UN agencies want equity for at-risk Jamaicans

Jamaica is on track to meet most of the eight anti-poverty Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but several United Nations (UN) agencies here have warned that at-risk-groups could "fall through the cracks" if Jamaica fails to tackle some of the disparities throughout the society.

Most of these disparities, according to the UN agencies, are centred around access to quality health care, environmental sustainability and gender issues.

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) representative, Robert Fuderich, told a recent Gleaner Editors' Forum that, on average, Jamaica's MDG indicators are "very high", but suggested that "you think beyond the averages".

"Think about the MDGs with equity. Look at the people who are not being counted. That in itself is the problem we face here in Jamaica," Fuderich said during the forum held at The Gleaner's North Street offices in central Kingston.

Example

Using access to potable water as an example, Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and World Health Organisation (WHO) representative, Dr Ernest Pate, pointed to the numerous untreated water supply sources spread across rural parishes.

Despite this, he said recent statistics show that up to 86 per cent of the rural population have access to potable water.

In the urban area, he added, this number jumps to 95 per cent, giving Jamaica an average 92 per cent coverage, well over the range for the MDGs.

"When we look at these overall figures it seem as though, on average, we are doing fairly well, but we do have an at-risk population that is scattered," Pate emphasised.

Director of the United Nations Population Fund, Dan Blake, wants to see improvement in the quality of health care available outside Kingston.

"Every woman has to have exactly the same access to the same quality of health care," Baker said.

The eight MGDs aimed at cutting poverty by half, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by 2015, were born out of a UN Millennium Declaration in 2000, where world leaders pledged their countries' commitment to these goals.