Turning from crime to governance, the government celebrated UN Day today with the launch of the Good Governance Project. This project is in collaboration with the UNDP and focuses on capacity building and ultimately developing a good governance agenda. The deputy UNDP Resident Rep and the Minister of the Public Service told us more about it.
Michael Lund, Deputy Resident Rep., UNDP
"We support Belize now mainly in good governance and inclusive growth as one area and climate change as another area, that's a big focus area. This project that we're launching today really fits in with the good governance portfolio that we're having, we're trying to support the government in supporting it's good governance institutions and anti-corruption efforts."
"This has a 24 months timeline and what we're trying to do is strengthen the capacities through training and institution building on two fold, one is the internal institutions in government that keeps a check on good processes and ethics and civil service and the other part is to train and be partners with civil society and the media, so you as watchdogs can keep an eye on the government, can keep an eye on the public service, so we can help make sure it's clean, not corrupt and it's efficient as possible."
Henry Charles Usher, Minister of Public Service
"We have the launch of the good governance project, it's a CARSI funded project in collaboration with UNDP, with the US Embassy, and the good governance unit of the Ministry of the Public Service and really, there are many objectives but the key core objectives are one, to build capacity in the public service when it comes to good governance issues, two, to build capacity as well and to do administrative law training for the public service commission, for admin officers, CEO's, etc, and three, the ultimate objective is to build and develop the good governance agenda, so this project, the funds coming from CARISI, is hoping to achieve those over the next 24 months."
Reporter:
"One of the major issues we hear public officers saying is that they're afraid of retribution, they're afraid of losing their jobs. How does this project, how does the greater efforts of the ministry protect those that would try to stand up for good governance?"
Henry Charles Usher, Minister of Public Service
"Certainly fear for reprisal is an issue that we have encountered. Not only in the public service but really, in Belize on a whole, people are often afraid of coming forward when they see acts and events that they should be coming forward about. But remember this project which is building capacity is in conjunction with other projects that have been done by the good governance unit and by the government of Belize. We had a training of public officers completed in 2022, those public officers are then to go into their particular ministries, their departments, and carry out these training objectives so that public officers can recognize and identify and also not be afraid to speak on issues of corruption."
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