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Youth-at-Risk, Development and Trade are priorities for Jamaica and the World Bank
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June 17, 2009― Well targeted youth-at-risk programs and ‘Aid for Trade’ may cushion the counter-cyclical effects of the financial crisis and provide twin opportunities to spur Jamaican economic development. These were key themes that emerged from the May 2009 three-day visit of Pamela Cox, World Bank Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean to the Caribbean’s second largest economy.
 Cox assessed the progress of several projects, including one which aims to reduce crime and violence in urban and peri-urban areas. She also participated in regional conferences during her mission to Jamaica.
“This project has brought peace to our community,” said Sharodian Johnson, a local resident of Flankers, a poor inner city neighborhood steps away from the tourist-filled Montego Bay airport.
“Insecurity was high but with the World Bank project, now we have water, the road is fixed, and our kids can play outside. Things have improved; and life is much better,” Johnson explained to Pamela Cox, the World Bank Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean, during her trip.
A three-day visit to Jamaica provided Cox with an opportunity to talk to Sharodian and other Jamaican beneficiaries of three World Bank funded projects. In addition, Cox participated in two important regional conferences on trade and youth, and met with senior government officials, private sector and civil society representatives, donors and other stakeholders.
“Meeting Prime Minister Golding, Finance Minister Shaw, and other authorities, project beneficiaries and other Jamaican key stakeholders was extremely constructive. They gave me positive feedback on how Bank funded projects are helping the country and improving their lives,” Cox said. “During this mission, I witnessed first-hand the positive effects of Bank projects in several communities, and listened carefully about Jamaica’s concerns to overcome its challenges, particularly those resulting from the current global economic crisis,” she added .
Work in action
Flankers is a poor neighborhood in Montego Bay, which is supported by the Jamaica Inner City Basic Services Project , implemented by the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF). Cox visited this community to assess the progress of the project, which supports an integrated crime prevention and development approach in 12 inner city communities. An integral part of the project strategy links physical and infrastructure improvements to improved public safety conditions.
Crime and violence prevention services and infrastructure projects are helping to transform both physical environment and people’s aspiration to live in a violence free-environment.
A number of the services for at-risk youth provided by the project include homework support and remedial classes, conflict resolution programs, mentoring and job training in masonry from residents working on infrastructure projects. The project also supports families seeking civil registration documents, such as birth certificates and tax registration numbers, and after school educational programs for boys and girls. Other services seek to provide “life coping skills,” foster personal development, and increase participants’ knowledge of sexual and reproductive health.
Project Impacts: rehabilitation of key infrastructure and social safety net programs
 Cox was joined on mission by Scarlette Gillings, managing director of the JSIF; Yvonne Tsikata, World Bank Director for the Caribbean; and Badrul Haque, the Special Representative for Jamaica. Together, they also observed two other Bank projects under implementation in the country.
The Emergency Recovery Loan supports rehabilitation of damaged infrastructure resulting from devastation caused by Hurricane Dean in August 2007. The group visited three sites along the south coast of Jamaica to assess progress in post-hurricane rehabilitation of a public health clinic, a large primary school and an important rural road.
The Social Safety Net Project, funded with a second US$40 million loan, supports the Program of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH), Jamaica’s flagship conditional cash transfer program that served nearly 300,000 beneficiaries in 2008. The project seeks to broaden and deepen program, including creating new incentives for students to complete secondary school and targeting the whole family with early education and healthcare services for very young children, pre-natal care services, job training and placement for adults.
The May Pen Health Center, located in the parish of Clarendon, provides PATH beneficiaries and other residents with basic medical care, including dental, curative, maternal and child health services. Staff includes five doctors, one dentist, three nurses and one mid-wife, who serve more than 2,000 patients per week.
The center, located in the path of seasonal hurricanes, was damaged by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and Hurricane Dean in 2007. The center was repaired and expanded in 2008 with funds from the World Bank’s Emergency Recovery Loan (ERL).
ERL funds also repaired the Bryce Primary School, a 19 th century structure also damaged by Hurricane Dean.
The World Bank delegation, along with Jamaican Finance Minister Audley Shaw, later visited the Ticky Ticky Road, a rural road severely damaged by Hurricane Dean. The road connects residents with roads leading to other communities in the Manchester parish. The project, completed in February 2009, reconstructed 2.52 km of roadway, adding new drainage features and retaining walls. A resident proudly proclaimed that whereas until recently they could not get taxis to come up the road to pick them or their children, now the road has become a “highway”, providing all the conveniences to the community.
Conference themes on youth and trade complement project visits
 In Montego Bay, Cox, along with Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding, opened the Regional Conference on Keeping Boys Out-of-Risk, a joint effort spearheaded by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the World Bank.
The Conference provided an opportunity for Caribbean authorities, civil society representatives, donors and academics among others to discuss complex issues such as the emerging problem of at-risk boys and the interrelated regional development challenges of crime and violence, the so-called male marginalization, access to the labor market and poverty alleviation.
Conference participants agreed that the challenge now remains to build upon the first steps identified through the Common Platform for Action, strengthen and improve existing promising activities and identify new initiatives and potential collaboration between countries to create more equal societies where youth are less inclined towards risky behavior.
Just one day apart, at the Second Regional Review Conference on Aid for Trade for Latin America and the Caribbean, organized by the World Trade Organization and the Inter-American Development Bank, Cox reiterated the World Banks’ commitment to Aid for Trade.
“The World Bank launched a comprehensive trade strategy to further increase our Aid for Trade work in the entire Latin America and the Caribbean region,” Cox said in her opening remarks. “ The regional trade strategy supports country programs on trade and competitiveness, trade-related infrastructure, trade finance, trade facilitation, training and capacity building, as well as knowledge, innovation and research. ” Cox added.
World Bank Program
Jamaica’s active portfolio with the World Bank supports the government’s efforts to accelerate inclusive economic growth, improve human development and opportunity; and aims to prevent and reduce crime rates. Five investment projects are currently being funding in Jamaica by the Bank for a total of US$120 million, in additional to a $100 million DPL approved in early 2009 and a number of trust fund grants mostly on crime prevention and disaster risk reduction efforts. Three more lending and one DPL is under preparation for FY10.
The Bank will continue to support the country and its people to fight poverty and enjoy equal opportunities under a new Country Partnership Strategy being prepared. Since the 1960s, the Bank has provided Jamaica $1.9 billion to fund more than 80 projects as well as technical assistance including country-specific and regional analytical studies.
See all Bank projects here. |
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