United Nations Development Programme Jamaica

Overview

Jamaica has made notable progress in poverty reduction and is ranked as an upper middle-income country. However, recent global crises - food, fuel and financial - threaten to reverse the process of poverty reduction and exacerbate Jamaica's economic difficulties. Despite its status as a middle-income country, there are more than 1 in 6 Jamaicans- overwhelmingly rural dwellers and women, who remain poor. Decline in the rate of poverty has been slowest in the Rural Areas, which in 2009 had the highest prevalence of poverty of 22.5 %, compared to 12.8 % in the Kingston Metropolitan Area and 10.2 % in Other Towns. The limited national capacity in fiscal management and debt management is a continuous critical challenge. UNDP, and other key International partners assisted the the government to implement a debt exchange programme in 2010. Although successful, there continues to be limited fiscal space in the national budget  affecting public services particularly those impacting on the poor and vulnerable.

Poverty is multi-dimensional and multi-sectoral in both its causes and its impact and consequently, its reduction requires solutions that are themselves multi-dimensional and multi-sectoral. It also requires increased coordination amongst donors, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) and the government in order to ensure efficiency of effort and the achievement and sustainability of results. If positive results are to be sustained, interventions must be inclusive and participatory; allowing for all stakeholders especially the targeted beneficiaries, to have a sense of ownership.

There is consensus that Jamaica's achievement of the MDGs and other targets under its National Development Plan  (Vision 2030), is more likely in an environment where there is  growth (in both national and personal income), and where the necessary  improvement in fiscal space has occurred. Achieving these conditions is central to  the proper functioning of social protection systems and other social services. As well, an improved national statistical system, would strengthen data gathering, population targeting and intervention design, as well as monitoring and evaluation of interventions.

It is against this background that the Poverty Reduction Programme of the UNDP seeks to impact the process of human development in order to enhance the economic, social and environmental conditions of those in poverty and improve their general well-being.

In the 2007-2011 programming cycle, UNDP assisted the Government of Jamaica to strengthen its legislative and administrative support for macro-economic management particularly in the area of debt management, including helping to facilitate the Jamaica Debt Exchange (JDX) through the provision of a technical advisor to the Minister of Finance. UNDP also made significant contributions to the development of a national statistical system and the development of indicators and targets for the National Development Plan (Vision 2030). Perhaps most significantly, UNDP is implementing the Rural Youth Employment Project which has already attracted significant interest and recorded almost immediate positive successes due to its inclusive, integrated and holistic approach.

Our Goals

UNDP is committed to:

1. Creating a stronger population identification and Monitoring & Evaluation framework so that we and other partners are better able to identify the target populations, where they are, what their needs are, what impacts their lives, how best to assist them and the success of interventions
2. Identifying and assisting  the government in designing solutions to issues constraining the social protection systems and the provision of adequate social services
3. Leveraging the latent potential of the agricultural sector as an engine of growth for both national income and employment/poverty reduction, particularly in rural areas
4. Looking at constraints on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Sectors (MSME) including macro-economic and fiscal issues (particularly along the agricultural/agro-processing values chain)seek to leverage our involvement to look at