PIOJ Growth-Inducement Strategy - Planning Institute of Jamaica

and exclusion of the majority of the people of the country – the largely rural poor and
urban second class citizenry.
The question is: Does the way the CRP is elaborated in the Strategy reflect this in terms
of how it ‘images’ the residents of the targeted communities and how it frames the nature
of the enterprise being undertaken.
Fundamentally:
Who do we think of when we hear the term “private sector” and what is there in
the strategy that seeks to shift this mind-set or change this paradigm?
The document indicates that what is required for the process of awakening and
recovery from our state of inertia is a systematic approach to designing and
implementing integrated policy solutions aimed to modernize and transform the
economy so as to meet the challenges of operating in a dynamic, competitive
world where the country has lost ground relative to others that it led or equalled
some 50 years ago. Who has lost this ground? Our athletes? cultural
producers? (think music, fashion, food, literature, film, fine art, dance, theatre,
Rastafarians, naturopaths, etc our skilled professionals who are in high demand
elsewhere? our colleges and universities? How central are these to the
conceptualization of the private sector led growth-inducement strategy? What are
the provisions to accelerate their development in the short to medium term? How
would we have to calibrate things (including the CRP) if these were to be the
engine of growth as much as the existing tourism, mining and quarrying,
construction/infrastructural development etc as important as these remain.
The document notes that: In essence, it captures the reality of the present moment
which demands re-orienting our economic policy towards a sharpened focus on
enhancing growth as the necessary basis for realizing sustained improvements in
the social well-being of citizens, consistent with the goals of Vision 2030 Jamaica.
Much of development literature, not the least of which is the 20 th Anniversary
Edition of the HDR 2010 set out clearly that growth is not a sufficient condition
for “sustained improvement in the social well-being of citizens…” Indeed, the
2010 HDR illustrates that political will and commitment to human and social
well-being, reflected in budgeting priorities, result in some low growth countries
having higher HDI than high growth countries. It isn’t an either or proposition,
however, let us be clear that our choices in how we allocate sources are not
neutral.
2.0 The conceptualization of the CRP in the Strategy Document
Para 2.6 Sets out the cost of crime and is the entry point for reference to the CRP,
specifically,
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