PIOJ Growth-Inducement Strategy - Planning Institute of Jamaica

3.0 Current Poverty Reduction Initiatives
3.1 Current poverty programmes in Jamaica span a wide range of interventions, from
construction of community infrastructure such as roads and schools, water and
sanitation projects, rural electrification, and skills building, to cash transfers,
residential care and employment programmes. In addition, there are education,
training and apprenticeship programmes, as well as nutrition support. Altogether,
millions of dollars of resources are now being spent on poverty programmes of
various kinds.
3.2 However, Jamaica will not reap positive and sustainable outcomes, if programmes
remain fragmented and there is inadequate provision for measuring programme
effects. Across Ministries, agencies, and even NGOs (inclusive of donor/lender
facilitated projects), ad hoc, well intentioned initiatives are currently giving rise to
duplication of efforts, wastage of resources, poorly designed projects, and detached
and fragmented programme approaches. This is not due to a dearth of information
and data but to a less than productive use of the available information. There is also
limited accountability for results of these efforts, owing to lack of an institutional
focus, monitoring of impacts, and assessment of outcomes. Best practices require a
more structured approach with proper coordination and monitoring. Such
coordination would support the work of various Ministries and agencies involved in a
wide range of strategic interventions, without negatively affecting the immediate
roles and responsibilities of each agency.
3.3 Vision 2030 Jamaica is now the overarching framework for social policy
interventions going forward. Accordingly, a restructured poverty programme now
needs to be drafted, which builds on the merits of the previous policy and programme
and on best practices gleaned from experience here and elsewhere. As a matter of
immediate relevance, the Community Renewal Programme, currently being
developed and led by the PIOJ, aims to address priority social issues that negatively
affect some 100 vulnerable communities islandwide. This programme could be one
of the major new initiatives operating under the umbrella of a restructured poverty
programme.
4.0 Responsibility Framework
4.1 An appropriate framework would involve assignment of responsibility for coordination
to a single institution, the NPCRU, with well designed mechanisms for
monitoring poverty.
As its charter, this Unit would have policy and programme documents that
embody the tenets of the long-term Development Plan.
The Unit would be able to balance the allocation of available resources between
short term or immediate measures and longer term approaches according to the
relevant plan and policy, in keeping with the medium-term economic and social
framework (MTF) and in line with the GOJ’s budget process. The Unit would
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