Gov’t to resume National Poverty Reduction Programme

KINGSTON, Jamaica — The government is to reinstitute the National Policy on Poverty and National Poverty Reduction Programme which has been inactive since 2007.
A Green Paper tabled in the House of Representatives on Thursday by the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation says that the two together constitute government’s response to the need for a systematic and accountable framework to implement, coordinate, and monitor measures to address poverty and vulnerability.
The programme, and accompanying policy framework, has been in effect since 1997. It is administered through the Programme Monitoring and Coordinating Unit (PMCU) of the Office of the Prime Minister.
The PMCU ceased functioning around 2007.
The policy and programme aims to eradicate extreme poverty by 2022, and reduce the national prevalence of poverty to less than 10 per cent by 2030.
The eradication of extreme poverty will be targetted within the first two medium-term programmes (2015-2018 and 2018-2022). Within the medium-term poverty programmes, specific targets will be set for each goal. Focus will be placed on disaggregation by sex, geographic area, and age cohorts, where feasible.
The first goal is extreme (food) poverty to be eradicated by 2022; and the second is for national poverty prevalence to be reduced significantly below 10 per cent by 2030.