United Nations and Dominican government launch economic program
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Progresando con Solidaridad (Prosoli) launched the program “Supérate Social Innovation Accelerator”, with the purpose of mitigating the socioeconomic decline, as well as the health and economic crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The presentation of this new social platform was led by Inka Mattila, representative of UNDP, and Gloria Reyes, general director of Prosoli. The Supérate Social Innovation Accelerator aims to protect vulnerable families, creating the foundations for sustainable social stability, through education, training, and constant monitoring.
Likewise, this program seeks the elimination of social inequality, better access to health, technology, decent housing, among other goals.
Gloria Reyes, director of Prosoli, expressed that the Supérate Social Innovation Accelerator arises from the need to guarantee compliance or progress at the country level of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), as well as the intention of the current government to provide a solution to the main challenges and social problems.
The official added that women were the segment hardest hit during the crisis; 45% of employed women work in informality with the lack of protection that this implies in terms of social security.
She added that Prosoli, as the operating entity of public policies, provides services directly to 1.3 million families, which translates into more than 4 million Dominicans. “We aspire to reach more people through the interventions that will be generated from the Accelerator because they will be designed considering the characteristics of each population,” said Reyes.
Meanwhile, Inka Mattila, representative of UNDP, indicated that “social protection systems have been essential for the protection of people during this COVID-19 crisis and its socio-economic impacts, which have especially hit people in the most vulnerable conditions. Therefore, it is essential to explore social protection solutions from an innovative approach that covers the most vulnerable with a vision of inclusion, resilience, and adding all the possible actors in this exploration, including the other agencies of the United Nations System”.
The project is part of the National Development Strategy in the second strategic axis where the construction of a society with equal rights and opportunities are highlighted, in which the entire population is guaranteed education, health, decent housing, and quality basic services.
This project impacts problems, with the development of comprehensive social initiatives, where the public and private sectors and Civil Society promote programs and meet demands that allow guaranteeing what is established in Article 61 of the Dominican Constitution, which reads “Everyone has the right to an integral Health”.
Purpose of the Supérate Social Innovation Accelerator
Supérate seeks to guarantee the solution of the main challenges and social problems of the Dominican Republic, through the implementation of innovative solutions, through the vehicle of acceleration or incubator of social projects.
Present at the activity were: Miguel Ceara Hatton, Minister of Economy, Planning and Development; José Ramón Holguín Brito, Vice Minister of Government Monitoring and Coordination; Sigmund Freund, Executive Director of Public-Private Partnerships; Makiuchi Hiroyuki, Plenipotentiary Ambassador Extraordinary of Japan; Jefrey Lizard, director of the Unified System of Beneficiaries (Siuben) and directors and collaborators of Prosoli.