European Union Banana Support Programme: Infrastructure Improvement Project for Traditional Banana Growing Communities Programme

The Infrastructure Improvement Project for Traditional Banana Growing Communities is funded by a 1,156,000 euro grant from the European Union Banana Support Programme Rural Diversification Programme with counterpart funding of 289,000 euro from the Government of Jamaica (GoJ), making a total project cost of 1,445,000 euro.

 

The Infrastructure Improvement Project for Traditional Banana Growing Communities seeks to enhance the Government of Jamaica’s (GoJ) rural development efforts and will facilitate improvement in the key sectors of education and transportation.

 

More specifically, the intervention is aimed at improving access to basic social infrastructure, namely agricultural feeder roads and schools. Hence the projects proposed to be implemented under this programme include six road projects comprising 12.7 kilometres of roadway and the expansion of a school. Specifically they are;

  1. Moore Town Road Rehabilitation, Portland

  2. Bellevue Road Rehabilitation, Portland

  3. Duncan’s Pen / Windsor Road Rehabilitation, St. Catherine

  4. Maryland Road Construction, St. Catherine

  5. Preston Land Rural Feeder Road Rehabilitation, St. Mary 

  6. Retreat Primary & Junior High School Expansion, St. Mary 

The Infrastructure Improvement Project for Traditional Banana Growing Communities will be implemented over a two-year period which began on December 24, 2008 and slated for completion December 23, 2010. During this period, JSIF will work closely with stakeholders such as community groups, government agencies and non governmental organizations to ensure compliance with established JSIF standards.

 

The overall European Union Banana Support Programme Rural Diversification Programme project is being implemented under the auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture and executed by the Rural Agricultural Development Agency (RADA) with funding from the European Union (EU). To date, the EU has awarded grants totaling 4,360,423.39 euro to six organizations to carry out one project each.