Civil Society Organisations; valuable partners with Government to complement the work of achieving National, Regional and Global Goals

The United Nations Development Agenda can be summarised as the seventeen (17) Sustainable Development Goals SDG’s) that has been formulated as the global agenda for development. The emphasis is to create systems, policy, programs, and projects that will ensure equality among all citizens across the globe in achieving their needs.

Out of this, generate local, regional and global needs, by which countries would have merged all actions to achieve the seventeen (17) set developmental targets. Hence achieving a better quality of life for all, especially the under marginalized groups facing major socio-economic challenges inclusive as having a reduction of poverty as one of its major priorities.

This can be achieved as is pointed out by Governments forming effective multilateral partnerships with Civil Society (NGO’s), Academia, the private and public sectors respectively, all working cohesively to reach set targets within the time frames that are realistically set.

 

In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, over the past years has been battling major socio-economic challenges the greater priority being, high unemployment for the working population listed as 46 % by the recent IMF report and 25.1 % overall by the National Labour statistics for persons between the ages of 18-34.

Additionally Challenges with a weak, yet overwhelmed Health Sector, poor quality educational system, and high reoccurring incidence of gender-based violence mainly against women and young children. To this end, there was a need to have a critical social support system in place.

In 2009, after seeing the very high incidence of Abuse and suicides especially among the youth, Constructive Solutions Inc., a vibrant non-profit company was formed to help provide citizens with the needed life skills and social support to help people conquer the vast socio-economic challenges they encounter on a daily basis.

 

We at CSInc.  have remained committed to fostering an entrepreneurial mindset among citizens within St. Vincent and the Grenadines as a means of inspiring creativity and innovation, building independence, creating jobs for unemployed people and generating wealth.

In designing our framework, we specifically wanted to ensure we reduced duplication of efforts, and provide a trustworthy and efficient organization, which was pointed out as lacking during our community surveys conducted to research the root of the challenges and to help guide us in formulating innovative development programs that complemented the national goals.

We have ensured we aligned with the SDG’s namely;

GOAL 1: No Poverty

GOAL 5: Gender Equality

GOAL 7: Affordable and Clean Energy

 GOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

 GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

 GOAL 13: Climate Action

 GOAL 16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions

 GOAL 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goal

We have found all our programs touch several cross-cutting issues\SDG’s and have to work hand in hand in order to achieve the sustainability required for citizens across the board.

Nationally the present Government led by Dr. The Hon. Ralph Gonsalves created a unique document and policy framework, “St. Vincent and the Grenadines National Economic and Social Development Plan 2013-2015., according to Dr. Gonsalves in his forward “The Development Plan is premised on the workings of an economy in which the private sector, the cooperative sector, and State have efficacious, complementary roles as part of a “mixed economy”.

Evidently, it’s clear the NGO\Civil Society was not mentioned as a priority in achieving these goals and to date, we can see the major fall off, of vibrant CSO’s\NGO’s within St. Vincent and the Grenadines. However, as the plan is explored there are some objectives set to build partnerships with the community organizations in helping the country achieve both the national and global goals as they are aligned with the SDG’s.

I believe however more work needs to be urgently done to build more non-partisan partnerships with varying NGO’s within the local context, fortunately, organizations such as C.S.Inc and others have reached beyond the shores and have been gaining technical and monetary assistance from other regional and global developmental organizations.

It is critically important then,  for other NGOS’s to align themselves and their missions towards helping citizens to achieve sustainable livelihoods, with special emphasis on Economic, Social and Environmental impact. Our Caribbean is in such a position that the past preferential treatments have been removed, hence we are all exposed to the Global Market spaces, which impacts all sectors worldwide. Hence the Caribbean NGO’s must swiftly align themselves with and transition to become effective social enterprises.

Careful note must be taken that much of the past developmental funding has dried up and hence we are forced now to be very innovative in our approaches towards sustainable development, look within and better manage our natural resources,  in addition to retooling our human resources to adapt to the changes in the business paradigm, technological advancements and the speed at which modernization is taking place. It just cannot be business as usual for any of us.

References:

1)  https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg17

2) https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/1466vincentgrenadines.pdf

3) https://consolincsvg.com/

4) https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/CR/2017/cr17400-StVincentBundle.ashx

@Dr. Ashley C. John Amb 2018

About the Author 

Dr. Ashley C. John Amb. was born in St. Vincent & the Grenadines; however, he had migrated to Barbados where he lived for many years. At the age of 18 years, he started his own for profit business, “Constructive Solutions” in Barbados which has transformed throughout the years to the new Social Enterprise, Constructive Solutions Inc. based in his home country St. Vincent & the Grenadines.  

Dr John also worked many years in the Corporate, Public and Private Sector. He has an enormous passion for helping people, the community and the Church, and has been doing this for more than two decades, in Community Ministry, Entrepreneurship Development programs, Comprehensive Community Disaster and Environmental Management.

Dr. John’s contribution to the growth and success of different companies, small and micro enterprises, the Public Sector and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s), over the past twenty-six years has been significant.

He has been acknowledged as being as a strategic professional who deploys a participative management style; an excellent team builder and consultant on entrepreneurial, organizational and personal development.