New York, 5 April, 2017; Permanent Representative of the Maldives to the United Nations, His Excellency Mr. Ahmed Sareer underscored the importance of designing policies that improves and meet the needs of all groups in society. The Ambassador further stressed that such policies are critical to the realisation of greater socio-economic development. The Ambassador made these remarks while speaking at the General Debate of the 50th Session of the Commission on Population and Development, the United Nations main advisory body on issues related to population and development.

While reflecting on the demographic dynamics of the Maldives, Ambassador Sareer noted that with nearly forty-eight percent of it's population under the age of twenty-five, the Government of Maldives gives particular attention to mainstreaming the youth agenda into the broader development agenda through concrete initiatives and consistent policy measures. Towards this end, the Government has ensured that free public education is provided for both the entirety of the secondary level as well as pre-school, building upon the countries previous success in realizing universal primary education. As a practical extension of these policies, several thousand jobs have been created in the Maldives in recent year. Last year, the Government has also initiated a special lending scheme for small and medium enterprises, under which 40% of loans are specifically reserved for youth and women.

The Maldives' advances in maternal and reproductive health were also highlighted, particularly its achievement of a 90 percent reduction in maternal mortality between 1990 and 2005, which stands as the greatest such fall worldwide during that time period. It was furthermore noted that in the Maldives life expectancy rose ten years to an average of 74 over the same period.