CSI Strategy Light on Detail
The Green Party has welcomed the launch of the consultation on the Cohesion, Sharing and Integration (CSI) strategy but has claimed that it is light on detail. Commenting on the document Green Party spokesperson Steven Agnew, who is Secretary of the All Party Assembly Group for Ethnic Minority Communities stated,
“While I welcome the long overdue launch of the consultation on the Cohesion, Sharing and Integration strategy, I am concerned that it is light on detail. It contains many aspirations as to how different communities will live in greater harmony in the future but fails to map out how we intend to get there. However the consultation gives us the opportunity and to strengthen this document and the Green Party will give careful consideration to how this strategy can be improved.”
The CSI strategy consultation was launched on Tuesday 27th July and is the next stage of a drawn out saga of replacing the Shared Future and Racial Equality Strategies which were introduced by direct rule ministers in 2005. Initially the DUP and Sinn Fein published separate strategies, ironic as this is a strategy which is supposed to promote cohesion. Mr. Agnew believes that the process has undermined the credibility of the strategy. He states;
“The process to get the CSI strategy to this stage has been a fractured one and shows that there is still along way to go in achieving cohesion within the Stormont Executive. What confidence can people have that this strategy will achieve its goals when there has been so much contention in getting the first draft published? We started with two perfectly good strategies. Three years after they were scrapped we now have one strategy that contains lots of visions and little of substance.”