National Community Development Project (NCDP)

The National Community Development Project (NCDP) was funded by a US$15 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), with counterpart funding from the Government of Jamaica (GoJ) to the tune of US$15.1 million. The total cost of the project amounted to US$30.1 million. Loan Agreement No. 7148-JM was signed by the IBRD and the GoJ October 31, 2002 and became effective on January 29, 2003, with a Closing Date of December 31, 2007. The Closing Date was subsequently extended to June 30, 2008.The NCDP was designed within the context of Jamaica suffering from the effects of several adverse external events, such as the impact of post-September 11; decline in tourism earnings; low demand for Jamaica’s exports and internal events such as floods; high unemployment; poor access to basic services, and crime and violence. The project also sought to fulfill the two-fold objective of (i) helping communities in the most affected areas, by providing basic services and temporary employment opportunities, and (ii) assisting the Government of Jamaica in its efforts to promote greater social and community development, especially among the poor. The Project was successful at providing social and community development infrastructure in order to improve the standard of living among the poor and to create an environment for sustainable national development and included the following components:

• Social infrastructure sub projects consisting of the rehabilitation, expansion or construction of schools, health centres, day care centres, homes for children, the elderly and the disabled, community centres, sports and recreational facilities and community-based water supply systems.
• Economic infrastructure sub projects including the rehabilitation of urban access and feeder roads as well as the rehabilitation and/or construction of community-based agro-processing facilities.