CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba

Cuba Achieves Improvements in Human Development Report.

 
CUBA, 20 June 2011.- The decision of putting into practice a proposal made by Cuba aimed at improving the quality, credibility, precision and transparency of the Human Development Report (HDR), was welcomed by the island.

Approved after several and intense negotiations, the initiative makes it possible to guarantee a more efficient mechanism of consultation and interaction, since the concerns and opinions of member states with respect to the use of new indicators in the report are included.

The Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), as well as the Statistics Division of the world organization, backed the project, the Prensa Latina news agency reported.

The need for the HDR to be prepared in a neutral way is ratified in the text, after comprehensive analyses and respecting the due impartiality of sources, which is a clear indicator of the priority and importance nations give the subject.

While speaking on Thursday in a session of that UNDP-UNFPA organ, Pedro Nuñez, Cuba's permanent representative at the UN, acknowledged the work of the office in charge of the HDR in favor of approving and ensuring that the regulation was observed.

He explained that the execution of this project, accepted in February, made it possible to reactivate the advisory panel of statistics, and establish contacts with national offices to improve transparency and guarantee that the data used are comparable at an international level.

He added that, thanks to this, the process of consultation with that office resulted in the publication of a checking of the data corresponding to Cuba in the 2010 report.

Nuñez reiterated the need to strengthen cooperation and the exchange of information between that office, the governments, the intergovernmental organs and the UN entities specialized in statistic matters.

With a view to the publication of the HDR for 2011, Nuñez urged to take into account the use of the statistics produced at a national level, and to avoid the use of indicators with regard to human rights that have not been agreed by consensus or approved by the governments represented at the organs of the UN in charge of these issues.

The diplomat highlighted the creation of a regional group of experts -composed of Brazil, Cuba, Canada, Costa Rica, Colombia and the Dominican Republic-, which will carry out thematic consultations with the HDR office, which will benefit Latin American nations. (Cubaminrex-ACN)