Improving the Quality of Life for Generations of People in Timor-Leste
Highlights
- Living standards in Timor-Leste need to be improved
- Abt is helping improve health, education, and other services
- After year one, organization is improved and efforts more coherent
Timor-Leste, which has one of the highest birth rates in the world, has difficulty providing equitable access to health care, sanitation, education and nutrition. These and other reasons are why almost half of the measureable Millennium Development Goals are off track here.
The Australian government and Timor-Leste are working together – through the Partnership for Human Development (PHD) – to reduce poverty, improve equality, and expand well-being for coming generations of Timorese people. Abt Global provides practical implementation support to PHD, by:
- Helping the Timor-Leste Ministry of Health improve maternal and child health access across the country and providing on-the-job training and supporting national doctors and midwives; and
- Working with the Timor-Leste Ministry of Education to roll out e-learning to school leaders, provide mobile library services, bring national Timorese and international mentors to work alongside school leaders, and train teachers in using mother tongue language in teaching.
PHD’s first year focused on transitioning existing disparate activities and driving coherence. The project consolidated standalone investments under one program to maximize the impact, efficiency and effectiveness of these investments. PHD also increased collaboration between the governments of Australia and Timor-Leste at both the national and municipal level. These and other activities are helping the government of Timor-Leste build and sustain healthy, educated, and prosperous individuals and communities, able to live with dignity and determine their own future.