Christian Stokes | Vision 2030 and sport sector – a dream deferred

Jamaica’s Vision 2030 strategic plan is impressive, starting with an inspiring and clear national vision statement, to make “Jamaica, the place of choice to live, work, raise families, and do business” and ending with specific actions, responsible bodies, and timeframes for deliverables at the sector level. In its structure, there are four national goals mapped on to 15 national outcomes detailed in 31 sector plans. The plan lays out a clear and detailed pathway to move Jamaica to developed nation status.

PRIORITIES, SCARCITY & CHOICE

All 31 sectoral plans require substantial investment in an environment of scarce resources. The successful implementation of sectoral plans must, therefore, be preceded by a focus on increasing the resources available for these investments and prioritising the investments consistent with the first economics lecture I ever received from the profound wisdom of Jamaican aphorisms: ‘water more than flour’. Complementaries, or the synergistic interplay of investments and actions in one area, say economic stability, that creates a flywheel effect in another area, say infrastructure investment must be identified and pursued within the development environment otherwise we will be overcome by the stretching of the flour.

Against this background, we would be best served by prioritising focus as follows:

1. Economic stability (including lowering the debt burden and the creation of fiscal space) and an enabling business environment (Goal 3, Outcomes 7 & 8)

2. World-class education and training (Goal 1, Outcome 2)

3. Investment in infrastructure as a key component of each sectoral plan.

This approach is intuitive based on the accepted wisdom that to do a thing, one must first have the capacity to do that thing. Simulations run by the PIOJ substantially bear out this intuition. Any shortcuts to this approach will lead to repeated failure.

We have not yet achieved the level of fiscal space, human resource capacity, and capital investment necessary to move us to developed country status. That does not mean that we should gird our loins and wail. There is much we can do where we are with what we have. We have agency, and on this point, I would like to focus on sport.

WHERE SHOULD THE BUCK STOP?

The apparent abandonment of the National Council on Sport means that Jamaica is without a body at the apogee of the infrastructure for the engagement of sport for social, human, and economic development. In circumstances where the Institute of Sport and The Sport Development Foundation are resource-starved with limited mandates, where the Jamaica Olympic Association is accountable to the International Olympic Committee only, national sporting bodies – JFF, JAAA, Netball Jamaica, etc. – are accountable to their international federations, we need a sport body focused entirely on the implementation of the national sports policy and the Vision 2030 Sector Plan.

A reinvented and reinvigorated National Council on Sport, depoliticised, that borrows from the best elements of the economic programme oversight committee (EPOC), and other global models such as the Australian Sports Commission, is needed. Further, in the context where certain sports may properly be considered a national public good (see The Gleaner August 28, editorial ‘Case for Paris enquiry’) there are gaps in accountability that must be addressed.

COOPERATION

There was much hullabaloo leading up to and including the Paris Olympics about the sour relationship between the JOA and the JAAA. This is a case in point of a larger concern of coordination failures, in an economic development sense, in that the sports goals under Vision 2030 assume a healthy working relationship among an array of stakeholders. We need leadership that values and pursues collaboration over confrontation.

The introduction to the sport sector plan notes the successes we have had with “collaboration between the public sector, private sector, and voluntary organisations”. It goes on to say, ‘The most successful example of this model has been the ongoing partnership between the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) and national sporting organisations such as the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA).” This was published in 2009. Let us go forward, not backward.

ALIGNMENT

The sport sectoral plan contemplates the Inter-Schools Sports Association (ISSA) as a critical partner in its implementation. Yet we have seen clear examples of coordination failures between ISSA and the national agenda. ISSA’s decisions to make international student-athletes under 16 part of school quotas, to apply impractical restrictions on schoolboy footballers playing in the Premier League, and to not allow Mount Pleasant Academy to play in their competitions indicates that the body is not aligned with the sport sector plans as, for example, in Strategy 1.5.5, which calls for the establishment of sport academies in Jamaica and specifically to “develop specialised sport high schools”, or as in Outcome 3.2, which calls for “increased opportunities for participation in world-class sport competitions at home and abroad”. ISSA is acting in its own interests and addressing problems that it sees. The point is that misalignment is clogging up the gears of national progress.

Much good has happened. Since the launch of Vision 2030, there have been massive improvements in the sport infrastructure, training of coaches and administrators, and attracting experienced executive leadership to run sports organisations, including the JOA, the JFF, and PFJ. We have much further to go, but while we do such things as to be in a position to invest more heavily in sport, there is much the community can do to help itself.

Nelson Christian Stokes is a development economist and global sport administrator. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and chris@nchristianstokes.com