The Department of Economic Development recently presented Saint Lucia’s Medium Term Development Strategy (MTDS 2021-2026) at a United Nations organized meeting of Development Partners and the Government of Saint Lucia.  The MTDS is the output of extensive stakeholder consultations with the public and private sectors, NGOs, and Civil Society Organisations who interrogated Saint Lucia’s development issues and proposed solutions.

Perle Alcindor, the Ag. Chief Economist with the Department of Economic Development, explained: “It was opportune for us to be part of the dialogue today because as we move from the official launch of the MTDS now we are going into implementation. This is where we need to dialogue further with our development partners to identify resources, so that we will be able to have the transformative projects that we have identified, through our process, that we can actually implement them to be able to have a transformative impact and improve the quality of life of the people of Saint Lucia.”

Development partners work bilaterally with governments providing support and aid in various areas. UN Country Coordination Officer for Saint Lucia, Dr. Lorraine Nicholas said the purpose of the meeting was to improve the delivery of development assistance to Saint Lucia and to reduce implementation bottlenecks “as very often the funds are available, but the implementation is rather important.”  

“So today we have a number of development partners joining us in person as well as virtually. We have Japan, the EU, the UK, the OAS, IICA, the World Bank, CDB, and of course we have several United Nations Agencies joining us as well. Basically, to ensure that we provide coordinated assistance to Saint Lucia.”

Dr. Nicholas stressed the importance of development partners to understand the development priorities for Saint Lucia as articulated by the government which should also reflect the priorities of the private sector and civil society organisations.

“Coming out of this we would have identified where the gaps are. We now understand what each development partner is bringing to the table and so hearing from the government what are their priorities, juxtaposing the Medium Term Development Strategy priorities with what the development partners are offering. Where are the gaps? How can we work together better to provide the support? To be more strategic and more impactful and more relevant for the government of Saint Lucia.”

The MTDS lays the roadmap on how the government will tackle its priority issues while building resilience to external shocks such as the Covid 19 pandemic and Ukraine/Russia conflict.  

“In the MTDS one of the priority areas is to enhance human capital and social resilience. So somebody going through the document will be able to see an intervention that we have identified to address that, is improving health facilities. We also look at access to housing justice and citizen security, there are actually specific interventions to address those. So the citizens will be able to understand what exactly is being done. So it’s not just aspirational but how we move from aspiration to impacting people every day.”

The MTDS is supported by a national development framework which triggers long-range planning for how citizens would like to see Saint Lucia 30 to 40 years from now.  The development partners’ coordination meeting was held at the Harbor Club in Gros Islet.