$6 Million Set Aside for Food Price Crisis Project

A sum of $6 million has been set aside for the continuation of the Social Protection Support to Food Price Crisis project.

Details of this allocation are contained in the 2013/14 Estimates of Expenditure, now before the House of Representatives.

The project, which is being implemented by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, with funding support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), commenced in January 2009, and is expected to run until June 2013.

It aims to enhance the welfare of Programme of Advancement Through and Health and Education (PATH) beneficiaries by increasing the amount of subsidy and incorporate additional vulnerable households to the programme’s safety net, as well as increase the human capital levels of poor families through attendance at school and health clinics.

The allocation for this fiscal year will go towards the procurement of computers for the strengthening of provisions to PATH beneficiaries island-wide.

Achievements under the project up to March 2013 include: increased compliance of school attendance among beneficiary children in grades one to 11; increased compliance of health clinic attendance among beneficiaries zero to 11 months; and increases in PATH beneficiaries from seven per cent to nine percent in Kingston and

St. Andrew.

By Athaliah Reynolds-Baker, JIS Reporter