At a glance: Dominican Republic

The big picture

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This map does not reflect a position by UNICEF on the legal status of any country or territory or the delimitation of any frontiers.

In 2002, the Government conducted a new census as well as a new health survey. During 2001, vitamin A supplementation coverage reached 73.9 per cent for children aged between six and 11 months, 54 per cent for those aged 12 to 24 months, 21 per cent for children aged 12 to 59 months, 66.6 per cent for school-aged children and 22 per cent for postpartum women. Between January and November 2002, occurences of all the vaccine-preventable diseases fell.

For the period January to October 2002, the cumulative number of people living with HIV stood at 13,223 with sexual transmission being the leading cause (75.2 per cent). Blood transmission cases decreased during the year. Based on data from the surveillance system, the prevalence of HIV infection among population at risk is 1.1 to 4.0 per cent of pregnant women, 3.2 to 12.4 per cent of sexual workers and six per cent of patients suffering from sexually transmitted infections. It is estimated that 2.2 per cent of the total population are HIV positive, of which 5,120 are children under five years old. Cumulative AIDS deaths stand at 34,050. The HIV/AIDS epidemic affects mainly adolescents and youth.

The Dominican Republic hosted the Ibero-American meeting of Ministers and High Officers responsible for Children Issues in October 2002.

New windows of opportunities have opened to prioritize the best interest of children in the national planning.

• The Social Cabinet has invited UNICEF to give guidance in the planning of the national Poverty Reduction Strategic Plans with child rights approach.
• The National Institute of Statistics, together with UNICEF is designing a programme to improve the functioning of the Institute in a decentralized manner. Child Info software has already been approved as one of the new tools to visualize statistics. 
• The well-recognized Child Friendly Municipality Initiative (CFMI) is offering an important mechanism for social mobilization. CFMI has also attracted other international cooperation agencies to realign their interventions.

UNICEF priorities

UNICEF‘s work identifies two interlinked and complementary programmes. They will ensure cohesion among all activities and will work to promote the rights of children and adolescents in an integrated manner through all levels of society, linking national policy and legislation for child and adolescent rights to local-level activities, and ensuring sustainability of rights innovations:

• The programme on Support to integrated national policies for child rights, will focus on: strengthening the National System for the Protection of Children and Adolescents through definition of social and economic policies and legislative reform; promoting the 20/20 Initiative at national and local levels; and supporting the process of state reform and modernization in accordance with new government policies, and the design of municipal-level policies. Other actions include establishing information and monitoring systems, research and studies; and social mobilization. 
• The programme on operationalizing integrated national policies at the local level will contribute to strengthening institutions and improving the quality and accessibility of services that guarantee the survival and development of children and youth. It will continue to support the decentralization process to empower local authorities and civil society, in particular children and adolescents, to demand rights and access to justice. It will include actions related to social communication, information and education, while building alliances for rights compliance. Interventions will address reduction of maternal and child mortality, preventive health care, early childhood development, improvement of quality and access to basic education, and eradication of child labour. Eliminating sexual and commercial exploitation of children and youth will require special efforts.