IV CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT
SECRETARIAT OF STATE OF THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS
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PRESS RELEASE
Council of Ministers extraordinary meeting of June 30, 2011
The Council of Ministers held an extraordinary meeting on Thursday 30 June 2011 to analyze the Timor-Leste Strategic Development Plan 2011- 2030. The Plan is a national project with a twenty year vision that reflects the aspirations of the Timorese people to create a prosperous and strong nation.
The plan has been developed to inspire change, to support bold collective action and to plan for a better future.
The Strategic Development Plan (SDP) reflects the views and aspirations of the people expressed during an extensive national consultation in 2010, and builds on the 2002 National Development Plan and ‘Timor-Leste – A Vision for 2020’ which formed the basis of the 2002 National Development Plan.
Timor-Leste has four key attributes that mean the country is well placed to achieve its vision: political will, economic potential, national integration and a dynamic population.
The strategies and actions set out in the SDP aim to transition Timor-Leste from a low income to upper middle income country, with a healthy, well educated and safe population by 2030.
A summary of the SDP, From Conflict to Prosperity, was released in April 2010. This summary was the basis for over 70 community consultations in “sucos” and villages across Timor-Leste. The feedback from those consultations has been incorporated into the SDP. Strategic plans for individual sectors across government have also informed the Plan and will be used to guide the plan’s implementation.
Timor-Leste’s SDP is an integrated package of strategic policies to be implemented in the short-term (one to five years), in the medium term (five to ten years) and in the long-term (ten to 20 years). It is aligned with the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, but it is more than a set of targets. It is about setting out a pathway to long-term, sustainable, inclusive development in Timor-Leste.
The plan aims to develop core infrastructure, human resources and to encourage the growth of the private sector in strategic industry sectors – a broad based agriculture sector, a thriving tourism industry and downstream industries in the oil and gas sector.
The SDP sets out what needs to be done to achieve the collective vision of the Timorese people for a peaceful and prosperous nation in 2030. It provides a framework for identifying and assessing priorities and a guide to implementing recommended strategies and actions.
The SDP covers three key areas: social capital, infrastructure development and economic development. The social capital section focuses on the nation’s social capital and on building a healthy and educated society to address the social needs of people and promote human development. The infrastructure section will ensure that the nation has the core and productive infrastructure needed to build a sustainable, growing and connected nation. And the economic development part sets out a plan to achieve a prosperous, modern economy and create jobs for the people. These three different aspects of Timor-Leste’s development will be built on an effective and improved institutional framework.
At the end of the debate the Council Of Ministers approved the Timor-Leste Strategic Development Plan – a document of over 200 pages.