Overview

As agreed by the FRC Steering Committee, work will proceed towards the development of an edited volume focused on Jamaica’s fiscal consolidation experience in the last decade. The intention would be to highlight the conditions that led to economic vulnerabilities in the decades leading up to the 2010s, with a view to identifying weaknesses and conditions common to counties across the Caribbean, as well as small island developing states (SIDS), and others across the world. The volume will also undertake a detailed and holistic investigation and accounting of successful efforts, conditions that supported them, as well as challenges and failures along the way. Emphasis will be placed on the less obvious mechanisms that enabled success, including reforms of institutions of economic policy (monetary, exchange rate, fiscal, and public sector transformation), capacity building and technical assistance required to implement reforms, as well as innovative efforts to develop and sustain a public consensus in support of reforms—e.g., the creation of an Economic Policy Oversight Committee (EPOC) and other means of engaging the public and civil society. The volume aims at both shedding light on more obscure and less well-understood facets of the reform process, including how Jamaica dealt with Covid19 and  vulnerability in general,   as well as laying out a roadmap towards the unfinished dimensions of the reform process in Jamaica, that will be required to transition from stabilization to faster and more inclusive growth. Importantly, the overarching goal of the effort is to provide insights for policymakers in other countries and regions interested in replicating Jamaica’s success. 

 

Outputs

An edited volume of about 12 plus chapters, a joint collaboration of  the IDB and UWI-FRC, under the aegis of the UWI press. Editors will lead the effort, including the identification of authors for individual chapters (some already identified). This will include UWI affiliated researchers, IDB staff, staff of the IFSD, and other experts with direct knowledge of the reforms undertaken over the previous years. 

In addition to the volume, it is expected that several of the constituent chapters (or extended versions thereof) will also be released as standalone publications (e.g., papers and monographs) of the FRC. It is also expected that an event or conference will be hosted by the FRC to launch the volume, at the appropriate juncture. 

This effort has been approved by the FRC Steering Committee, and will be financed via the FRC’s own resources and an IDB technical cooperation operation. 

It is expected that the volume could be ready for publication by early 2026.