Page 117 - JSIF Magazine Approved-v2-web4

Social Partnership
for Electricity
Regularization
By Dane McLean, Project Officer, JSIF
Background
A partnership between the Jamaica Social Investment Fund
(JSIF) and the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) Company has
shifted the paradigm in community renewal and electricity
regularization in Jamaica. The partnership emerged as a result
of the difficult and often hostile relationship between JPS and
residents in low-income communities, where electricity theft
was prevalent.
After many failed attempts at curtailing the problem including
the infamous May 2014, ‘lock off’ of electricity in selected
communities, JSIF was approached by the Government of
Jamaica (GOJ), to lead the first public/private partnership of its programmes that have helped to break the cycle of distrust
kind aimed at addressing electricity regularization.
True to its mandate of ‘community development’, the JSIF
partnership with JPS that has redefined the approach to
electricity regularization. The communities which once proved
difficult for the utility company to operate in, have now become
more embracing
The JSIF Approach
JSIF’s twenty-year history in community development made
the Fund a natural partner in an electricity regularization
programme targeting some of the most underserved and
marginalized communities. Within these communities, JSIF
has long-running development projects aimed at improving
both the physical and human capital, spanning improvement
in the quality of access to basic infrastructure such as roads,
schools, and community spaces. These targeted investments
have allowed JSIF to build
tremendous Social Capital within
these communities.
With JSIF’s mandate of building
sustainable communities, significant emphasis was placed on
community safety, security, and equitable and quality access to
utility and other basic services. This objective underpinned the
partnership with JPS.
The first of three MOUs with JPS was signed in 2014. Over
three years, JSIF has been able to develop a suite of social
which had previously characterized the relations between the
utility providers and these communities.
Under the agreement, over 2,000 households now have the safer
and more reliable provision of electricity through the upgrading
of their community distribution network and JSIF’s provision
of domestic house wiring. To ensure inclusion, JSIF partnered
with USAID and JPS in piloting the adoption of an innovative
technology called the READYBOARD, which has allowed
households that were too fragile to receive conventional house
wiring, to access safer electricity.
The READYBOARD is a device that allows all the standard
components of a circuit to be placed on a single platform and
installed in the households, thus allowing the residents, to
access electricity. Residents have also signed up for ‘Pay-as-
you-go’ service, which seeks to address the issues of inability
to manage consumption/afford electricity bills.
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