1. The Jamaica Intellectual Property Office, JIPO, an agency of the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce, was established to provide a central focal point for the administration of Intellectual Property (IP) in Jamaica.

2. On March 14, members of the Crime Management Unit (CMU) of the police force raided a house in Braeton, Phase Three in Portmore, killing seven young men. This infamous police incursion has since been known as ‘The Braeton Seven Killings’.

3. From March 8 to March 18, the first edition of the Pan American Cup (an international field hockey competition) for women, the 2001 Women’s Pan American Cup, took place at the Mona Stadium in Kingston.

4. In March, South African government minister Ben Ngubane visited Jamaica in his capacity as chairman of the Science and Technology Committee of the Commonwealth.

5. Digicel was established in Jamaica in April, and grew to 100,000 customers in approximately 100 days.

6. In 2001, Bob Marley was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. A statue was inaugurated next to the national stadium on Arthur Wint Drive in Kingston to commemorate him.

7. Life and Debt, an American documentary examining the economic and social situation in Jamaica and its link to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank’s globalisation policies, was released.

8 The Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA), was established in its present form, through the merger of the Passport Office and the Immigration Service, which were part of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF); and the Citizenship Section, and the Immigration and Passport Policy Unit in the Ministry of National Security.

9. Anthony Moses Davis, better known as Beenie Man, received the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album for his album Art and Life.

10. Through the Ministry of Health’s immunisation programme, the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), the last case of newborn tetanus identified in Jamaica was in 2001.

— Kristen Laing