MONTEGO BAY, St James – Philanthropists from the Caribbean yesterday urged that regional governments copy the Mexican government’s remittance financial incentive project, which sees a percentage of each dollar remmitted to that country going to support a specially identified local project.

“This is an example that we should seek to replicate in the region to get our Diaspora more involved in the development of our countries,” Earl Jarrett, general manager of the Jamaica National Building Society, told participants at the second Caribbean Philanthropy conference being hosted by the University of the West Indies’ Development and Endowment Fund and the Washington-based National Centre for Black Philanthropy Incorporated.

Jarrett said that in 2003 the Mexican government increased its match to the remittances three to one. Consequently, US$20 million was remitted to support 308 such projects.

At the same time, Dr Hopeton Dunn told the conference that there was a need for qualitative studies to ascertain how much of the approximately US$1.4 billion that Jamaica receives annually in remittances was attributable to philanthropy.

Jarrett, who noted that there were no measures in place to evaluate the true impact of remittance from philanthropy on the economy, said there was a need to build an institutional framework to encourage a formal type of philanthropy.