Cabinet has joined the National Crime Control Council in endorsing the work of the Community and Parent Empowerment Programme, COMPAR as a beneficial effort to promote family values. The programme will therefore be strengthened and extended to the districts. COMPAR provides parents and the wider community with the necessary knowledge and skills to enable them to fulfill their responsibility for the care and protection of their children, and to promote their survival and development. In selected districts, COMPAR offers court ordered parenting to parents that have placed their children in risky situations. Cabinet has agreed to the re-deployment of 9 Cuban medical practitioners who currently work in hospitals, to rural villages in the Toledo and Cayo districts. This is in keeping with the policy of the Cuban government that Cuban general practitioners should not be deployed in hospitals, but instead in health centers, preferable in rural areas. Cabinet has also agreed!
to gradually replace 23 Cuban medical practitioners through active recruitment of medically trained personnel from Belize and other countries in the region.

Cabinet has also renewed its commitment to continue supporting financially, the Belize Agricultural Health Authority, BAHA. The establishment and financing of BAHA, was facilitated through a four year IDB Project valued at 3 point 6 million US dollars. At the end of the project period, government was expected to maintain an annual commitment of one point 9 million dollars to BAHA and revenues were projected to be 1 million dollars per year. Government has maintained this commitment, and revenues have exceeded the targeted figure. In the short time BAHA has existed, it has managed to gain international recognition and respect.