Jamaica development and infrastructure

Analysis

The Road Not Repaired: How Two Decades of Debt and Disaster Left Jamaica’s Physical Foundations at a Crossroads

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Before Jamaica can debate its economic future, it must reckon with its physical past. The roads, railways, water mains, power lines and port facilities that connect this island nation carry not only goods and people but the accumulated weight of two decades of oil shocks, IMF austerity, political experiment and a hurricane that, in forty-eight hours, destroyed more infrastructure than the government could rebuild in years. What Jamaica enters 1995 carrying — in damage, deferred maintenance, debt and delayed investment — may be the most consequential inheritance any Jamaican government has faced.