Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez on Saturday celebrated the international and United Nations interest in his country’s development, despite the unprecedented intensification of the U.S. blockade.
Bruno Rodríguez, on social media, highlighted the approval of the Country Program for the island by the Executive Board of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), by a large majority of its member states, in favor of continuing cooperation with the Caribbean nation.
In the post, the head of Cuban diplomacy said that this “demonstrates the willingness of the international community and the United Nations system to continue cooperating with our country on development projects,” and moreover, it occurs “despite the unprecedented intensification of the US blockade,” he emphasized.
The approval came with the sole dissenting vote from the United States, “evidence of its isolationist policy and its clear interest in limiting our development and stifling our economy and our people,” the Cuban Foreign Minister remarked.
The new Country Program for Cuba will guide the agency’s cooperation work until 2030, according to a Facebook post by the United Nations agency.
The document mentions, among its thematic areas, Economic Recovery and Productive Transformation, Environmental Management and Disaster Risk Reduction, Social and Protection Programs and Services, as well as Institutional Strengthening and Modernization of Public Administration.
This week, Cuba’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, Ernesto Soberón, during the First Ordinary Session of the Executive Board, reaffirmed his country’s commitment to sustainable development, based on a social model that includes universal coverage and free access to social services, and underscored the role of the UNDP as a key partner for more than five decades in preserving these achievements.
Ernesto Soberón denounced that these objectives are seriously affected by the conditions of a Small Island Developing State and, drastically, by the blockade imposed by the United States Government for 64 years, recently intensified with new measures to hinder the supply of fuel.
[ SOURCE: PRENSA LATINA ]
