Support of CCEDM Critical – PIOJ Official

Targeted technical assistance through the Canada-CARICOM Expert Deployment Mechanism (CCEDM) can help Jamaica’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and attainment of medium-term development goals.

This was stated by Deputy Director General of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), Barbara Scott, at a recent Jamaica Information Service (JIS) ‘Think Tank’.

Ms. Scott, who has responsibility for External Cooperation Management and Project Development at the PIOJ, shared one of the challenges to meeting development targets such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how the PIOJ is managing available resources to address the challenge.

“For many years, the importance of trained, qualified human resources for the public sector has been an issue and a challenge for us meeting our development target as a country. We have, over the years, recognised that human resource constraints represent a significant risk to us meeting our Vision 2030 targets and the SDGs. However, since the pandemic, this issue has come into sharper focus,” Ms. Scott highlighted.

“We need to ensure that we have, within our public sector, a strong cadre of professionals who are able to drive sustainable and resilient recovery, and that is where a programme such as the CCEDM adds so much value. This kind of support is critical at this time as we seek to recover from the pandemic,” she added.

The CCEDM is a programme funded by Global Affairs Canada for the benefit of CARICOM nations that offers technical assistance in priority areas identified by the beneficiary governments.

The programme is being implemented locally through the Canadian Executive Service Organization (CESO) and the PIOJ. CESO has more than 15,000 advisors who are deployed to provide free technical assistance to countries. The support provided is targeted to the needs identified locally and provides expertise not usually available to the public sector.

As custodians of Vision 2030, the PIOJ ensures applications for assistance through the CCEDM align with national priority areas as outlined in the Vision 2030 Medium-Term Socio-Economic Policy Framework.

For her part, Programme Director in the Vision 2030 Secretariat at the PIOJ, Piesha Bryan-Lee, detailed the alignment between existing CCEDM assistance and the country’s development goals.

“The approach that we take to implementing the SDGs is through Vision 2030. In any project that we do, we look at the impacts across the SDGs. When we look at some of the key areas of assistance [such as] monitoring and evaluation and public financing, that is definitely [aligned to] SDG 17 – partnerships for the goals,” she explained.

“In areas such as tourism and other sectors that have benefited, they cross-cut SDGs that concern life on land (SDG 15), environmental areas (SDGs 6-7 and 12-14), and also jobs, growth and training (SDGs 4, 8, 9 and 11), and also gender-equality (SDG 5),” Mrs. Bryan-Lee added.

The CCEDM is a four-year assistance programme that was launched in 2021 and valued at Can$4 million.

The programme can facilitate 60 Jamaican assignments at an estimated J$67 million to assist public entities to build capacity in areas aligned to the National Development Plan.