The pleasure is mine to bring greetings on behalf of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), this the seventh staging of the Annual Best Practice Symposium. The Symposium is hosted by the PIOJ through its Community Renewal Programme (CRP) in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF), Ministry of National Security (MNS), and the Social Development Commission (SDC). The theme that will guide our discourse today is “Towards Community Renewal: Coherence in Coordination”.

Each year, the symposium is used to highlight what are considered to be best practices in community development as we, as a country, seek to optimise the use of our limited resources, to address the multiplicity of challenges that face us, in our efforts to restore our volatile and vulnerable community spaces. READ MORE