The Government and people ofAnguilla, as well as researchers, and others, now have access to the results of the Second Country Poverty Assessment officially released on Tuesday this week.
“This morning is the culmination of a project which started in 2007 with discussions with the Caribbean Development Bank to conduct the Second Country Poverty Assessment,” Chief Statistician, Lori-Rae Alleyne-Franklin, said in a statement before the release of the report. “With the CDB’s assistance, Anguilla was able to secure the services of a team of consultants – Cari Consultants – based inTrinidadto lead and support the project.” The fieldwork was done by a National Assessment Team with representation from various ministries and departments inAnguilla, she explained.
Mrs. Alleyne-Franklin said the project comprised four research components: a macro-economic analysis; a survey of living conditions among householders; a participatory poverty assessment; and an institutional analysis.
“With the fieldwork and data collection phase commencing in earnest in May 2008, and following into 2009,Anguillawas off to collecting a rich and valuable resource of data for use in programme and policy development,” she said. “It is therefore only fitting that once the data, both qualitative and quantitative, is collected, collated and analysed, that it is officially released for use by the Government and people ofAnguilla.”
She stated that all three volumes of the poverty assessment report, along with the method data and the technical and statistical appendices, werebeing released and made widely available on the Government’s website.
Planner in the Department of Social Development, Mrs. KieshaGumbs-Bibbi, described the report as a critical tool in decision-making, strategic planning and budgetary allocations. She said the information provided was useful to Government, NGOs, faith and community-based organisations, institutions of learning, the private sector and other corporate citizens, in that they would be able to make decisions and interventions based on evidence. Overall, she saw the report as being important to national development and nation-building exercises.
“Working together to bring about social inclusion, social participation and social integration is our best defence against poverty and deprivation,” she added.
Permanent Secretary, Economic Development, Foster Rogers, thanked the stakeholders who were involved in the project during the past five years. He named them as the Caribbean Development Bank, which provided the funding; the Statistical Department under the direction of Mrs. Alleyne-Franklin; Permanent Secretary, Finance, Dr. Aidan Harrigan and staff; the Ministry and Department of Social Development and members of the Anguillian publicwho shared their private information which would be securely guarded.
Mr. Rogers said job creation was also a critical part of the Country Poverty Assessment. He stressed that it was important to ensure thatAnguillawas placed on a growth path to provide employment opportunities not only for the youth, but the general population as well.
“Anguillais expected to grow at a rate of two percent this year, according to the Central Bank and we hope we can maintain that,” Mr. Rogers said. “When you consider the cliff we dropped off from in 2008, 2009 and 2010, when we contracted in double digits, I am certain that even if we can grow by one or two percent, that would be something we can accept on a path to improvement.”
President of the Anguilla Community College, Professor Delroy Louden, who was at the handing over ceremony, commented: “We are very pleased over the Country Poverty Assessment report. We see it as essential particularly for our grant-writing proposals to different agencies,…planning courses and addressing some of the inequalities in the Anguillian society.
“We will see where the highest rates of poverty are, what the characteristics of those populations are, how vulnerable they are and how we can begin to address the vulnerability in terms of the courses at the College.”
Professor Louden was among a number of persons in the public sector who were presented with the three volumes of the Country Poverty Assessment report.
