Jamaican diaspora:key to growth and development

Julian 'Jingles' Reynolds, Contributor

The writing was on the wall for the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) loss in the recent general election from the very first utterance of then newly appointed prime minister, Andrew Holness, and in my article of December 4, 2011 titled 'Downtown Kingston again', I alluded to his ill-advised first address to the Jamaican people.

Mr Holness should never had stated that he would be maintaining "continuity" of the JLP's actions under the failed leadership of Bruce Golding, whose popularity had shrunk to a mere 16 per cent in one of the polls taken before he walked away from leadership. Despite the touting of his youth as the strength of the new leadership for the JLP, it was apparent that he and the other young leaders from the G2K arm of his party, and the party leadership, were out of touch with the Jamaican reality.

The Jamaican people may be many things, but not fools, and in a time when the world is indeed a global village, most Jamaican families have some member living in a First World country, and exposed to information and behaviour patterns coming from the developed world via these personal contacts, cable television and the Internet.

Despite the previous administration's claim of some growth from macroeconomic data, one was hard-pressed to find a Jamaican from any sector who was not hurting under the prevailing economic conditions. Unemployment and underemployment are widespread in Jamaica. And if these are not addressed by growing the economy and bringing development for the average citizen, the Government is ineffective.

Growth and development are not the same. While a country can show growth in the macroeconomic sense, it can, meanwhile, show no development. Economic growth is defined by the increase in the value of goods and services produced by all sectors of the economy and is usually expressed in terms of the gross domestic product (GDP). Economic growth refers to a rise in national income and product.

Economic development incorporates improvements in health, education and other aspects of human welfare with the economic wealth of the country. Economic development speaks to a sustainable boost in the standard of living of the people and increase in the per-capita income. Growth, therefore, is possible with no development. However, there can be no development without growth.

prioritise economic growth and development

This new administration must prioritise economic growth and development, and the Jamaican diaspora is a primary way of addressing this. I ended 2011 attending the funeral of my wife's 22-year-old nephew, Keyshawn Clarke, a relative of William Clarke, a.k.a. Sir Alexander Bustamante, Jamaica's first prime minister. He was in college in New York majoring in business management and finance. What was striking at the funeral was the large number of young adults and children in attendance, the majority born in the United States of Jamaican parents and grandparents.

Recently, at a business reception in Manhattan, I met a young man, Paul Bogle, a direct descendant of Jamaica's national hero of the same name. He works in finance on Wall Street. At the reception, I met two other young people: one - a female - told me that both her grandparents were from Jamaica; the other, a male, said he, too, had a Jamaican parent.

The Jamaican diaspora has always produced greatness. John Russwurm, born in Jamaica in 1799, co-founded the first black-owned newspaper in America, Freedom's Journal, in 1827 and is one of the first black men to graduate from college in America. Mary Seacole, born in Kingston in 1805, learnt nursing using Jamaican herbs and established her career taking care of soldiers in England during the Crimean War.

Claude McKay, poet, from Clarendon, became one of the leading voices of the enlightened period of the Harlem Renaissance in New York, in the 1920s. Marcus Garvey, the black liberator and a national hero, organised the largest mass movement ever in America with the Universal Negro Improvement Association and the African Communities League, at their heights having some six million members around the world.

Harry Belafonte, born in New York to a Jamaican mother, spent many years growing up in Jamaica, and went on to use his Caribbean experience to become a world-acclaimed entertainer singing calypso and folk songs. His album Calypso, in 1956, was the first to sell a million copies by any entertainer. Colin Powell, another New Yorker of Jamaican parents, became the first black man to head the US military, and the first to serve as secretary of state in the United States. Patrick Ewing, a product of west Kingston, rated one of the 50 greatest basketball players in America, was recently inducted into the US National Basketball Association Hall of Fame.

There is no definitive source to determine the size of the Jamaican diaspora. Many claim that there are as many 'Jamaicans' living outside Jamaica as is the current 2.8 million population. However, statistics provided by the Migration Information Source and the Planning Institute of Jamaica for the periods 1970-2008 indicate that 915,371 people emigrated from Jamaica to the US, UK, and Canada. This, however, does not reflect those entering these countries legally but remaining illegally, those entering illegally, and others immigrating to other countries.

Remittances account for approximately 15 per cent of Jamaica's GDP and are the main barometer of the impact the diaspora has on Jamaica. According to Bank of Jamaica statistics, remittance inflows were US$1.598 billion for the first 10 months of the 2010-11 fiscal year. The focus now is how the country can get some of these remittances into an organised programme to serve the productive sectors and contribute in developing Jamaica.

Last year, I was invited by Vanessa Keith, a member of the Jamaican diaspora in New York, to join a group of Columbia University graduate students that she served as an adjunct professor, and engaged in a project for the development of downtown Kingston. One of the students, a Mexican, informed me about the 3X1 For Migrant Program in Mexico.

remittances and bonds

The programme uses contributions from remittances to carry out projects related to infrastructure, community services and economic activity. For each peso that migrants contribute, the federal, state and municipal governments contribute three additional pesos. The programme began in 2007, and in 2009 began supporting projects proposed by migrants that contribute to income generation and employment in their origin communities. Since its inception, the programme has undertaken 5,555 projects throughout Mexico, spending 1.296 billion pesos.

Another effective tool for developing economies is diaspora bonds. Alan Rude, president and CEO of R.W. Wentworth & Company, a business development and corporate finance firm, and with more than 30 years experience on Wall Street, has participated in several bond issues, and pointed to countries such as Israel, Brazil and India that have successfully taken this approach.

The United States Agency for International Development, in 2003, issued a research document titled 'Leveraging the Jamaican Diaspora for Development'. It looked at three types of financial instruments for development; development bonds, certificates of deposit, and remittance bonds. Why haven't we heard more on this?

Julian 'Jingles' Reynolds is a writer, filmmaker and entrepreneur operating in the US and Jamaica, and has written on socio-economic and cultural issues for 45 years. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and fiwifoods@yahoo.com.