Participants at last week's two-day multi-stakeholder United Nations' Millennium Development Goals workshop have offered to monitor in a holistic manner the progress of the country's final report.

This is expected to be done by the national Millennium Development Goals committee regrouping representatives of the National Assembly, non-government organisations (NGOs) and ministries.

For two days at the Seychelles Institute of Management (SIM), Ma Joie, senior officials from different work places discussed frankly about the first Millennium Development Goals report prepared by Seychellois consultant Marie-Pierre Lloyd.

A delegation of experts from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), headed by Rose Gakuba, guided the participants during the meeting.

Mrs Gakuba described the discussions as "qualitative and interesting" and added that "the participants had gone beyond what was expected of them."

She also noted that even though the Seychelles' report covers a 10-year period (1990 to 2000 inclusive), changes taking place since 2001 should not be ignored.

The workshop, convened by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had for objective the validating of the Millennium Development Goals report.

The delegates worked in groups before presenting their findings. Most groups agreed that more figures should be added to make the report a more qualitative and in-depth study.

After the report about Seychelles' progress in meeting the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals has been updated with the new findings, it is to be circulated to ministries involved before the final draft is presented to the Cabinet of Ministers for approval.

It is worth noting that the Millennium Development Goals were unanimously adopted by the 191 nations represented at the September 2000 United Nations General Assembly held under the theme "The role of the United Nations in the 21st Century".

It has eight development targets which all of the states present pledged to achieve.

They are: the eradication of poverty and hunger; the achievement of universal primary education; the promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women; the reduction of child mortality; the improvement of maternal health; the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; the safeguarding of environmental sustainability; and the development of a global partnership for development.

The aim of the development goals is to reach the numerical target set for each criteria by the year 2015.

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