“The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to de­liv­er a range of so­cial sup­port mea­sures to cush­ion the reper­cus­sions of the pan­dem­ic…”

That state­ment from Sen­a­tor Don­na Cox, Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, as she ad­dressed the 60th Ses­sion of the Com­mis­sion for So­cial De­vel­op­ment (CSocD), re­port­ing on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mul­ti-sec­toral ini­tia­tives to re­cov­er from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Min­is­ter Cox made her pre­sen­ta­tion vir­tu­al­ly on day four of the ses­sion, which be­gan on Feb­ru­ary 7th and will wrap up on Feb­ru­ary 16th, 2022.  

The theme of the Ses­sion is In­clu­sive and re­silient re­cov­ery from COVID-19 for sus­tain­able liveli­hoods, well-be­ing and dig­ni­ty for all: erad­i­cat­ing pover­ty and hunger in all its forms and di­men­sions to achieve the 2030 Agen­da. The Com­mis­sion for So­cial De­vel­op­ment serves as the Unit­ed Na­tion’s key ad­vi­so­ry body with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the so­cial de­vel­op­ment pil­lar of glob­al de­vel­op­ment.

Dur­ing her pre­sen­ta­tion of the Coun­try State­ment, Min­is­ter Cox stat­ed that the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has re­sult­ed in var­ied so­cio-eco­nom­ic chal­lenges for the most vul­ner­a­ble in this coun­try.

“In light of these set­backs, the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go es­tab­lished a Roadmap to Re­cov­ery Com­mit­tee, to chart the way for­ward in re-stim­u­lat­ing the econ­o­my and so­ci­ety for growth and sta­bil­i­ty post the pan­dem­ic,” she re­port­ed.

Min­is­ter Cox al­so high­light­ed the work of the Min­istry in build­ing re­silien­cy by un­der­tak­ing trans­for­ma­tion­al changes to its na­tion­al so­cial ser­vices de­liv­ery sys­tem, in­clud­ing the pro­vi­sion of a range of so­cial ser­vices through a ‘one door’ ap­proach.

“The Min­istry is com­mit­ted to erad­i­cat­ing mul­ti-di­men­sion­al pover­ty and hunger by ad­dress­ing is­sues of in­equity, dis­crim­i­na­tion, eco­nom­ic and so­cial mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion, and pro­mot­ing ini­tia­tives aimed at en­sur­ing that all of our cit­i­zens en­joy the high­est at­tain­able stan­dard of liv­ing and well-be­ing,” she stat­ed, not­ing that it is the lead agency in the so­cial sec­tor, charged with the man­date of pro­vid­ing qual­i­ty so­cial ser­vices to trans­form lives in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Min­is­ter Cox com­mend­ed the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al for the re­ports on the Ses­sion—in par­tic­u­lar, the re­port on the pri­or­i­ty theme.  The Re­port put for­ward an analy­sis of the im­pact of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic on pover­ty and hunger at the glob­al, re­gion­al and na­tion­al lev­els.