Last Friday, Britain’s secretary of state for international development Andrew Mitchell, a Cabinet Minister on his first visit to Jamaica, surprised even informed observers in his host country by announcing a threefold increase in the UK’s development aid budget to Jamaica, to 26 million pounds, compared with an increase of 55 per cent, to 75 million pounds, for the Caribbean as a whole.

This increase is even more impressive in terms of political priorities when one notes that last year UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne (the equivalent of our Minister of Finance) announced the deepest cuts ever seen in the UK public sector, ordering nearly all government departments to slash an average of 25 per cent from their annual budgets before the next general election and announcing a two-year pay freeze for all public sector employees to achieve £83 billion savings by 2014-15. These included virtually every area of government except for Britain’s National health Service and, critically for Jamaica, overseas development aid.

In doing so, the Conservatives honoured their manifesto commitments despite the obvious excuse of them facing a much more severe fiscal hole that they had anticipated, perhaps the largest peacetime fiscal deficit ever at over 10per cent of GDP.

It is worth quoting from Mitchell’s speech to Oxfam last June, which he attributed originally to his Prime Minister David Cameron.

“This is a time to reaffirm our promises to the world’s poor people, not abandon them. We won’t balance the books on the backs of the world’s poorest.”

Mitchell added impressively that “We resolved, in our Coalition programme for government, to honour our commitment to spend 0.7per cent of Gross National Income on overseas aid from 2013, and to enshrine this commitment in law.” It is noteworthy that as a percentage of national income, this is above what is spent by such internationally respected development partners such as Canada, and way above that of the United States.

Moreover, unlike many other countries giving international aid, Mitchell vowed that “We will keep aid untied from commercial interests, and maintain DFID as an independent Department, focussed on reducing poverty.”

In Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, Mitchell outlined that DFID will focus on the three priorities of accelerating growth, reducing the risk of natural disasters and cutting the blight of violent crime.

Approximately 70 to 80 per cent of the 26 million pounds will be spent on improving security, combating crime, mobilising communities, and improving the professionalism of the police, clearly reflecting the fact that crime is Jamaica’s number one problem. Mitchell noted that Jamaica suffers a murder rate 50 times higher than the UK’s, with crime deterring both tourists and investors.

As a consequence, UK assistance in Jamaica will target 50 of the most volatile inner-city communities where “persistent pockets of poverty remain – for example in the heart of Kingston,” with an estimated 142,000 residents getting access to basic services, like a reliable water supply and garbage collection, and 13,000 people receiving training and job opportunities. Some of Jamaica’s most violent communities will be safer as the police will be assisted in their efforts to tackle violent crime.

The UK Department for International Development’s (DFID) regional programme will also help people whose lives and livelihoods have become vulnerable to the worst impacts of climate change and natural disasters by providing safer buildings, improved water supplies and early warning systems, and helping to develop affordable micro-insurance to protect the region’s poorest when natural disasters strike.

Jobs, jobs, jobs

Mitchell noted realistically that creating more jobs is vital for the future of the Caribbean, as growth has slowed dramatically and recovery is expected to be slower than elsewhere. He argued correctly that the only sure way out of poverty for many people will be secure jobs.

In this regard, he noted DFID would support business reforms designed to give more chances to female entrepreneurs, and look to directly create 10,000 jobs through creating new opportunities. These opportunities would include new trade deals with Europe, creating more export opportunities (hopefully the UK will now restore export credit insurance to Jamaica), and help the Caribbean move towards a single market economy.

In his speech immediately following Minister Mitchell’s presentation, Prime Minister Bruce Golding noted that Jamaica couldn’t have achieved a reduction in crime without British support, and welcomed Britain’s emphasis on reducing our vulnerability to ‘hurricanes” and “earthquakes”, but noted that Jamaica was still not producing the tradeable goods and services to penetrate overseas markets and take advantage of the economic partnership agreement (EPA) with Europe. In noting the emphasis the British government placed on good governance, he outlined a number of planned reforms including a special prosecutor, corruption prevention commission, whistleblower amendments and observed that many other initiatives would be brought to Cabinet this year.

Finally, Mitchell had noted what he described as the “very articulate lobby” on air passenger duty, and whilst he specifically said he could make “no promises”, he observed that the conservative manifesto had argued that one should “tax aircraft and not people”.

Whilst the percentage increase in British aid is impressive, it is still a drop in the ocean in terms of Jamaica’s problems. However, as a former banker, Mitchell also appeared to be unusually sensitive to Jamaica’s extremely high debt and particularly debt service. He will have noted that the Jamaica debt exchange has brought Jamaica some breathing room, but that our interest costs as a percentage of revenue are still extraordinarily high (approximately where they were pre-crisis), although the payment schedule is vastly improved. There is still an advocacy role for the UK in terms of actual debt relief to create additional fiscal space, and to encourage UK investment in Jamaica for the benefit of both countries.