Toshaos were yesterday urged to develop plans that they believe would solve the issues their communities currently face.
During the afternoon session of the National Toshaos Conference at the Arthur Chung Conference Center (ACCC), President Irfaan Ali asked Indigenous Leaders in attendance to identify issues that are affecting their community and formulate plans to address them.
“Having reviewed every single thing that you have said so far, I will suggest to you a methodology for us to achieve some results. In this methodology, I want us to spend the rest of this afternoon defining some core issues and come up with some core plans that could come to accelerate your needs and accelerate the implementation of your ideas.”
He asked participants to devise action plans to accelerate projects such as food security and agriculture, women’s affairs, care of pensioners and the elderly, children and youth, human resources, facilities, services, economic activities and empowerment, and infrastructure.
“As leaders, that is what I want us to think about; what is it we want to achieve?”
Cabinet members and their technical teams were asked to work along with Indigenous leaders to formulate those plans for discussion.
Noting the importance of monitoring and evaluating projects in hinterland communities, the President announced that a team would be set up to oversee the implementation of needed projects. According to Ali, the objective is to ensure that indigenous communities have equal developmental opportunities. The NTC is being held this week under the theme “Good Governance and Fast-Tracking Amerindian Development”. It brings together indigenous leaders from over 200 Amerindian communities across the country.
