Curaçao & Sint Maarten - UNDP Trinidad and Tobago

Target 7.3 Improvement in the lives of persons living in poor communities
There are no large slum areas on the islands of Curaçao and Sint Maarten, though there are smaller areas on the
islands of Curaçao and Sint Maarten with a relatively high percentage of inadequate housing. The highest percentage
of poor housing was registered during the census of 2001 in Sint Maarten. In that year, 90% of the occupied and
unoccupied houses in Curaçao were found adequate and for Sint Maarten this was 83%.
Table 7.5: Living accommodations by quality, in Curaçao and Sint Maarten in 2001
Curaçao Sint Maarten
Quality of the accommodation occupied unoccupied occupied unoccupied
Adequate 40348 3935 9905 680
Inadequate 1853 850 1314 168
Very inadequate 457 710 272 94
Source: CBS, National Census 2001
Unknown 503 389 236 95
Total 43161 5884 11727 1037
Target 7.4 Awareness of economic, social and environmental threats
for at least 5 years
Curaçao and Sint Maarten have nature conservation legislation which is consistent with CITES and the SPAW
protocol. Although Curaçao and Sint Maarten have a nature policy, they do not have a nature conservation plan
and the implementation, the responsibility of the local governments, has been poor. The former Netherlands
Antilles government required each island to have a nature conservation plan but there was no compliance with
this requirement. As indicated from the report ‘Review Status of Implementation of the Convention on Biodiversity
of Dutch Caribbean’ in July 2010, Curaçao and Sint Maarten now have to draft their own nature conservation and
zoning legislation and will be responsible for the implementation, monitoring and reporting.
Natural disasters exert an enormous toll on development. In doing so, they pose a significant threat to prospects
for alleviating poverty by 2015. Globally, annual economic losses associated with such disasters averaged US$75.5
billion in the 1960s, US$138.4 billion in the 1970s, US$213.9 billion in the 1980s and US$659.9 billion in the 1990s.
Although the majority of these losses have been concentrated in the developing world, they have failed to adequately
capture the impact of the disaster on the poor who often bear the greatest cost in terms of lives and livelihoods, and
rebuilding their shattered communities and infrastructure. While 85 per cent of the people exposed to earthquakes,
tropical cyclones, floods and droughts live in countries having either medium to low human development, recent
experience in Curacao and Sint Maarten show that SIDS is also vulnerable to these impacts.
The Fourth Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction that was held in Incheon (Republic of
Korea) in October 2010 linked disaster risk reduction to the need for green growth. Green growth is indeed also
gradually getting on the agenda in Curacao. The Ministry of General Affairs and Planning and Services are leading
on the preparations for a national governing program which will include components to address on sustainable
development issues in (poverty alleviation, progress on MDGs, increased forest cover; climate change effects; Green
House Gas emissions) etc,. Such programming should use new, modified sustainable development indicators to
inform analysis and policy development, with special focus on climate change relevant aspects. Assessment of cost
and benefits of alternative energy sources, and on the implications of climate change for large scale infrastructure
development will also be necessary.
First National Report | Curaçao and Sint Maarten Millennium Development Goals | 2011 Report
97