Timor-Leste Millennium Development Goals Report 2014
FOREWORD

Timor-Leste emerged from the ashes of conflict to become Southeast Asia’s youngest nation in 2002. Liberation came after decades of occupation and struggle. And our nation became independent under extremely challenging circumstances with low levels of formal education, weak state institutions and poor infrastructure.

Independence brought renewed hope and democracy. But periods of violence and instability between 2006 and 2008 hampered our economic and social development. This bitter experience taught us that peace must precede development and that it is naive to expect any country to develop without first establishing security.

We learnt that while the MDGs are worthy goals, they cannot be achieved by nations that are riddled with conflict and insecurity. The shortcomings of the MDGs led to a new voice being heard on the international stage. A voice that will endeavour to ensure that the harsh realities of development in fragile and post conflict societies inform the post 2015 development agenda so that next time no-one is left behind. The g7+ is that voice. It is a group of fragile countries that stand together to advocate reform in international development policies. A group of countries which know from their own histories and the experience of their peoples, that it is not possible to eradicate poverty without first achieving peace and stability.

Timor-Leste’s focus in the years immediately after the instability was therefore to cement peace by building a just and secure society, effective Government institutions and strong economic foundations. Much progress has been made in all these areas and today Timor-Leste can boast of being a safe and secure country. Children feel safe enough to travel to school and families feel safe to go out after dark. And during the last elections, the people felt secure enough to come out to vote in huge numbers to choose their president and parliamentarians through a process that was peaceful, free and fair.

It was therefore in a new environment of hope, confidence and security that the Timor- Leste Strategic Development Plan was published. This document reiterates our pledge to achieve the MDGs, and outlines policies to transform Timor-Leste into an upper-middle income country with a healthy and educated population by 2030.

The policies outlined in the Strategic Development Plan have contributed to the achievement of some and significant improvement in many of the MDG indicators. Infant and under-five mortality, for example, have declined by approximately 50% since 2001. This shows remarkable progress in improving child health and means that Timor-Leste has achieved its ambitious targets for these indicators. We have also already achieved the targets for the proportion of seats held by women in parliament and TB cases detected and cured. For indicators such as reducing malnutrition, primary school enrolment, the proportion of the population with access to a clean water source and coverage of antenatal care there have been noteworthy improvements but the ambitious targets have not yet been met.

We are proud of this progress, but recognize that more needs to be done, especially in reducing malnutrition and improving health and education.

Malnutrition has fallen but it is still too high. In order to drive further improvements the Government recently developed a new national plan to eradicate hunger and malnutrition which will tackle these problems through policies to improve agricultural productivity and people’s diets. The Government also recently launched the first national plan for the Zero Hunger Challenge in the Asia Pacific region and is strongly committed to eradicating hunger and malnutrition.

We also recognize the need to further improve education. Key policies include the development of a new curriculum and improving teacher training, which should significantly improve the quality of education.

We are also doing much to improve access to health services in Timor-Leste. One important program is to place a doctor, nurse, midwife and lab technician in each suco (village). This will increase house visits, and improve rates of immunization and provision of nutritional supplements.

I would like to conclude by reiterating that while Timor-Leste has made remarkable progress in achieving peace and stability, much work remains to be done to further improve the living standards of our people as measured by the MDGs. I would also like to thank development partners, civil society, the church and all other stakeholders for their hard and serious work helping us to progress towards the achievement of the MDGs.

Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão
Prime Minister
Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste