Hazards take J$100b toll on Jamaica
Published:Friday | October 8, 2010 | 12:00 AM
In the past two decades, the cumulative damage from natural disasters has wiped out more than 80 per cent of GDP, Jamaica's top economic planner said this week, as he called for more focused attention on human security and safety.
Dr Gladstone Hutchinson, director general of the Planning Institute of Jamaica, says floods and storms and other disasters have cost Jamaica more than J$100 billion between 1988 and 2008.
Much of the fallout, he said, is linked to unplanned development, pointing to the plethora of informal settlements in hazardous areas that put both property and lives at risk.
Since 1907 - the year of a massive earthquake - more than 1,500 lives have been lost due to natural disasters.
"While some of the damage might have been unavoidable, much of what was wreaked on housing settlements, in particular, was the result of security risks that are perennially taken in the establishment of informal settlements by economically deprived individuals across the country," said Hutchinson, a speaker at the 14th annual general meeting of the Jamaica Social and Investment Fund, held on Monday in Kingston.
"Urban drift, largely by job seekers, has contributed to the creation of large, unregulated slums in and around our cities. This has resulted in the accumulation of uncollected piles of solid waste and to the exposure of residents to unhealthy living environments."
JSIF, through public-private partnership, facilitates community development through projects, such as schools and other social infrastructure, meant to help alleviate poverty in rural and low- income urban areas.
The agency manages a portfolio of US$101.2 million, and has disbursed approximately J$1 billion on projects at various stages of the project cycle. Some 47 infrastructure projects were completed and turned over to communities last year.
"Jamaica is highly vulnerable to weather and earthquake hazards. Poverty and human insecurity worsens our vulnerability," said Hutchinson.
Hurricane Ivan alone caused damage reported at approximately J$37 billion in 2004.
More recently, Jamaica is counting the losses from flood rains brought on by Tropical Storm Nicole in the final days of September, which has reportedly claimed at least 13 lives and eroded, at last count, J$11-12 billion in public assets and commerce.
For more than a decade, Jamaica has been trying to regularise the informal settlements that are found throughout Jamaica, the most renown programme being Operation PRIDE.
Currently, a community renewal programme is being developed with the aim of making informal settlements more secure.
The programme, in which JSIF has a key role, will address poor housing, poor infrastructure, weak community governance and lack of coordination of social intervention programmes, said Hutchinson.
"Significant progress has been made and we are well on our way to putting in place the framework to make a lasting difference in these communities, in the areas of community empowerment, safety and economic sustainability," he said.