Public Agencies Collaborate for National Policy on Sustainable Community Development
Consultations are well underway for the formulation of a National policy on Sustainable Community Development.
On Friday 28th April, 2017, the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts engaged several other social services delivery agencies in a Dialogue regarding the National Community Development Policy. The session was held at the Adult Education Centre in St. Ann’s. The objective of the session was to identify areas of collaboration between the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts (MCDCA), and fourteen (14) other Ministries including: Health, Tourism, Agriculture, Education, National Security and Social Development and Family Services.
“This policy will not advance until we take an integrated approach. I am really happy to see so many Ministries and Agencies represented today. Also, our goal, our objectives and our outcomes for this policy must be stated simply. The resulting document should be easily understood and embraced all,” Mrs Angela Edwards, Permanent Secretary – Ministry of Community Development Culture and the Arts in her Remarks.
In her Welcome Remarks, Dr. Donna Mae Knights – Policy Co-ordinator (MCDCA) set the tone for the activity, encouraging participants that current social conditions required that it cannot be business as usual. “The outcome of this Inter-Ministerial Meeting is to see where we can collaborate and the mechanisms we can use to ensure greater impact. A common thread in our previous sessions, was the importance of integrated service delivery among Ministries.”
Dr. Knights then handed the session over to the Facilitator, Mr Gary Tagallie, who took the various Ministry representatives through simple yet practical exercises aimed at assessing the current state of inter-ministerial collaboration and recommendations to improve this collaboration.
This Inter-Ministerial Stakeholder’s Workshop is the second phase in the formulation of the National Policy on Sustainable Community Development. Between November 2016 and February 2017, the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts held over twenty (20) sessions with community-based groups and public sector agencies. In the upcoming months, the Ministry will engage members of the private sector and members of the public and the Non-Governmental Organisations towards the completion of a first draft of the National Policy on Sustainable Community Development.