The Minister of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Fidelis Manuel Leite Magalhães, met today, on October 26th, 2020, with the Australian Ambassador in Timor-Leste, Peter Roberts.
The meeting aimed to discuss the priority areas for Australian cooperation initiatives with Timor-Leste future planning, for the period of 2020-2021, within the scope of the development plan in response to COVID-19 in Timor-Leste, and the Strategic Development Planning Agreement between Australia and Timor-Leste, which should take into account Timor-Leste Foreign Aid Policy, a document from which the Government intends to align all the development partners activities with the Government’s priorities, to define new guidelines for approval, so that there is a better coordination of activities, and to integrate the set of projects financed by development partners in the national planning and budgeting system.
During the meeting, the ongoing partnerships between Timor-Leste and Australia were discussed, such as the technical assistance provided to the Government’s program of monetary support to the households, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is now in the complaint’s payment being finalized, as well as priority areas of cooperation for the future, such as the connection of fibre optic cable, a transformative and extremely necessary project for the national development.
Australia is an important development partner of Timor-Leste, which supports the country in several sectors, namely in terms of health, social protection, good governance, infrastructure and reduction of violence against woman and children. In the period of 2020-2021, it intends to launch new health and infrastructure initiatives, with the aim of supporting national health conditions and economic recovery.