2 New Transformative Projects Coming to Toledo

Here’s some exciting news for the Toledo District. This morning, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade launched two transformative projects aimed at empowering vulnerable rural communities in southern Belize by improving access to renewable energy and enhancing water, sanitation, and hygiene. News Five’s Britney Gordon was at the launch to get all the details on how these projects will benefit underserved communities in Belize.

 

Britney Gordon, Reporting

More than half of Toledo’s population faces multidimensional poverty, meaning they lack in areas like health, education, employment, and living standards, according to the Statistical Institute of Belize. While these numbers have improved recently, there’s still a lot of work to be done in the district’s most underserved communities. That’s why the Government of Belize has launched two transformative projects to help those in need. Valentino Shal, CEO of the Ministry of Rural Transformation, shares more about these initiatives.

 

Valentino Shal, CEO, Ministry of Rural Transformation

“Today we launched two very important projects with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and of course the Ministry of Energy and the UNDP and UNICEF. These projects are targeted at improving the quality of life of rural residents in the Toledo District. And it has to do with water and sanitation and electrification. Not just electrification, but electrification using renewable energy, which in this case is solar. We’re going to target at least up to six villages with these two projects. Three are targeted for rural electrification. These are Otoxha, Mabil Ha, and Nalumka.”

 

The two projects will start by improving water and sanitation facilities in three villages, with plans to expand to more areas later. The first project is funded with one million US dollars from the India, Brazil, and South Africa Fund, while the second project, the Joint Sustainable Development Goals Fund, is valued at two hundred and fifty thousand US dollars.

 

Valentino Shal

“The IBSA, India, Brazil, South Africa. This is a fund established by these three countries to further South cooperation. So these are all developing countries but they have pooled together their resources to create this fund and so other countries like Belize can apply and access these funds to invest in, in development of local communities.”

 

The project is supported by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), which has been working to drive Belize’s development for decades. UNDP Resident Representative, Michael Lund, tells us what areas of development the organization is targeting in Belize.

 

Michael Lund, Deputy Resident Representative, UNDP

“We have two main portfolios in the country as it is now. We have our nature, climate and environment. A lot of that is what these two projects falls under. So there’s both. rule development aspects, but we also work on the more upstream, on the policy elements, on climate finance, what was mentioned, the integrated national financing framework is focusing on climate, so also the upstream policy elements. We have the other portfolio that we have is inclusive growth governance and there, for example, we have a project with the judiciary that’s called PACE, a project with EU funding. That is supporting the digital sector. Of course, e-mobility is also a project that UNDP is implementing. Those are the two main areas that UNDP is focused on at the moment to help Belize.”

 

Providing access to services in these communities is the first step to reducing the amount of people living in multidimensional poverty. And as Shal describes it, the work never ends.

 

Valentino Shal

“The way to reduce poverty is to be targeted. And so from the statistics that we have and the data that we have, it’s very obvious that rural Toledo continues to represent a high rate of, present a high rate of poverty. And in this case, multidimensional poverty, which includes health, education, employment and access to basic services. And so we have been working at addressing this through interventions and working directly with the communities.”

 

Britney Gordon for News Five.