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Father Barr leads talks Father Kevin Barr of the Ecumenical Centre for Research, Education and Advocacy (ECREA) was today elected Chairman Working Group 7 (WG7) of the National Council for Building a Better Fiji (NCBBF) that will be deliberating on the issues of Poverty, Social Justice and Human Rights.
At its first meeting today at the Parliamentary Complex in Nasese, WG7, which comes under National Task Team 3 (NTT3), also elected Mrs. Litia Mawi the Permanent Secretary for Local Government, Urban Development and Housing as the Deputy Chair. This morning, the group went through its terms of reference and work programme and what it is expected to accomplish. The objective of Working Group 7 is amongst other things to conduct factual, diagnostic and analytical work on Poverty, Social Justice and Human Rights and to submit its recommendations to the National Council’s Task Team on social cultural identity and nation building. In addition, the group is expected to undertake where necessary further studies or investigations on this topic and summarize and report back to NTT3 on the deliberations and recommendations of the working group on these topics. Furthermore, the group noted that the poverty level in Fiji has increased drastically over the years and that Fiji’s economy is not performing well to sustain the poverty level. Likewise, under Social Justice, it was highlighted that there was a need for better targeting of Affirmative Action programmes particularly for those in the outer islands and the rural areas. On the other hand, it was realized that human rights in Fiji was a challenging issue because of the “culture of silence” and that this needed to be addressed with the view that development means empowering people to make their own decisions. The task of Working Group 7 is identifying and assessing strategies to assist poor people through; increasing employment opportunities especially in rural areas and outlying islands in order to decrease the rural to urban migration trend, ensuring equal opportunities for women seeking employment, reviewing the programmes and policies for the provision of support to the unemployed, sick, disabled, elderly and to poor families. In addition, it is to assess the operation and performance of poverty reduction initiatives and the formulation of an Integrated National Poverty Eradication programme. Likewise, the group is also expected to review the effectiveness and fairness of social justice programmes such as affirmative action and make recommendations as considered appropriate to amend or revise any aspects of the programmes. 21/02/08 |
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