Speaking at the 67th General Assembly of the United Nations yesterday, Tuesday 25 September, President Danilo Medina argued for international financial institutions to make changes to the indicators used to measure economic performance and to introduce more effective tools for measuring human development. He said the Dominican Republic is a good example of why concentrating solely on the national per capita income indicators should be changed.

In his remarks at the UN, the Dominican leader said that most agencies in the international financial system prefer to continue using "one-dimensional measurements" centered on monetary income n through the use of various measures of profit or national production expressed in per capita figures, for example n to measure and catalogue the development of developing countries and to define policies on conditions of access to international financial cooperation.

"Our country, the Dominican Republic, according to these kinds of measurements, has been classified in recent years as an upper-middle-income country," he said. "However, more than a third of our citizens continue to live in poverty. So then, how is it that countries like our own are excluded from development assistance?"

He noted that the "optimism" of international poverty measurements does not seem to agree with perceptions by many people around the world, who feel that the growth in gross domestic product has done nothing to lessen their sense of despair, or, in particular, discontent among the young, who are not finding decent jobs.

"This discrepancy between the optimism of various international measurements and the discontent to be found on our streets, can be attributed to the use of inadequate indicators to measure poverty, development and well-being," President Medina said.

He added, "Poverty in a family and in a community is much more than the lack of income compared to a predetermined threshold, just as a country's development is much more than the size of its average income."

The President noted that measuring the development of countries exclusively in terms of national per capita income leads to decisions that have a negative impact on their progress toward development. As an example, he mentioned how when a country is classified according to these criteria, international cooperation contributions are reduced, making it more difficult or more expensive to access multilateral loans.

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, President Danilo Medina Sanchez called on international financial institutions to approach developing country issues with greater understanding, in order to break the "vicious cycle" of poverty and social exclusion, as a basis for development.

"We need to have them employ more enriched indicators that have a greater capacity to capture and measure the complex and dynamic nature of human development," President Medina added in his statement to the Assembly's General Debate. "And this means working together to overcome exclusion, and not to maintain poverty and extreme poverty indefinitely."

In his first appearance at the UN, Medina said that poor nations are affected because the ideas that have predominated in development use measurement tools that suggest a wellbeing "that does not coincide with the perception of many of our citizens who feel that the growth of the Gross Domestic Product does not express their needs and hopes."

Medina said that the economy has to be at the service of the people, not the reverse, and that people and governments have learned, "through often painful experience, that fairness and sustainability constitute essential requisites for ensuring sustained and sustainable economic growth." The reduction of poverty in the country has been one of the principal commitments that Medina has taken on since becoming President.

The President said that "today we know that is it not enough to have economic growth for reducing social differences and for improving the quality of life for the people" and he added that on the contrary, experience shows that improving quality of life and reducing poverty and exclusion can stimulate healthy economic growth.

President Medina is expected to return to the Dominican Republic today, Wednesday 26 September.



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