Jamaica Receives Bonus Grant Under Basic Needs Trust Fund

Jamaica is benefiting from a bonus grant under the ninth cycle of the Basic Needs Trust Fund (BNTF), being implemented by the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF).

Managing Director of JSIF, Omar Sweeney, told JIS News that Jamaica qualified for the bonus grant last year based on the speed of execution of projects, which was second only to Grenada.

The BNTF is a special fund developed and hosted within the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs). The money collected is redistributed to the BMCs in the form of grants to allow for the development of critical infrastructure and social services within the countries. Each cycle is normally expected to be completed within a three-year period.

Mr. Sweeney said that the bonus grant was introduced due to the slow implementation by some countries under previous cycles, which saw resources being left unutilised.

He explained that under this component, countries can earn a bonus based on their speed of implementation, which “is rated at some point during the programme, shortly after the mid-term review”.

Mr. Sweeney said it is important that countries be able to “liquidate the resources that you receive, because that speaks to what you will receive in the next cycle”.

He pointed out that JSIF is working to complete all its projects for the ninth cycle of BNTF, including the bonus, in order to “step into BNTF 10, hopefully towards the end of this year”.

Mr. Sweeney informed that Jamaica has been a beneficiary of BNTF since its fifth cycle in 2003.

“Since we’ve been there, we have been at least in the top-one or -two countries in terms of the speed of our implementation, and so it has been a tremendous resource that comes to us,” he added.