Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and De­vel­op­ment Pen­ne­lope Beck­les met with a del­e­ga­tion led by Roi Chi­ti, UN-Habi­tat Hub Co­or­di­na­tor for the An­dean Re­gion at the Min­istry’s of­fice. Dur­ing the meet­ing dis­cus­sions cen­tred around an ini­tia­tive by the Unit­ed Na­tions called “In­clu­sive-Cities, Com­mu­ni­ties of Sol­i­dar­i­ty”.

The ini­tia­tive aims “to strength­en the re­sponse of host coun­tries to the mixed mi­gra­to­ry flows from Venezuela, in or­der to mit­i­gate any neg­a­tive fall­out and take ad­van­tage of the po­ten­tial that it can of­fer to host coun­tries.” The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the Min­istry of Hous­ing:

The Min­is­ter of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment, the Ho­n­ourable
Pen­ne­lope Beck­les met with a del­e­ga­tion led by Roi Chi­ti, UN-Habi­tat
Hub Co­or­di­na­tor for the An­dean Re­gion, at the Min­istry’s of­fice in
Port of Spain on No­vem­ber 03, 2021.

The Meet­ing fol­lowed a we­bi­nar which took place ear­li­er on No­vem­ber
01, en­ti­tled Pub­lic Spaces in Trinidad and To­ba­go: ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty,
safe­ty and op­por­tu­ni­ties for so­cial in­te­gra­tion. The Min­istry’s
Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary, Mrs. Claire David­son-Williams made a pre­sen­ta­tion
at that fo­rum on be­half of the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter.

The dis­cus­sions cen­tred around an ini­tia­tive of the Unit­ed Na­tions
Pro­gram for Hu­man Set­tle­ment (UN Habi­tat), the Unit­ed Na­tions Agency
for Refugees (UN­HCR) and the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion
(IOM) en­ti­tled, “In­clu­sive Cities, Com­mu­ni­ties of Sol­i­dar­i­ty” which is
be­ing fi­nan­cial­ly sup­port­ed by the Eu­ro­pean Union. This in­ter­a­gency
project aims to strength­en the re­sponse of host coun­tries to the mixed
mi­gra­to­ry flows from Venezuela, in or­der to mit­i­gate any neg­a­tive
fall­out and take ad­van­tage of the po­ten­tial that it can of­fer to host
coun­tries.

UN-Habi­tat Hub Co­or­di­na­tor, Roi Chi­ti ex­plained that the ini­tia­tive
al­so seeks to pro­mote so­cial in­te­gra­tion with­in cities and com­mu­ni­ties
and will sup­port Lo­cal Gov’t ef­forts through ca­pac­i­ty build­ing, in
or­der to in­clude all sec­tors of the com­mu­ni­ty. The Pro­gramme will al­so
look at iden­ti­fy­ing is­sues re­lat­ed to ac­cess of pub­lic spaces and
ba­sic ser­vices, as well as sus­tain­able ur­ban plan­ning, as this not
on­ly af­fects the mi­grant/refugee pop­u­la­tion but al­so lo­cal/host
com­mu­ni­ties. As such, UN-Habi­tat is com­mit­ted to work­ing with
Min­is­ters who are re­spon­si­ble for their coun­tries’ Hous­ing and Ur­ban
De­vel­op­ment port­fo­lios.

Head of Of­fice of the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees
(UN­HCR) for Trinidad and To­ba­go Ms. Miri­am Aertk­er spoke of the need
for so­cial in­te­gra­tion and co­he­sion and the op­por­tu­ni­ties to be
re­alised should the ini­tia­tive suc­ceed. Both Ms. Aertk­er and Ms. Jew­el
Ali, Head of the Of­fice of the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for
Mi­gra­tion (IOM) in Trinidad and To­ba­go agreed that time­ly, rel­e­vant
da­ta is re­quired for that to hap­pen. In so do­ing, crit­i­cal needs
as­sess­ments and con­sul­ta­tions with all key stake­hold­ers with­in the
host coun­tries will be con­duct­ed. They al­so agreed to make their
find­ings avail­able to the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties of the host coun­tries
to in­form de­ci­sion-mak­ing and pol­i­cy for­mu­la­tion.

Min­is­ter Beck­les ex­plained that there are plans to de­vel­op and
re­vi­tal­ize ar­eas of our ma­jor ur­ban ar­eas, name­ly our cap­i­tal city of
Port of Spain, San Fer­nan­do and Scar­bor­ough, To­ba­go. The Min­istry has
un­der­tak­en sev­er­al projects with re­spect to the re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion ef­fort
in east Port of Spain and Scar­bor­ough through the IDB-fund­ed Ur­ban
Up­grad­ing and Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Pro­gramme. These projects are meant to
ad­dress such ur­ban is­sues as eco­nom­ic de­cline, en­vi­ron­men­tal de­cay,
com­mu­ni­ty dere­lic­tion, grow­ing un­em­ploy­ment and oth­er so­cial prob­lems.

