Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora & Returnee Update — | Q2 2004

Quarterly Update | April–June 2004 | Jamaica Homes News

Key Takeaways: Q2 2004 in Six Lines

• 1st Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference launches a new institutional era
• Thousands of overseas Jamaicans gather in Montego Bay this June
• Abu Ghraib scandal deepens diaspora unease over Iraq war trajectory
• European Union expands to 25 nations; Caribbean community watches migration
• Ronald Reagan dies June 5; diaspora reflects on Cold War Caribbean legacy
• Returnee property investment reaches new peak on conference momentum

A Founding Moment: The 1st Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference

The single most significant event in the institutional history of the Jamaican diaspora took place this quarter. The 1st Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference, held in Montego Bay in June 2004, brought together thousands of Jamaicans living abroad — from the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and across the Caribbean region — with senior government ministers, JAMPRO investment officials, property developers, academics, civil society representatives and business leaders for three days of plenary sessions, working group discussions, and networking that many described as unlike anything the community had previously experienced.

The conference was conceived by the Jamaican government under Prime Minister P.J. Patterson as a formal acknowledgement of what policymakers had long known but insufficiently acted upon: the Jamaican diaspora is not a peripheral community sending remittances from afar, but a central pillar of the Jamaican national economy, culture and social fabric. Remittance flows alone — now approaching US$1.5 billion annually — exceed most categories of export revenue. The skills, professional networks, capital and entrepreneurial energy of the half million or more Jamaicans in the United Kingdom and the three-quarters of a million in the United States represent a national asset that has been engaged informally for decades and is now being engaged formally and institutionally for the first time.

The conference drew participation from diaspora organisations that have existed for decades, from individual professionals attending for the first time, and from a new generation of younger Jamaicans abroad who see the island not as a place their parents left but as a place they might invest in, return to, or support in targeted and purposeful ways. The energy in the convention centre was, by numerous accounts, electric. To see the scale of Jamaican talent, ambition and love for home assembled in one place — from nurses in Birmingham to software engineers in Silicon Valley, from restaurateurs in Toronto to finance professionals in New York — was to understand viscerally the depth of the resource that Jamaica has in its global community.

The working groups produced substantive outputs covering investment facilitation, diaspora financial instruments, skills transfer, returnee support, youth engagement, and cultural diplomacy. JAMPRO presented a new diaspora investor programme designed to streamline the process of establishing businesses in Jamaica for those living abroad. The National Housing Trust briefed attendees on proposals to extend benefits to diaspora contributors — Jamaicans who paid into the NHT before emigrating or who wish to make voluntary offshore contributions. These proposals, while not yet legislated, represent a major step in recognising the diaspora’s role in Jamaica’s housing economy.

The conference is to be held biennially, with the next gathering scheduled for 2006. Between conferences, sectoral committees and diaspora advisory groups will maintain the momentum, feeding recommendations to government and tracking progress on commitments made in Montego Bay. For those who attended, the Biennial marks a before and an after. The Jamaican diaspora has always been there; now it has a formal home in the architecture of the nation’s development strategy.

Abu Ghraib and the Shadow Over Iraq

The publication in late April of photographs showing US military personnel abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq caused revulsion across the diaspora community and far beyond. For many Jamaicans in the United Kingdom who had marched against the Iraq war in February 2003 — in what were the largest demonstrations in British history — the Abu Ghraib images confirmed their worst fears about the consequences of that invasion. Tony Blair’s continued support for the war, despite the collapse of the WMD justification and now the prisoner abuse scandal, has further eroded his standing among Caribbean-British voters who had previously been loyal Labour supporters.

In the United States, the Abu Ghraib scandal has dominated domestic politics through May and June, overshadowing everything except the June 28 handover of nominal sovereignty to an Iraqi interim government. Jamaican Americans, already uneasy about the direction of US foreign policy, have been following the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings and the broader debate over accountability with close attention. The Abu Ghraib images and their political fallout will shape the November presidential election in ways that diaspora voters — predominantly Democrat-leaning — are already factoring into their political calculations.

European Union Expands to 25 Nations

On May 1, 2004, ten new nations joined the European Union, including Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states. The expansion is the largest single enlargement in the EU’s history and has immediately raised questions about labour movement within the bloc. Citizens of the new member states now have the right to work in the United Kingdom — a right the Blair government chose not to restrict, unlike most other existing EU members. For Jamaican-British workers in labour markets like cleaning, care, hospitality and construction, the anticipated influx of Eastern European workers introduces a new competitive dynamic.

Community organisations are monitoring these labour market shifts carefully. The British government’s decision to extend work rights immediately to new EU citizens, while not doing the same for many Commonwealth nationals, has been noted with some bitterness in Jamaican-British circles, where the historical relationship between Jamaica and Britain sits uneasily alongside contemporary immigration rules that treat Jamaicans as outsiders in a country many families have called home for two or three generations.

Ronald Reagan Dies; Caribbean Reactions Are Complex

Former US President Ronald Reagan died on June 5 at the age of 93, after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. The outpouring of tribute from American political figures was enormous, and global leaders offered their condolences. For the Jamaican diaspora — particularly those in the United States who lived through the Reagan years — the legacy is more complicated than the eulogies suggest. The Reagan administration’s Caribbean Basin Initiative of 1983 brought some trade benefits to the region, but Reagan’s support for the 1983 Grenada invasion, while welcomed by some, was controversial across Caribbean political opinion. The administration’s tough line on immigration and its cutting of social programmes affected Caribbean-American communities in ways that are still felt. The community’s response to Reagan’s death is respectful but not uncritical.

Returnee and Investment News: A Conference Bounce

Estate agents in Kingston, Montego Bay and the north coast report that the period immediately surrounding the Biennial Conference produced a notable spike in diaspora property enquiries and purchases. Conference attendees who had been thinking about a return to Jamaica for years were, in many cases, tipped into action by the three days of presentations and conversations in Montego Bay. Several diaspora-oriented property developers organised site visits and open days around the conference schedule, and a number of units were reserved directly as a result. The pipeline of diaspora investors interested in Jamaica has not been this deep for years.

Beyond property, the conference has accelerated interest in business investment. JAMPRO’s new diaspora investor facility, launched at the conference, has already received a strong initial response, with enquiries spanning agriculture, food processing, tourism technology, creative industries and professional services. The Ministry of Finance is expected to announce details of a diaspora bond instrument before the end of the year, which would offer overseas Jamaicans a government-backed investment vehicle with returns linked to Jamaica’s economic performance. If well-designed, this could channel a meaningful proportion of diaspora savings — currently deposited in UK, US and Canadian banks at low interest — directly into Jamaican national development.

The coming quarters will test whether the energy and commitment generated at the Biennial can be sustained. The track record of diaspora conferences elsewhere in the Caribbean and the wider developing world is mixed: some have generated lasting institutional change, others have been one-off moments that faded quickly. The Jamaican government has signalled its seriousness through the calibre of ministerial engagement and the concrete policy proposals tabled at the conference. The diaspora community’s response — in investment, in skills transfer, in sustained political advocacy — will determine whether this founding moment lives up to its promise.

Jamaica Diaspora & Returnee Quarterly Update — Edition 90, covering April to June 2004. Published by Jamaica Homes News on 2 July 2004.

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