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“Taking
Responsibility” is an inclusive, independent research
program based at the University of the West Indies, Mona
Campus, that has already begun to ignite the imagination
of cutting-edge Jamaican researchers – being the
largest and most comprehensive undertaking of its kind
in the country’s history. To date, the Project has
activated an interdisciplinary research
team of the leading scholars on the Jamaican economy,
here and abroad, and mobilized young Jamaicans around the
world eager to use their learning to advance their country.
It is also a home for partnership among the private sector,
non-governmental sector, government and the research community
to definitively assess the successes and failures of the
post-independence Jamaican model.
Our overall goal is to provoke informed dialogue and policy
changes in light of the upcoming general elections and beyond.
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Tangible
Output
Tangible
output of the work
will be:
1. Complete report
answering critical
questions and practical
recommendations
to move forward
2. An energizing
and engaging Mass
Communications
program to ensure
the contents of
the findings are
inserted into the
national dialogue,
thereby creating
a ferment of discussion
around policy choices
for Jamaica.
3. Ongoing Primary
research.
4. Promotional
programs.
5. Weekly articles
in the local newspaper, ‘The
Gleaner’.
6 . Final Project
report. |
Importantly,
the success of the Project to-date has laid the
basis for the establishment of a permanent Think
Tank, whose responsibility it will be to monitor
the implementation of the policy recommendations
of the ‘Taking Responsibility’
Project, conduct new and relevant development research
focused on Jamaica in the first instance and other
Caribbean islands eventually.
A
public forum discussing the findings of the project was
held on December 7th at Emancipation Park, Kingston Jamaica.
The presentations are available for download:
Speech
Power
Point presentation
A
Working Paper was presented at a meeting in Montego Bay
on February 22.
The paper is available for download:
Working
Paper
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 February
22,
Montego Bay, St. James Jamaica
Working
Paper
December
7, 2006
Emancipation Park, Kingston Jamaica.
Speech
Power
Point presentation
Corruption
in Jamaica
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The
Research Questions |
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“Taking
Responsibility.” is grounded in the following research
areas:
What
impact has Jamaica’s post-independence leadership had
on the course of the country’s development?
What
have been the elements of the social
psychology of underperformance in the
island and what is the effect on development?
Has
Jamaica’s post-independence institutional
framework and administrative capacity been
beneficial, detrimental or inconsequential to the country’s
development? Has corruption been unusually problematic
in Jamaica’s post-independence development?
How
did the external
economic and political environment affect
Jamaica’s post-independence economic development?
To
what extent did political
coalitions account for the policy choices
made in Jamaica? Has Jamaica’s pattern of income-
and wealth-distribution and natural-resource endowment
been helpful or hurtful to the country’s post-independence
development? Does the diaspora have any effect at all on
the country’s development?
IIs
Jamaica’s crime-rate exceptional?
What has been its impact on economic performance?
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