ARTICLES of incorporation and a Memorandum of Understanding for the establishment of the Jamaica Diaspora Foundation are being reviewed by the government, says Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Foriegn Trade Senator Delano Franklyn.

Speaking in the Senate last Friday, Senator Franklyn said that his ministry and the Attorney General’s Department were reviewing both instruments and, once the exercise is completed, Cabinet approval will be sought.

“The government remains committed to its policy of engagement with the Jamaican diaspora, which is a vibrant force,” Franklyn said in his contribution to the long-running state of the nation debate in the Senate.

He said that the government believes that the process must be bipartisan in nature and, therefore, considers the Opposition as a stakeholder.

“We have sought to involve them and they have responded,” he said noting that Opposition Spokesman on tourism Edmund Bartlet has been making an input into the process.

Franklyn said that his ministry is buoyed by the success of the second diasporic conference, held last June in Kingston, but will seek to surpass it with the third conference scheduled for June 16-17, 2008.

He said that a joint select committee on disapora affairs is to be formed, based on recommendations coming out of last year’s conference.

Regional conferences are scheduled for Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States this year.

He said that the regional conferences not only served as preparatory events for the biennial conference, but also bring together Jamaicans “of all stripes” and from several communities in respective disapora to discuss issues affecting them at home and abroad.