis of the first Millennium Target”, which seeks to improve procedures for characterizing poverty and examine the effects of policies and strategies to combat it, with emphasis on an evaluation of Conditional Transfer Programmes.
The database “Poverty in Latin America”, available on the ECLAC website at: http://websie.eclac.cl/sisgen/ConsultaIntegrada.asp?idAplicacion=14, containing statistics on poverty in 18 countries in the region, disaggregated by gender, urban and rural areas, age, educational level, type of family, ethnic origin and labor insertion.
The regional commission is also carrying out the projects “Following up the poverty component of the first Millennium Development Goal”, financed by AECID, and “The Millennium Development Goals and challenges for Latin America and the Caribbean to advance towards greater well-being, better human capital and more equal opportunities”, financed by the U.N. Development Account. More information on these projects is available at the websites: http://www.cepal.org/dds/aeci/ and http://www.cepal.org/dds/development/ .
Kilde: ECLAC
