Belize Medium-Term Development Strategy 2022 – 2026.

The Medium-Term Development Strategy is a national policy with a multi-sectoral approach. The timeframe of the Strategy is 5 years covering the period from 2022 to 2026. It outlines six strategic objectives: (i) poverty reduction, (ii) economic transformation and growth, (iii) trade deficit reduction, (iv) citizen security, (v) protection of the environment, and (vi) good governance. The Strategy addresses the need for excellent coordination between the health, economy, industry, and finance sectors, with a focus on innovation, employment, wages, gender equality, and knowledge dissemination.
The Government will empower and support individuals lacking resources and opportunities to overcome poverty by ensuring access to sufficient nutritious food, relevant education, timely healthcare, land ownership, adequate housing, and social protection when self-sufficiency is not possible. Immediate attention and protection will be provided to those neglected, including at-risk youth, dysfunctional families, the Indigenous Peoples, remote communities, and special needs groupings. Poverty reduction programs, projects, and actions include but not limited to: increased investment and economic activity in rural communities; reduction of income and productivity gaps between urban and rural communities; restructuring and growing of the national economy; supporting micro, small and medium enterprises, family farming, women and youth and marketing of products; raising the minimum wage; development of Social Protection Strategy; supporting school meals and gardening programs; providing universal access to primary health care; empowering women to become self-reliant; and improving education system. Rural transformation will be achieved through infrastructure development, affordable and accessible financing, access to cheaper electricity via solar energy, and improvement of essential social services.
Economic growth will be achieved through diversification of all productive sectors. The use of present products, raw materials, waste by-products, and even waste materials will be increased to supply the current demand of the consumer markets. Digitalizing will be strengthened to facilitate business investments and operations by providing easy access to public sector services at minimum cost, bureaucracy, and time. The workforce will be educated through relevant skills development, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
Green and blue industries will be supported to enhance productivity and competitiveness via regulatory reforms and incentives, trade policy and market support, and government investment in the enterprises. The linkages between the industrial sector with the environmental, agricultural, energy, and service support sectors will be strengthened. Agriculture will be diversified through the Blue Economy, new growth industries, and micro, small and medium enterprises for food security and sovereignty, import replacement and substitution, and export. The resilience to the impacts of climate change will be increased through education, preparedness, diversification, and innovative climate-smart systems of land use, for the small producers and farmers in high-risk prone regions of the country. The Climate Resilient and Sustainable Agriculture Project will be implemented to increase food production capacity and the adoption of climate-smart, green agriculture. The access of farmers to credit will be provided for increased production of non-traditional crops such as vegetables, crops, livestock, and fruit trees. Duty exemptions will be granted on priority packaging and labelling equipment, climate smart technologies, and basic agro-processing equipment to ensure local producers can produce competitively and adopt new technologies necessary to decrease risk in agriculture production.
Education, awareness and capacities will be improved at national and local levels to prevent and mitigate effects of climate change and natural disasters, and build resilience in the productive, commercial and residential sectors of the country. Measures will be undertaken to properly regulate and preserve water resources, and to offer greater protection to forest reserves and watershed areas for the conservation of vital natural resources. Climate-smart alternatives and natural resource conservation will be implemented for different ecosystems of high importance for Belize. Sustainable management and use of Meso-American Reef System, coastal and marine resources will be ensured for the sustainable development of Belize. Support will be provided for monitoring and training of fishers, reef-users, coastal and rural communities on good fishing practices, marine resource conservation, sustainable reef management, and safe garbage disposal. Forestry protection measures will be taken to preserve forest ecosystems, halt land degradation and biodiversity loss, suppress forest fires and to mitigate the negative effects on wildlife, forest resources and rural communities. Environmental governance will be strengthened to support socio-economic growth and resilience. A robust air quality monitoring program will be established countrywide with a focus on areas of agriculture, industry and tourism. Solid waste management practices will be improved, and waste to energy programs will be promoted. Public awareness will be raised on waste separation at the source to include recycling of paper, plastics, metals, compostable materials.
The Strategy highlights several strategic initiatives, such as: modernizing the public financial management systems, public services and human resource management, strengthening democracy, building institutional capacity, and strengthening good governance. The eighteen ministries will be involved in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Strategy. They will work closely with national and district development organizations, the private sector, civil society organizations, academia, and bilateral, regional, and international development partners. Each ministry will produce an annual technical report with the progress achieved, results and outcomes, and lessons learned for each program.