Editorial | Tweak, relaunch Vision 2030

When the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) next reports on the island’s progress towards its Vision 2030 goals, it must do more than recite bland percentages of what has been achieved and what is yet to be done. Instead, the agency should translate the data (to outline) their effects on people’s lives and, therefore, what the shortfalls in specific areas will mean to individuals and communities.

At the same time, the Government should relaunch Vision 2030, with, where necessary, adjusted timelines and a communication strategy of more than a nice catchphrase, but including honest public reviews of implementation and outcomes, involving stakeholders and communities. The aim must be a sustained public buy-in for the project, and to limit cynicism.

Although its development began before then, Vision 2030 was launched as a 20-year strategy to transform the island’s social and economic environment, leading by 2030 to Jamaicans:

• Having an internationally competitive economy;

• Living in a secure and cohesive society;

• Enjoying a healthy natural environment;

• Boasting a high level of human capital development; and

• Benefiting from greater opportunities for social and economic mobility and prosperity.

Highlight specific deliverables

In its promotional literature, the PIOJ, Vision 2030’s coordinating agency, says the development plan “is geared towards engaging all Jamaicans and development partners in the process to achieve and benefit from sustainable and inclusive development”.

Most Jamaicans, we suspect, have an idea of Vision 2030’s existence, expressed in the notion as making Jamaica a developed country by the year 2030. The majority can probably recite its slogan of making Jamaica ‘the place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business’, which are aspirations that this newspaper fully embraces and endorses.

However, very few Jamaicans, other than technocrats in government ministries and agencies, and a few specialised organisations, are likely to know, or remember, what are the specific deliverables under the programme. And until The Gleaner raised the question in July, ahead of Jamaica’s 60th anniversary of Independence in August, there was no public accounting of achievements.

Of course, anyone with the base data can calculate whether non-traditional agricultural products are on track to account for approximately a fifth of all exports by 2030, and whether the target of 11 per cent was achieved seven years ago. The latter didn’t happen. And 13 years since the launch of the plan, and eight years before 2030, it is highly questionable if the former will be achieved.

Indeed, there is little sign of the agricultural sector experiencing the programme’s projected “sustained, research-oriented, technological, market-driven and private sector-led revolution which revitalises rural communities, creates strong linkages with other sectors and emphatically repositions the sector in the national economy”. Moreover, the improved labour productivity in the economy expected by Vision 2030, such as a four per cent per capita output in manufacturing by 2015, continues to be elusive. The long-term trend of an annual one per cent decline in national productivity continues.

The positive development, however, is that the PIOJ recently reported that two-thirds of Vision 2030’s targets are on track or have been met. But what these are, and how they are impacting people’s lives, is not clear.

Information of this type, including the one-third of targets that lag, should be routinely reported and otherwise made available to all Jamaicans, in a format that is easily accessible and in language that is easy to grasp.

Indeed, this undertaking should be incorporated in the PIOJ’s design of its new evaluation strategy, for the PIOJ’s director general, Dr Wayne Henry, says the agency is seeking technical assistance.

Relaunch Vision 2030

Additionally, Prime Minister Andrew Holness should relaunch Vision 2030, with a platform for an ongoing, honest conversation about its targets, achievements, shortfalls and adjusted deadlines. The absence of this kind of dialogue has contributed to the cynicism that threatens to overtake the ideals of Vision 2030: of making Jamaica the place of choice to live, work, do business and raise families.

This aspiration, and our failure to achieve specific targets, cannot be divorced from a development such as the current exodus of experienced Jamaican teachers from the island’s classrooms for jobs abroad. That is why real meaning has to be given to the idea of engaging all Jamaicans in the process of delivering on the promises of Vision 2030.