Dee Kyne walked the length of Jamaica discovering a deep sense of hopelessness among the people. She believes the island nation needs to cast off the shackles of the IMF and World Bank

The One-Love One-Step walk at Christiana, Manchester parish, Jamaica. Photograph: Dee Kyne
This content is sponsored.
Dee Kyne

Thursday 17 September 2015 11.43 BST

Jamaica is a small country full of clever, intelligent people who are being poorly served by the world that historically shaped it. Remarkably, this painful past has somehow led to an ability for it to punch far above its weight.

In February 2015 I had the opportunity to experience first hand the mood and feeling of the people by walking Jamaica from east to west accompanied by 10 local people on the One-Love One-Step walk. We hiked from Morant Point to Negril, through the most neglected parishes over the mountains and into farming communities. This is a country full of stories and folklore and to understand the people, it is critical to listen to them.

The focus of the walk was to highlight the local issues surrounding climate change and to feel the pulse of people’s lives. We interviewed and filmed over a hundred Jamaicans talking about how they feel and what their expectations are for their future and those of their children. The only word I can distil to share with you is hopelessness. It is endemic and it is corroding the heart of this nation.
 

The One-Love One-Step walk takes in cane fields in Trelawny parish, Jamaica Photograph: Dee Kyne

The economy is built on the extraction of natural resources, sugar, bauxite, people. Most of the money earned from tourism leaves the island and a modern-day exodus is killing the country, of farm workers and chambermaids in the US and Canada, working on temporary visas doing the jobs no one else wants to do. Also a classic brain drain of the brightest and the best heading to a brighter future in more affluent countries.

Now in the third year of an IMF-backed economic programme, Jamaica is running the most austere budget in the world, with a primary surplus of 7.5%. Even Greece, which is facing a tense standoff with the IMF and European authorities over its debt, is only expected to run a primary surplus of 3% of GDP this year and 4.5% for years thereafter – and this is widely considered to be politically unsustainable.

I have seen millions of dollars wasted in Jamaica and across the Caribbean, I have also seen this happen in India when I was working there developing primary healthcare opportunities. In my experience, much of the waste is not caused by local bodies but by the organisations that provide the funding. They inadvertently wrap local people up in red tape, creating unrealistic outputs based on feeding their own need to hit internal and international targets.

Again and again I have seen fantastic local people frustrated by a system that is not designed to fit them, that is not built on their story but some self-serving development corporation that purveys a one-size-fits-all approach. These agencies then blame local people and organisations for failure. An example is the coffee industry, focused only on Blue Mountain (BM) coffee which received investment and development, both internal and external, and has led to the desertification of many small coffee farms throughout Jamaica – 80% of all BM coffee is sold to one major Japanese customer.
 

Cocoa tree planting in St Elizabeth. Photograph: Dee Kyne

There is a slow re-introduction of freshwater Tilapia farming and Cassava processing plants but they are built on crumbling and undeveloped sites because of the tragic mismanagement of the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (Finsac) and the last bighurricane to hit the island. Development money in these sectors rarely reaches the small farmer. This has led to increasing the crime andpraedial larceny rates (the theft or agricultural produce or livestock).

The time has come for a slow development movement, built on the stories and realities of local people. Last year I commissioned Uncovering Authentic Jamaica, a piece of social research, to better understand the Jamaican people and their development needs.

“People are our greatest asset. But they want to get out,” said one hotelier at Treasure Beach tourist trap. We discovered many tangible opportunities, most of which existing development agencies ignore or do not understand as they do not fit the standard model. For example, only focusing on women’s development doesn’t fit a country like Jamaica where the young men are falling woefully behind the women both in job opportunity and educational attainment. Much is left un-researched in Jamaica because it is a proud country full of patriotic people and Brand Jamaica has to be maintained.

There are good things happening and Jamaicans do have an indomitable spirit. A group of young men are changing their world and creating an eco village in the middle of Kingston and organisations such as Farm-up Jamaica are ringing slow but steady change.

Catadupa, Cockpit Country. Photograph: Dee Kyne

As all good gardeners know, it is best to water a tree at the drip line, the area under the outer circumference of the branches. This is where the tiny rootlets are located that take up water for the tree. Trees should be watered here, not at the base or they may develop root rot. Applying this thinking to development would consider how interventions are initiated at the right place at the right time. Present intervention often has a scatter-gun approach. There is a lack of robust, focused and brave investment.

If we apply “drip line” thinking to emerging economies, then we identify exactly where key interventions should be applied. Support this with an impactful business development model, increasingvalue chain share, and thinking beyond fair-trade, we could create a pivotal change.

The future is bright, but only if we work bravely to restructure debt interest payments and find a better solution for Jamaica than crushing austerity, declining living standards and growing hopelessness.

Dee Kyne is a social entrepreneur and environmentalist working to end ecocide.

Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow@GuardianGDP on Twitter.