JSIF Attributes Success to Strong Community Partnerships

The Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) credits its success in fulfilling its mandate to strong partnerships forged with communities.

Speaking during a Jamaica Information Service (JIS) ‘Think Tank’ in Kingston on Wednesday (March 26), Managing Director, Omar Sweeney, highlighted JSIF’s dedication to improving the quality of life for Jamaicans through targeted investments in infrastructure, healthcare, education and disaster resilience.

He noted that the Fund was established 29 years ago as a component of the Government of Jamaica’s national poverty alleviation strategy.

It was designed to provide vulnerable communities across Jamaica with access to quality basic infrastructure developments as well as meaningful social intervention programmes.

“I would say that, single-handedly, our success over the years has been because of our partnerships with communities. If you do this type of work, you know it’s not easy to build trust in communities, and communities trust JSIF,” Mr. Sweeney said.

Additionally, JSIF’s partnerships with government institutions and international organisations have strengthened its capacity to address wide-ranging issues such as poverty alleviation, climate change and economic empowerment.

Mr. Sweeney informed that more than two million Jamaicans have benefited directly and indirectly from projects implemented by JSIF.

“We’ve done close to 2,000 projects across the island, and in terms of multilateral resources, it’s in the hundreds of millions of US (United States) dollars,” he indicated, adding that this was facilitated through structural arrangements with international and local partners.

Over the years, JSIF has implemented several pivotal programmes.

These include the Poverty Reduction Programme (PRP), Disaster Vulnerability Reduction Project (DVRP), Rural Economic Development Initiative (REDI), Integrated Community Development Project (ICDP), Community Electrification Project and the Basic Needs Trust Fund (BNTF).