The Min­istry, in the roll out of these projects has giv­en a lot of
con­sid­er­a­tion to some of the is­sues raised such as se­cu­ri­ty of our
ur­ban spaces, and re­duc­ing the en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact by util­is­ing
sus­tain­able ur­ban prac­tices and poli­cies, to pro­vide ap­pro­pri­ate
in­fra­struc­ture and at­trac­tive, mod­ern fa­cil­i­ties and ameni­ties, as
well as op­por­tu­ni­ties for en­tre­pre­neur­ial eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and
em­ploy­ment, through the pro­vi­sion of com­mer­cial spaces with­in our
cities and com­mu­ni­ties.

Min­is­ter Beck­les al­so out­lined the gov­ern­ment’s plan to con­struct
25,000 new hous­ing units over the next ten years. How­ev­er, with
fund­ing con­straints ex­ac­er­bat­ed by Covid 19 so­cial ex­pen­di­ture, the
Min­istry and its agen­cies will re­quire the en­gage­ment of the pri­vate
sec­tor in­vestors to meet that tar­get, as the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter
Dr Kei­th Row­ley has said.

As it­er­at­ed in the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary’s re­marks de­liv­ered at the
we­bi­nar, the min­is­ter reaf­firmed Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to cre­at­ing
sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ties through­out the length and breadth of Trinidad
and To­ba­go, in keep­ing with the coun­try’s Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment
Strat­e­gy Vi­sion 2030 and the UN’s New Ur­ban Agen­da, all while keep­ing
in mind the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs) one (1), eleven (11)
and fif­teen (15).

As such, Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to build ca­pac­i­ty
and im­prove the eco­nom­ic vi­a­bil­i­ty of ur­ban­iza­tions, to fos­ter more
in­clu­sive, safer, sus­tain­able and re­silient ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties, which
will not on­ly im­prove the qual­i­ty of life for those who live there but
en­sure a pos­i­tive ex­pe­ri­ence for mi­grants and refugees. Min­is­ter
Beck­les and the ex­ec­u­tive team at the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban
De­vel­op­ment, are con­fi­dent that the Min­istry’s Ur­ban Re­gen­er­a­tion
plans will add val­ue, re­duce in­equities and en­hance the qual­i­ty and
stan­dard of liv­ing for all.

On the ques­tion of in­clu­siv­i­ty of the mi­grant pop­u­la­tion, the min­is­ter
not­ed Gov­ern­ment’s ini­tial reg­is­tra­tion and grant­i­ng of tem­po­rary work
per­mits to over 16,000 mi­grants, of which ap­prox­i­mate­ly 13,000 have
re­newed, which in it­self at­tests to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s lead­er­ship
in this re­gard. While the sit­u­a­tion is far from per­fect, the
reg­is­tra­tion gave them the op­por­tu­ni­ty to seek gain­ful em­ploy­ment in
the con­struc­tion, re­tail and ser­vices sec­tors as well as to find
suit­able ac­com­mo­da­tions for them­selves and their fam­i­lies. They al­so
have ac­cess to free pub­lic health care and the Covid 19 vac­ci­na­tions.
The min­is­ter not­ed that as a small is­land de­vel­op­ing state (SIDS),
Trinidad and To­ba­go is al­so grap­pling with the glob­al eco­nom­ic im­pact
of the Covid 19 pan­dem­ic. The Gov­ern­ment, how­ev­er, has tak­en steps to
en­sure that every­one with­in our bor­ders, cit­i­zens and mi­grants alike,
have ac­cess to life-sav­ing vac­cines, health care and food ham­pers
dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

As far as is hu­mane­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly pos­si­ble the Gov­ern­ment will
con­tin­ue to pro­vide a safe, in­clu­sive, so­cial­ly har­mo­nious en­vi­ron­ment
for all to en­joy.

In clos­ing, Roi Chi­ti, ex­tend­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to the Ho­n­ourable
Min­is­ter, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les to at­tend an up­com­ing con­fer­ence of
Hous­ing Min­is­ters in Carta­ge­na, Colom­bia on No­vem­ber 22-23, 2021
host­ed by UN Habi­tat. It will be an ex­cel­lent fo­rum to share ideas,
learn­ings and best prac­tices. It al­so serves as a prepara­to­ry
dis­cus­sion to a high­er-lev­el con­fer­ence in April 2022 which will fo­cus
main­ly on progress re­ports by mem­ber states on their sta­tus as it
re­lates to achiev­ing the ob­jec­tives of the 2030 Ur­ban Agen­da.

Al­so present at the meet­ing were the Ho­n­ourable Adri­an Leonce,
Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment, Ms. Nir­mala
Ram­lo­gan, Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Hous­ing and
Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment, and Ms. Jay­selle Mac­Far­lane, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of
the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion.