Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) President Hyginus “Gene” Leon made the keynote address for the United Nations Partnership for Peace, Planet and Prosperity-themed conference on October 27 at The University of the West Indies (UWI). Leon, who had spent four years in Jamaica as International Monetary Fund (IMF) resident representative over a decade ago, noted that since 2013 Jamaica’s systematic effort to improve competitiveness had borne fruit, adding that export growth had increased 4 per cent per year in real terms since 2014 “but needs to grow much faster”, and that poverty had declined to all-time lows by 2019 of 11 per cent of the population compared with 24.6 per cent in 2013, before the novel coronavirus pandemic. He observed, however, that according to the United Nations Global Compact Action Platform on Financial Innovation Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Caribbean requires US$100 billion to meet the SDG goals in Sustainable Energy, Water and Sanitation, Transportation, Agriculture and Food Security, and Digital Transformation.

Leon argues there is a need to re-imagine the role of the private sector, as “Sustainable development is too important for it to be the exclusive purview of our governments.” He quotes World Business Council for Sustainable Development head Peter Bakker’s argument that “business is the best implementation partner for governments around the world as they strive to hit their climate targets”.

Leon argues for “re-imaging public-private partnership” as a partnership for development between the public and private sectors, with the private sector involved throughout “the life cycle of origination, design, execution, monitoring, evaluation and adaptation of activities, together with the associated policies and financing, that can overcome the challenges we face”. Rather than traditional public-private partnerships (PPPs), these would be partnerships for prosperity and profits, incorporating key business objectives such as education and skill development to create a knowledge orientated workforce.

Leon reveals that the CDB proposes to establish a multi-sourced, multi-instrument financing ecosystem including bonds for the green, blue and orange economies, the cultural and creative industries, private equity, contingent debt instruments to manage uncertainty, derivative — based instruments to manage risks, and concessional funding to lower cost of funding. He suggests instruments must be designed to allow use with a purpose, with terms distinguishing between financing for rescue, recovery and repositioning. He notes the level of support will not come from traditional purposes, and requires innovative instruments and creative partnerships to harness the capacity of pension funds and other institutional investors for a “triangle” of viable projects, affordable finance and effective implementation, which, he says, CDB stands ready to lead or facilitate and thereby achieve, in the words of national hero Norman Manley, the mission of the next generation, economic independence.

It is therefore appropriate that one month before, on September 28, our leaders — prime minister, leader of the Opposition, Private Sector Organisation Jamaica head, JCTU, and civil society — signed a new four-year agreement, “Partnership for Jamaica’s Strong and Sustainable recovery”. This new agreement encompasses the five strategic pillars of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030 (and Jamaica’s Vision 2030 National Development Plan), namely prosperity, peace, people, planet and partnerships, for which we will outline some of the key elements.

Under prosperity, amongst other things, it mentions the recommendations of the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Taskforce Report (and the associated Labour Market report), advocating addressing the Employment Termination Redundancy Payment (Amendment) Act, the Occupational Health Safety and Environment Bill and the Flexible Work Arrangement Bill, noting the new global work from anywhere (WFA) movement makes this all the more urgent.

Under peace, it supports the work of the Crime Monitoring and Oversight Committee (CMOC) and advocates for substantial improvement in Jamaica’s corruption perception index score (CPI).

Under people, it supports the Education Transformation Commission 2021 and, for example, discouraging brain drain.

Under planet, it targets protecting the environment, with an emphasis on resilience strategies to protect the island against the climate emergency.

The agreement details Jamaica’s difficult social partnership journey, starting with Electoral Advisory Committee of 1979, and the 1989 multi-sectoral National Planning Council. It continues with the low-key, high-impact civil society group ACORN formed in 1997, an informal multi-stakeholder, solution–orientated forum for leaders form the trade unions, private sector, civil society, the public sector and academia. Honouring 25 years of its existence in supporting social dialogue and social partnership, the governor general just declared October 25 “National Partnership Day”.

It then mentions the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (and Jamaica Chamber of Commerce) collaboration of 2003, the Partnership for Progress, which led to the National Social Partnership Consultative committee in 2008, became the National Partnership Council in 2009 (called the Partnership for Transformation), and ultimately spawned three agreements: the 2011 Partnership Code of Conduct, the 2013 Partnership for Jamaica, and the 2016 Partnership for a Prosperous Jamaica, which expired during COVID on December 7, 2020.

It is therefore appropriate that PSOJ President Keith Duncan, in his speech to the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) last Saturday, emphasised the need for partnership and collaboration to tackle national problems, and the JHTA’s role in engaging the National Partnership Council (NPC), resulting in the formation of the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Task Force under the leadership of Finance Minster Dr Nigel Clarke. Duncan noted the creation of the task force led to each economic sector defining its protocols for opening during the novel coronavirus pandemic, including the formation of the Tourism Resilient Corridor (under John Byles) and securing airlift, under Adam Stewart, with similar efforts in the business process outsourcing sector, under Gloria Henry, and in other sectors.

In his speech, Duncan observed Jamaica’s poor education outcomes, and associated very low productivity performance, and large number of unattached people, drove crime. He observed that the PIOJ in its Community Renewal programme in 2011 had identified over 100 “volatile and violent” communities needing intervention without “measurable results” of “much success”.

He outlined the PSOJ’s commitment, coming out of a December 2021 meeting with Minister of National Security Horace Chang, to work with the police commissioner to develop a plan for the Social and Economic Transformation of Communities, or project STAR to target these vulnerable, underdeveloped and volatile communities. He mentioned specifically the private sector police collaboration (John Byles/Ian Dear and SSP Vernon Ellis) at Salt Springs as proof of concept.

To sum up, whether it is the extension of the PSOJ’s Project star to other communities, the JCC’s new attempt at downtown redevelopment, or agreeing some of the difficult changes to the labour market necessary for our economic recovery, the best solution for Jamaica seems to be to utilise a national movement of partnership at the nation state, city or community level, or “grand alliance” to use the words of our Monday Observer editorial.