The Minister of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Fidelis Manuel Leite Magalhães, met, on June 11th, 2021, inthe Government Palace, with UNICEF’s representative in Timor-Leste, Bilal Aurang Zeb Durrani, for the first time since his arrival in Timor-Leste, last March. The meeting was also attended by the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Timor-Leste, Roy Trivedy.
During the meeting, Bilal Durrani made an overview of UNICEF’s main areas of action in Timor-Leste, regarding health, education, child protection, inclusion and social protection.
Also discussed at the meeting was the status of the project to create the unique identification system (Unique ID, IDU), which was initiated by Fidelis Magalhães, then Minister of Legislative Reform and Parliamentary Affairs, and which has the support of UNICEF in preparing its implementation strategy.
The integrated strategy for the implementation of the Single ID was recently presented to the Council of Ministers. The project will begin to be implemented this year, with the first registration expected to take place in the fourth quarter of 2022 and one million people registered by the end of 2025.
The Single ID is part of the Public Administration Reform Program and is the necessary basis to effectively and efficiently improve the provision and planning of public services and ensure better management and coordination of social policy, while contributing to the structured development of e-governance in Timor-Leste.
The Minister and the UNICEF and the United Nations representatives also discussed the next steps for implementation the ideas present in the study “Timor-Leste’s drivers of growth and sector transformation”, which was presented to members of the Government during the last Executive retreat. The report, requested by Fidelis Magalhães from the International Growth Centre (IGC) and supported by the United Nations, aims to outline priorities and provide recommendations to guide Government policies to achieve greater economic diversification, in non-oil sectors, and put the country on a more sustainable development path in the medium and long term.
The Minister of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers acknowledged that UNICEF is an important partner of Timor-Leste and thanked all the work done by the organization and especially for all the support in the vaccine procurement process and in the implementation of the vaccination campaign against COVID-19.