Turks and Caicos

The Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) is a self-governing British Overseas Territory (OT) in the western Caribbean Sea located southeast of the Bahamas.

The Multi-Country Resident Coordinator's Office for Jamaica, The Bahamas, Bermuda, The Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands, is located in Jamaica and works under the leadership of one United Nations Resident Coordinator, together with UN teams and partners, to advance sustainable development and cooperation in the Caribbean. 

The UN System is poised to deliver results for the TCI through its pending formalized agreement to the joint framework called the UN Multi-Country Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UN MSDCF) in the Caribbean.

The Turks and Caicos Islands is a territory that has a small, but rapidly growing population, and faces the threat of climate change and limited data availability to support evidence-based policymaking. While the territory is an upper-middle-income economy, it faces particular challenges with respect to capacities and could thus substantially benefit from technical cooperation efforts involving international development partners.

The economy of the Turks and Caicos Islands suffered largely from the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is on course to make a substantial comeback, with tourism recovering and the territory on course to recover most of what was lost in a short period. Prudent fiscal policy in the past contributed to the ability to be incorporate the fiscal shocks associated with the pandemic as well. With data being a general challenge in many of the OTs, it is a big welcome to see the publication of a MICS survey in the Turks and Caicos Islands, which helps to shed light on women and children in the territory. It shows that there are major challenges with respect to the exposure to violence of children, especially and this should be an area of attention for the United Nations as well.

Currently, Turks and Caicos Islands receives some technical support through The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UN Women and the regional specialized agency for health - Pan American Health Organization/ World Health Organization regional office in the Americas.

The United Nations Country Team, led by the multi-country Resident Coordinators Office in Jamaica is poised to coordinate the expansion of a service offering best suited to the needs and priorities of the TCI, as well as leverage the convening and mobilizing power of the UN system to support the advancement of the SDGs and TCI's national strategic goals.

Reference: United Nations Resident Coordinator's Office (2021, 2020). Common Country Analysis: Turks & Caicos Islands. In Draft.