Belize Turns Global Expertise Into Growth

The international experts may have completed their assignments, but the knowledge and systems they helped build are expected to serve Belize for years to come. Government officials and development partners today marked the close of a four-year Canadian-backed initiative that provided specialist support to communities, public agencies and local organizations. Through the Canada-CARICOM Expert Deployment Mechanism, Belize strengthened its capacity in project development, economic planning, institutional accreditation and other key areas, helping local institutions address critical skills gaps and pursue sustainable growth.

 

Dr. Osmond Martinez, Minister of Economic Transformation

“The government of Canada was supporting Belize through a CARICOM, expert mechanism, in terms of helping us with, experts in different areas. And those experts went from helping us, in villages like Gales Point to Cristo Rey, helping BELTRAIDE, SIB, and even helping us in terms of getting the accreditation for DFC, working on accreditations for GCF, under the Ministry of Economic Transformation, and also working with the Social Investment Fund. So it is an opportunity that we took advantage of due to the limitation of certain experts that we have in Belize. For example, Gales Point, Gales Point Primary School, whereby they have a component of sustainability now, and they also learn on how to develop bankable projects and to develop project proposals. That’s a limitation that we have in the country. And so for villages to be able to do their own project proposals based on the needs that they have, and which they can now turn those proposals into bankable proposals, that’s a big deal.”

 

Karyll Aitcheson, Senior International Officer, Canadian High Commission

“From a strategic standpoint, we’ve looked at building up policies, looking at guidelines, refreshing. There might be an agency that has a policy that we want to be revised and all of that. And all our work, what we do, we’ve been partnering with the Ministry of Economic Transformation, because what we want to do is to align our work with the medium-term development strategies so that what we do benefit directly the agenda and the work that the government wants to do to enhance the development of Belize.”

 

 

 

The project was backed by a multi-million dollar commitment from Canada to provide free-of-cost institutional support and advisory services.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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