Diaspora urged to forge closer ties

The Embassy of Jamaica along with the Jamaican consulates in Miami and New York are to embark on a project to establish an institutional framework in which the diaspora can function more effectively as a partner in Jamaica's socio-economic development.

This was disclosed by Jamaica's Ambassador to the United States, Her Excellency Audrey Marks as she delivered the keynote address at the annual Independence Ball hosted by the Rochester-Jamaica Organisation (RJO) to commemorate Jamaica's 49th year of independence on Saturday, July 23 at the Airport Holiday Inn Hotel in Rochester, New York.

The ambassador told the gathering that Jamaica's embassy in Washington and the consulates are working to establish this new institutional framework within a 12-month time frame. "We have already reached out to many of the diaspora organisations and are anticipating their full participation in this endeavour," she said.

The Jamaican envoy pointed out that the importance of the diaspora to Jamaica's economic and social progress begins with the reality that even though the population in Jamaica is 2.8 million, there are now some 3.2 million people in the United States who define themselves as Jamaican diaspora.

Successful professionals

"This group accounts for nearly 70 per cent of Jamaica's graduates over the last 30 years. They include a range of successful professionals and academics, who are distinguishing themselves in the American society, as well as a most dynamic segment of Jamaica's entrepreneurial class and a significant cohort of skilled artisans," she said.

Ambassador Marks noted that the Jamaican Americans in the USA are numbered among the most ambitious, aspiring and hard-working set of people found anywhere, whose sole goal is to get their "share of the American Dream". "You here in Rochester are a microcosm of what can be considered to be 'the best of Jamaica'", she noted.

"Without the fullest participation of the diaspora, Jamaica cannot succeed in transforming its economy from a reliance on the export of primary products like sugar, bananas and bauxite to a more value-added human-resource based service economy with tourism, financial, health, education, services, and information technology as the major sectors. The critical groups in this process of transition are the intelligentsia and the entrepreneurial class and both, to a large extent, reside in the diaspora", the ambassador said.

She noted that a major area of weakness in Jamaica's economic development to date is the absence of research and the application of technology, which the diaspora is more than capable of accessing. Modern service economies can only be developed on the basis of an educated and well-trained labour force, with the required competence in the use of modern technology.

"As long as the end product of Jamaica's investment in quality education and training is the export of its graduates, there is no substitute for the role that only the diaspora can play. The integration of the human resources in the diaspora, with the opportunities for development in Jamaica, is an absolute priority," she stressed

Ambassador Marks pointed out that while Jamaicans in the diaspora have tended to focus their activities to welfare interventions in the homeland which is commendable and needed, it is her belief that we are capable of much more.

The ambassador explained: "I am convinced that the economic transformation of Jamaica requires a diaspora which operates within an appropriate institutional framework which facilitates the fullest mobilisation of its members for investment in, and trade with, Jamaica. The new diaspora must see itself as becoming both a major trading partner with 'most-favoured status' as well as a reservoir of expertise on which Jamaica can rely," said Ambassador Marks.

More than 300 Jamaicans and friends of Jamaica attended the event.

JIS photos