When Hurricane Melissa carved its path across Jamaica, it left more than collapsed riverbanks, roofless homes, and darkened parishes. It exposed something far more fundamental — our fragilities as a society, our uneven access to real freedoms, and the deep inequalities that determine who recovers quickly and who remains vulnerable long after the dust settles.

In reflecting on the storm’s aftermath, I find myself returning to the work of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and his Capabilities Approach, as well as to the framework for my PhD dissertation. It is a framework that shifts our attention from material recovery to the freedoms people need to live meaningful, dignified, and flourishing lives. Disaster response typically focuses on infrastructure, numbers, and economic cost. But Melissa has reminded us that resilience is not simply about rebuilding houses; it is about rebuilding the capabilities that enable Jamaicans to survive, adapt, and thrive.

Rethinking Recovery: From Infrastructure to Human Capabilities

In the days after Melissa, our national conversations were dominated by the usual metrics — megawatts lost, impassable roads, compromised water systems, and agricultural devastation running into the billions. These figures matter, especially in a country now facing an estimated US$8.8 billion in physical damage, but they reveal only a fraction of what recovery truly entails.

Sen’s Capabilities Approach forces us to pose a deeper, more human question: What are Jamaicans actually able to be and do in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa? A home is not merely a structure, it is the foundation for safety, privacy, and stability. A school is not simply a building, it is the site where learning, socialisation, and hope are shaped. A farm is not just land, it is livelihood, identity, and food security.

When these functions are disrupted, people’s real freedoms — their capabilities — shrink dramatically. And, as Melissa has revealed, those losses are not evenly distributed. Disasters magnify inequalities, not create them. Sen’s writings remind us that justice requires looking not only at resources but also at the “conversion factors” — the social, economic, environmental, and institutional conditions that influence how people are able to use resources to secure real opportunities. Hurricane Melissa has forced Jamaica to confront the inequities embedded in these conditions.

The Uneven Landscape of Recovery

Viewing images of affected communities, one truth becomes unavoidable: Jamaica’s resilience is stratified. Many families who lost their homes had not fully recovered from previous storms like Hurricane Beryl. Their savings were limited, insurance unaffordable, and informal construction practices left them disproportionately vulnerable.

These are not failures of character, they are failures of the enabling environment — failures of capability. In some communities, people managed to rebound faster, not because they were inherently more resilient, but because they possessed stronger capability buffers: a more stable income, access to credit, supportive social networks, better-built infrastructure, or quicker institutional assistance.

Others were hit with cascading losses — income disruptions, school closures, mental health strain, and limited access to clean water. In these circumstances, recovery becomes not only slow, but punishing.

Agency Matters: The Freedom to Shape One’s Own Recovery

One of Sen’s most profound insights is that development is not something done to people; it is something done with them. In disaster recovery, this translates into expanding agency — the ability of individuals and communities to participate meaningfully in shaping their own futures.

After Melissa, many Jamaicans expressed frustration at slow relief distribution, unclear communication, and limited involvement in rebuilding decisions. Agency is not an abstract concept here. It is the difference between a community feeling powerless and a community mobilising itself towards renewal.

The Government of Jamaica has an opportunity to expand its agency by establishing participatory community recovery councils, communicating transparently about resource allocation, involving local leaders in decision-making, and ensuring that those most vulnerable have genuine representation. Recovery must be human-centred, or it becomes lopsided and unjust.

How Government Policy Can Expand Capabilities After Melissa

The Government plays a pivotal role in shaping the capabilities landscape after a disaster. A capability-led recovery strategy would begin with rebuilding for resilience, not replication. Too often, post-hurricane efforts simply recreate what existed before — fragile structures in communities already stretched thin. Truly expanding freedom means enforcing safer building codes, offering relocation options to high-risk communities, investing in climate-smart agriculture, and upgrading digital infrastructure so communication is reliable during emergencies.

Social protection must also be understood as capability protection. Cash transfers, livelihood grants, and emergency subsidies expand families’ choices: They keep children in school, prevent debt spirals, enable access to health care, and allow livelihoods to be rebuilt with dignity. These programmes must be scaled, digitised, and targeted to those most affected.

Education continuity is another urgent priority. Schools are capability engines, and every lost week of learning after a disaster narrows a child’s future possibilities. Hurricane-resilient school infrastructure expanded access to digital learning, and rapid return-to-learning policies would strengthen capabilities across generations.

Mental health cannot be overlooked. Freedom is both physical and psychological. Many Jamaicans are still grappling with anxiety, grief, and trauma after Melissa. Expanding community-based mental health services is now critical to rebuilding the emotional foundation of well-being.

Livelihoods also require renewed focus. Farmers, fisherfolk, vendors, and the corner shops are often hit hardest. Micro-grants, agricultural recovery packages, support for tourism-dependent communities, and training in climate-resilient enterprise can create new pathways for economic capability.

When Melissa uprooted electricity poles and snapped power lines, thousands were plunged into darkness and were left in a terrifying silence — no radio, no internet, no way to reach help. Thank God for Starlink, which became the only lifeline. No nation should allow its people to be so isolated in their hour of need. Jamaica must build a communication system that never leaves its citizens stranded in the dark.

Why the Capabilities Approach Matters Now More Than Ever

Hurricane Melissa is not an isolated event, it is part of an intensifying climate pattern. Jamaica cannot afford to approach each disaster with a narrow, infrastructure-only mindset. Sen’s Capabilities Approach reminds us that disasters are fundamentally human development crises. Recovery is a justice issue, and the ultimate measure of progress must be the expansion of real freedoms.

When a family rebuilds a stronger home, we strengthen a functioning.

When a farmer receives timely support, we expand a capability.

When a child returns to school quickly, we secure a future freedom.

When a community participates in its own recovery, we fortify agency.

This is what it means to rebuild well.

A Call to Rebuild with Purpose

As we look across the devastation in the west of the island, we face a choice. We can rebuild what was lost and wait for the next storm, or we can create a country where every citizen has the freedom to withstand, adapt, and flourish in an uncertain climate future.

A capability-led recovery asks us not merely to restore structures but to restore possibility. I plead with the Government, with support from the private sector and its international partners, to adopt policies that prioritise human flourishing over quick fixes. I ask communities to continue mobilising their strengths, solidarity, and social capital. And I ask each of us to advocate for a Jamaica where resilience is not the privilege of a few but the right of all.

If Melissa has taught us anything, it is that resilience is not built in the eye of the storm, it is built in the choices we make long after the winds have passed.

Together we rebuild, stronger!

Dr Henry Lewis Jr is an associate professor at University of Technology, Jamaica, in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. He is also a social scientist and executive life coach. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or hjlewis@utech.edu.jm.

Henry Lewis