The publication of the report comes six years after the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles on 10 October 2010 (‘10-10-10’). Since then, the former ‘Island territory’ of Curaçao enjoys the status of an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. By becoming a new country, Curaçao was provided with the opportunity to conceive a new constitution and embarked in a series of legal reforms. It is expected that this report, which is the result of a year-long study, will help guide legal reform and the definition of policies affecting the media sector in view of enhancing the media’s contribution to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in Curaçao.

Curaçao is the first country in the Caribbean to utilize UNESCO’s Media Development Indicators (MDIs) to assess its media landscape. Curaçao’s media landscape is vibrant one, with no less than 28 licensed radio stations, eight newspapers and three television stations for the island's population of just over 150,000 inhabitants. The publication of the report comes six years after the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles on 10 October 2010 (‘10-10-10’). Since then, the former ‘Island territory’ of Curaçao enjoys the status of an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. By becoming a new country, Curaçao was provided with the opportunity to conceive a new constitution and embarked in a series of legal reforms. It is expected that this report, which is the result of a year-long study, will help guide legal reform and the definition of policies affecting the media sector in view of enhancing the media’s contribution to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in Curaçao.

The MDI assessment process in Curaçao was nationally-driven and, as little data on media development was available, it involved wide-ranging consultations with key media stakeholders in addition to desk-based research. ‎The consultations included 28 in-depth interviews throughout Curaçao, four focus groups with media workers and members of the public, and three opinion polls respectively targeting 54 media workers, 11 media managers and a representative sample of 708 inhabitants of Curaçao. Careful attention was given to including perspectives from all areas and to ensuring a gender-sensitive approach.