Timor-Leste and SDG 9: Blog 2

Timor-Leste is situated in the eastern half of the island of Timor, north of the Timor Sea and Australia. The country is bordered by Indonesia in the west and the Savu Sea in the north. the country occupies 9242 sq. miles, including the islands of Pulau Acrobat and Paula Jaco. The country has a population of 1.2 million people (Timor-Leste, 2020). The largest city is Dili which is also the capital and spoken languages are Tetuma and Portuguese, Indonesian, and English. Timor-Leste is mountainous. The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste gained independence from Indonesia in 2002. The country has struggled to achieve political stability. It has remained East Asia's poorest countries and is heavily dependent on foreign aid (The Heritage Foundation, 2019). 

Fig 1. Wikipedia (n.d.). East Timor, [Image]. Retrieved on Feb 23,2020 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Timor.

Timor-Leste has championed the 2030 Agenda by advocating for the standalone goal of peace, justice, and strong institutions. The country has established its commitment to peace, inclusion, and institution building as the foundation for achieving all the SDGs (United Nations, n.d.). The nation's Strategic Development Plan has three key areas: social capital, infrastructure development, and economic development (Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, n.d.).

Currently, Timor-Leste lacks the necessary infrastructure to support a modern and productive country where its people are connected with each other and the world. The country aims to build an extensive network of quality and well-maintained roads to connect communities and promote rural development, industry, and tourism, ad provide access to markets. There are around 886 miles of national roads, 540 miles of district roads and 1880 miles of rural roads. The national road network consists of two coastal roads along the north and south coasts. They have five roads crossing the country and connecting with the two coastal roads.  Traffic levels are increasing rapidly, resulting in congestion. The traffic volumes are expected to increase as the economy expands. By 2030, Timor-Leste plans on completing the National Ring Road with the capability of taking a full-length container at an average speed of 37 miles/hour and constructing new bridges to provide all-weather access on all national and district road routes. The Strategic Development Plan also comments on the country's plan on providing access to safe drinking water and sanitation systems. Major sewerage collection systems will be built in Dill (the capital of the country) and water systems and community latrines will be installed in rural areas. By 2030, all Timor-Leste citizens will have access to clean water and improved sanitation (the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, n.d.).

Fig. 2. DepositPhotos (n.d.). Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste [Image]. Retrieved on Feb 23,2020 from https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdepositphotos.com%2Fvector-images%2Fdemocratic-republic-of-timor-leste.html&psig=AOvVaw3qiQRJM_0FWvl_XdHP5ngE&ust=1582595639771000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA0QjhxqFwoTCPCegLiK6ecCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAP

Timor-Leste's government realizes that they cannot solely rely on their substantial oil and natural gas reserves for their economy. They encourage private sector activity across all industries, including growth of small and macro businesses. In their process of establishing the country as an upper-middle-income country, they face challenges in the form of current poor infrastructure, shortage of skilled and trained people, and an under-developed private sector. To achieve their economic vision, the country intends on moving away from their agriculture and the public sector towards a growing private sector, mature industries, and an expanding services sector. Since Timor-Leste is predominantly agricultural, they plan on developing the efficiency and productivity of this sector. This is considered as their important first step towards industrialization. The country's private sector expenditure and private sector domestic capital formation will eventually replace government expenditure as the primary driver of economic growth. This change will be facilitated by both the Infrastructure Fund and the Human Capital Development Fund (Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, n.d.).

Timor-Leste's people have a strong relationship with the natural environment. They support sustainability to support their families. The country will take action to manage their natural resources and environment sustainably in the process of achieving their SDG goals by 2030. They continue to recognize that their successful development will depend on the health of their forests, rivers, the sea, and their animal life (Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, n.d.).

 References

Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste. (n.d.). Timor-Leste strategic development plan 2011-2020 [PDF File]. Retrieved from http://timor-leste.gov.tl/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Timor-Leste-Strategic-Plan-2011-20301.pdf.

The Heritage Foundation. (2019). Timor- Leste. Retrieved from https://www.heritage.org/index/country/timorleste

Timor-Leste. (2020). Retrieved from https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/timor_leste.htm.

United Nations. (n.d.). Timor-Leste. Retrieved from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/memberstates/timorleste.