Letter of the Day | Structural barriers, lack of political will hindering governance and development

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Recently, the United Nations Common Country Analysis Report has commended Jamaica for its efforts to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Despite this achievement of human development across indicators, such as life expectancy, education, health and standards of living according to UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI), Jamaica continues to grapple with structural barriers and a lack of political will that impede strong political, economic, social and environmental governance and development.

The structural barriers refer to the national, regional and global factors that constrain policy choices and outcomes while the lack of political will refers to the constraints on the courage and sustained resilience to pursue innovative thinking and approaches to support accelerated transformation. It must be noted that good governance and development is not simply limited to the formulation and implementation of policies aimed at managing our country, but also encompass other crucial elements, such as multi-level participatory structures to facilitate inclusive decision-making, policies aimed at promoting social justice and human dignity for all, especially the poor, most vulnerable and disenfranchised groups, enhancing living conditions and promotion of climate-change adaptation and mitigation strategies towards environmental sustainability.

Jamaica has been highlighted for its vibrant, parliamentary democracy, yet, there have been alarming concerns about declining citizens’ trust in political institutions- including political parties and public officials. The 2023 Latin American Public Opinion Project data have illustrated that there has been a significant decrease in public support for democracy and citizens’ trust in Jamaica over the past two decades from 79 per cent in 2006 to 53 per cent in 2023.

The significant decreases can be attributed to a lack of inclusive growth and high corruption perception and actual corrupt activities by public officials, such as illicit activity scandals, and results from investigative reports pertaining to unexplained accumulation of wealth and delayed or failure to declare income or assets among public officials to anticorruption government bodies such as the Integrity Commission. The most worrying of actual corrupt activity was brought forward in a citizen campaign established by Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal where more than trillions of dollars were allocated to public bodies over the last 10 years is outstanding to the auditor general.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT HIGHLY INEQUITABLE

Although we should be lauded for our policy advocacy to recognise indicators of development beyond gross domestic product per capita through the launch of the Inclusive Growth Index in 2024, the benefits of economic development remain highly inequitable in our country. This is evident in recent Survey of Living Conditions conducted by the Planning Institute of Jamaica which show that the prevalence of poverty and inequality has increased during and after the COVID-19 pandemic contexts and has disproportionately affected female-headed households compared to male-headed households in rural areas.

This can be attributed to the global and local sustained increases in consumer prices that have eroded real wages, especially among low-income households. Additionally, majority of jobs that are provided in Jamaica are not enough to significantly lift households out of poverty. Therefore, greater policy coherence and integration are required to encourage creativity with respect to the incorporation of equity in our social protection strategy and programme to foster long overdue social and inclusive economic changes in Jamaica.

Finally, it must be emphasised that the challenges of price surges, transnational socio-economic uncertainties and widening disparities have worsened the implications of natural disasters. When these disasters hit, existing inequalities are amplified and the poor and most vulnerable are further pushed into poverty and life-threatening circumstances. Data from the United Nations Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR’s) Global Assessment Report indicates that between 1970 and 2019, 91 per cent of life- threatening circumstances, health hazards and other socio-economic ills were caused by weather and climate-change impacts.

With political will, sustainable leadership and inclusive governance can be strengthened to ensure gender and health mainstreaming in climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience policies and initiatives to foment sustainability.

TINA RENIER