Community Renewal Project to Roll Out Between November and January

The phased roll out of the Community Renewal Programme (CRP), being implemented by the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), is slated to be undertaken between November 2013 and January 2014.

Director General of the PIOJ, Colin Bullock, who made the disclosure during the agency’s quarterly media briefing on Tuesday, August 27, said phase one of the programme will entail Majesty Gardens, St. Andrew, where the initiative is being undertaken as a pilot, and 18 other Corporate Area communities in the downtown Kingston developmental area.

The CRP is a multifaceted programme, financed by the Government of Jamaica and international development partners, designed to address living conditions in communities island-wide, deemed the most socially problematic.

It addresses community empowerment, housing, sanitation and waste disposal, economic opportunity, recreation, dispute resolution, crime, among other things.

Mr. Bullock said the Majesty Gardens pilot is being used as the framework for designing model programmes to be undertaken in the other communities.

These include: baseline studies being developed by the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) for phase one, slated for completion in January 2014; on-going work to design community level interventions, earmarked for completion by September 30; and implementation of new programmes to be undertaken through the partial roll-out of phase one.

The programme is a key component of the Government’s growth agenda for Jamaica, a detailed update of which is available on the PIOJ’s website at:  www.pioj.gov.jm.

“The generation of stronger economic growth is dependent, not only on successful policy implementation by Government, but also on active participation by a reinvigorated private sector, labour movement, non-government organizations and active community participation,” Mr. Bullock said.

He stated that the recent signing of a social partnership agreement “creates a basis for a productive sharing of the burden of adjustment, the effort to enhance productivity and the distribution of benefits. We can only solve our problems if we move in step with each other.”