The Coalition Government will work towards ensuring there is a stronger collaboration between the United Nations and the Government, including the Opposition of Fiji.
This was highlighted by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Biman Prasad during a courtesy meeting with the UNDP Resident Representative, Munkhtuya Altangerel in Suva yesterday.
DPM Prasad said that Fiji’s experience for the past 16 years was filled with a lot of challenges where freedom was taken away and democracy was crushed.
“Later on, when we had elections, sometimes the UN was seen as a bystander, as an organisation that did not pay enough attention, apart from the Parliamentary support and the training of MPs, other than that it wasn’t as involved as we would have liked.”
“As a new Government we want to ensure that we bring back that freedom, the processes of consultations and dialogues, and we want the UN to involve the Opposition – to bring Government and Opposition together,” DPM Prasad said.
Munkhtuya affirmed that the UN will continue to work with Fiji in its areas of interest. She shared that the UNDP offices are now gearing towards working in a different way with interesting and innovative programs in place to bring new economic impacts in terms of economic diversification to the country.
