International Youth Day (IYD) is observed globally on August 12 each year to raise awareness on issues that affect youth. The theme of this year’s IYD is “The Road to 2030: Eradicating Poverty and Achieving Sustainable Production and Consumption.” More than 500 million youth worldwide live in poverty and lack access to vital resources to secure their basic needs. Available...

The Government has received a US$100-million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), to increase access to financing for firms and individuals as well as improving the regulation and supervision of the country’s financial system. Dubbed the ‘Financial System Reform Support Programme’, the initiative seeks to promote private investment and reduce the cost of, and the perceived level of difficulty...

Minister of Science, Energy and Technology, Dr. the Hon. Andrew Wheatley, says the Government is committed to lower electricity rates, notwithstanding the increase given to the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS), recently. In an interview on the Jamaica Information Service (JIS) television programme, ‘Issues and Answers Programme’, he said the JPS was granted an average 2.6 per cent rate increase...

Members of civil society are being encouraged to be more proactive in helping to reduce teenage pregnancies in Jamaica. Education, Youth and Information State Minister, Hon. Floyd Green, is inviting persons with knowledge of teenage or adolescent girls being sexually molested to report this to the relevant authorities, including the police. His call comes against the background of data from...

The Government remains committed to ongoing implementation of strategies to eliminate gender-based violence and discrimination. Notable among these are provisions in the National Policy for Gender Equality; the proposed National Action Plan to Eliminate Gender-Based Violence; as well as the Caribbean Community/United Nations Population Fund (CARICOM/UNFPA) Integrated Strategic Framework, which targets a 20 per cent reduction in adolescent/teenage pregnancies in...

Manager of the Population and Health Unit at the Planning Institute of Jamaica, (PIOJ), Toni-Shae Freckleton, says Jamaica is well on its way in attaining several goals in the Vision 2030 development plan. Speaking at the inaugural Caribbean Civil Registration and Identity Management conference at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in St. James on July 7, Mrs. Freckleton said some...

Minister of Education, Youth and Information, Senator the Hon. Ruel Reid, says that education is the key to Jamaica’s social and economic prosperity and is a major priority of the Government. He said the administration “is doing everything” to ensure that the populace has full and complete access to learning. “Education is associated with better skills, higher productivity, and enhanced...