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| Minister in the??Prime Minister’s Office??with responsibility for Energy, Senator Darcy Boyce. (FP) |
The work of an international agency dedicated to addressing societal inequalities and poverty, was lauded when Minister in the office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for Energy, Senator Darcy Boyce, addressed a reception for the 2013 Global Assembly of the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS) yesterday evening.
The four-day event, which is being hosted at Hilton Barbados, will focus on the theme: Evaluation and Inequality: Moving Beyond the Discussion of Poverty. Speaking about the theme’s relevance to Barbados, Senator Boyce said: "In the Government of Barbados, we felt that the matters that you are discussing would provide us with a very good opportunity to have Barbados profiled for some thought leadership in the very important area of broadening the discussion of development into the realm of its impacts on the poor and on equality…
"For us, good governance includes participation, transparency, accountability, responsiveness, equity and inclusion…Such governance must ensure the most vulnerable in society are considered in the development process and in the accompanying allocation of resources…Your Assembly attempts to grapple with all of these themes and the issues that are embedded in them.?? The outcomes of your deliberations will be very valuable to us and we look forward to studying your deliberations as we fine tune our own policies."
President of IDEAS, Ray Rist, expressed his gratitude for the "strong support" Government offered in hosting the biennial assembly, which featured sessions on themes such as gender inequality and awareness, rural poverty, community empowerment and improving public sector management.?? IDEAS, which was established in 2002, is focused on improving and extending the practice of development evaluation, with emphasis on developing and transitioning countries.
The Assembly, which welcomed 250 participants from over 70 countries, ends Thursday.