Cuba keeps up human development programs despite US blockade

The main beneficiaries of these plans are women, the elderly, children and young people, argued the official when participating this Thursday at the 55th session of the United Nations Population and Development Commission.

He assured the island’s development strategy is conceived as a comprehensive process, with an economic and social base, fair, equitable and sustainable.

According to an official note from the diplomatic mission of the Caribbean nation at the UN, Cuba considers the Action Program of the International Conference on Population and Development adopted in Cairo in 1994 to be valid and supports its link with the Objectives proposed in the Agenda 2030.

Last year, in the presentation of its voluntary national report on the fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Cuban government demonstrated how several of the goals and indicators of that global strategy were achieved and others are on the way to being fulfilled.

The damage caused to the Caribbean country by Washington’s economic, commercial and financial blockade for more than 60 years totals around 150.41 billion dollars, the island’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, said this week.

Despite Washington’s unilateral siege, the Caribbean nation has a high human development index mainly due to its advances in health and education, as well as low multidimensional poverty, both aspects endorsed by United Nations agencies.