Reports

Financial inclusion is a key element of poverty reduction and inclusive development. In seeking to improve citizens’ well-being and increase economic growth, financial inclusion enables individuals and businesses to build resilience and capitalize on economic opportunities. Notwithstanding these benefits, there are barriers to expanding access to and usage of the four functionalities that…

Education plays a critical role in national development, at individual and societal levels. The disruption wrought by the pandemic ought to be reviewed, analysed, and understood so as to provide evidence-informed policy solutions to the resulting complex, critical problems that Jamaica faces. This report provides an evidence- informed account of what has happened to education, and to children, in…

COVID-19 pandemic’s principal impact on Jamaica has been hundreds of deaths, tens of thousands of people infected, and a disruption of livelihoods and the economy that has brought the greatest economic decline since the country started measuring it. Fifty-seven percent of Jamaican households saw a reduction in income between the onset of the coronavirus in March and September 2020, and some 40,000…

Before March 2020, the global tourism industry was in a pre-pandemic boom with continued growth projected for the Caribbean region. Categorised as one of the largest and fastest-growing economic sectors in the world, the tourist industry is acknowledged as a powerful catalyst for Social-economic development. In 2019, the sector contributed, directly and indirectly, a third of the region’s GDP.…

Jamaica’s children are in need of more and more available, specialized, and consistent mental health services. Most mental disorders that afflict adults have their genesis in childhood and adolescence. The first five years of life are the most critical with regard to brain development, including the development of emotional control and habitual ways of responding. Directing investments and efforts…

Despite the financial investment in social interventions for at- risk youth over the last several decades in Jamaica, the extent to which those interventions are effective is questionable as there has not been a noticeable nor sustained impact on the high rates of youth involved violence. Anti-violence interventions over the world, such as those that target at-risk youth to change their behaviour…

The socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Caribbean are non-neutral, affecting some persons and entities more than others, with vulnerable groups including children, youth, women and girls, the poor, informal sector workers and small businesses, being among the hardest hit. To curb the rapid transmission of the disease Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) – full and partial…

The COVID-19 pandemic and response have wrought widespread changes in employment levels, household income, measures for keeping children safe, and daily life at the household and community level. Globally there are indications that the pandemic has led to an increase in certain types of violence. Given Jamaica’s pervasive violence problem, this trend raises concerns, and so ascertaining what impact…