Release of data from the Survey on Income and Living Conditions - SILK

It gives me great pleasure to take part in today’s conference and presentation of poverty data for Montenegro.

Firstly, I would like to congratulate to Statistical Office of Montenegro, to director Radojevic and her team for aligning processes with the EU requirements in terms of statistics. Introducing the Survey on Income and Living Conditions to Montenegro five years ago hasn’t been easy, as it required new methodological tools and approaches, an investment in capacity building and expanding the partnership network.

In the United Nations we welcome the release of data on income, poverty, living conditions and social exclusion. We also particularly look forward to continuous observation of the poverty phenomenon and ensuring reliable evidence for policy development in order to tackle the problem.

Poverty is, ladies and gentlemen, more than the lack of income and resources to ensure a sustainable livelihood. Its manifestations include hunger and malnutrition, limited access to education and other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion as well as the lack of participation in decision-making. People living in poverty are often neglected and far from the mainstream social safety nets. And what is even more concerning, poverty tends to be inter-generational, often inherited from parents to children. Social exclusion as well. Breaking this inter-generational cycle of poverty is what we all strive for.

We have a shared responsibility to work towards ensuring social stability and reducing poverty in Montenegro – the National Strategy for Sustainable Development contains clear measures which will contribute to the achievement of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

As a reminder, the world has achieved a lot since ‘90s. As a result of Millennium Development Agenda, extreme poverty in the world is cut in half. But the job was not done. And that is why world leaders, backed up by voices and opinions of more than 10 million people that were consulted along the process, adopted the 2030 Agenda – a vision laid in a key principle to “Leave No One Behind”. This ambitious plan aims  to end poverty and hunger in the world, fight climate change, improve education and reach gender parity.

Montenegro translated these goals into its’ national policy framework. Implementation of the Strategy, follow up and reporting on implemented measures and development of indicators to monitor success is where Montenegro needs to put an emphasis. Presentation of SILC data is one of the steps that brings us closer to the Goals.

Figures presented today are important also for policy development purposes. Given the macro-economic outlook for the next two years, fiscal space for further reforms will remain constrained. Therefore, Montenegro cannot afford policy decisions which are not based on evidence. The design of poverty reduction measures, for the benefit of all citizens of this country, should be based on data.

Again, thanks to MONSTAT for the excellent work you did.

Director Radojevic, we are looking forward to more results of the team you lead in ensuring more high-quality and disaggregated data that will further serve for monitoring of the Sustainable Development Strategy and development of high quality policies that make sure that no one is left behind.

Hvala Vam.