Dili, 3 April 2000
The SRSG Sergio Vieira de Mello, the representative of World Bank, Sarah Cliffe, and the representative of United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Finn Reske-Nielsen, signed on Saturday a grant agreement of US$499.000 for a community employment generation project, in the presence of Avelino Coelho from the NCC.
This project will benefit 600 people of the poorest communities of Dili.
The project will concentrate on the cleaning up of rubble and debris from the streets of the city.
It will assist in the promotion of the living standard, inject wage payment, provide jobs for short-term period, and improve the public health assistance through environmental enhancement.
A Committee consisting of representatives of World Bank, UNDP, UNTAET and CNRT will meet regularly to monitor, review and advise on implementation.
Agriculture
On Friday, a workshop on agriculture in East Timor was held in organization of an East Timorese association of agriculturists. The meeting gathered Timorese experts on agriculture, representatives of farming communities from all 13 districts, representatives of UNTAET, World Bank, FAO, international and national NGOs and UN agencies.
It was agreed that all efforts to rehabilitate East Timor agriculture sector should be done in close coordination of all those concerned. The views of the Timorese experts are going to be taken into consideration with any UNTAET development initiatives. There are some 400 members of the Timorese association of agriculturists, with some 100 of them highly specialized in food production, forestry, fisheries and animal husbandry.
Some 75% of East Timor s labor force was employed in agriculture prior to popular consultation, and subsistence farming was the economic basis for a majority of East Timorese. Food production amounted to 20% of the GDP of the territory, with livestock, forestry and fisheries falling far behind and making a marginal share of the country s income.
Agriculture is identified as one of the development priorities for UNTAET and assessments of the current state of affairs in this area are being undertaken by UNTAET and FAO experts.
An update on the number of CivPol in the country.
As of today, there are 1052 CivPol officers deployed across East Timor. This number came after the last week s arrival of 20 Kenyan, 52 Nigerian and 10 officers from Zimbabwe. The number will further increase with this week s expected arrival of 33 officers from Malaysia, 29 from Thailand, 12 from Portugal and 2 from Slovenia. At the end of this week the total number should clime to 1128.
