“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18) This statement from the Bible is given credence, particularly within corporate entities whose leaders yearly engage in an elaborate strategic planning process, including setting direction, establishing targets, identifying gaps in performance and opportunities for improvement, outlining strategies and actions, and monitoring and evaluating. The process begins with common agreement around a carefully considered vision statement.

By today’s best practice, budgeting, putting dollars to the plan, is secondary. This departs from the traditional practice in which the budget is given pre-eminence. In parliamentary democracies like Jamaica the annual budget debate, especially when the minister of finance speaks, grips the attention of the nation more than any other single government action.

More and more countries are planning like corporations do, that is, giving precedence to vision and how one achieves the desired outcomes for issues like how much it’s going to cost, whether it can be afforded, and how to make up for shortfalls in financing. Jamaica is among those countries trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to escape the budget vice through its Vision 2030 and supporting National Development Plan.

The national vision statement, covering 21 fiscal years, 2009 t0 2030, is: Jamaica, the place of choice to live, work, raise families, and do business. The plan is structured around four national goals, 15 national outcomes, 31 sector plans, 84 national strategies, and 75 indicators used to measure the nation’s progress toward developed country status. Vision 2030 Jamaica is said to be 98 per cent aligned to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, which it predates and to which Jamaica is a signatory. Impressive on paper. What is not so impressive is the implementation.

In a media brief on August 18, 2022 director general of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) Dr Wayne Henry described the level of achievement against Vision 2030 targets this way: “Based on the outcome indicator and target framework, the country’s development progress under successive three-year medium-term socio-economic policy frameworks (MTFs) has been mixed.” He went on to give the following breakdown:

• 17 per cent of the Vision 2030 Jamaica targets were met or exceeded

• 47 per cent of indicators showed some improvement over the baseline year

• 32 per cent of the Vision 2030 Jamaica indicators showed no improvement or worsened, and

• 4 per cent of the indicators could not be compared due to lack of agreed targets and/or data.

Not a good scorecard in the 60th year of Jamaica’s Independence.

The root cause of the underperformance on this and international benchmarks, such as the Human Development Index (HDI), on which Jamaica remains stuck in the second quartile among the world’s nations, is complex. To simplify it, one could say budgeting or bookkeeping is given precedence over visioning and executing. Put another way, balancing the budget is accorded more importance than balancing lives.

In an essay published in the Democracy Journal, Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council and assistant to the president for economic policy under presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, identified three interlocking pillars that define economic dignity for the populace. These are:

1)The opportunity within an economy for people to care and provide for their families and enjoy the incalculable joys that come from playing that role.

2)The opportunity for people to develop their potential and pursue their God-assigned purpose in a full and productive life.

3)The opportunity afforded people to participate in the economy through inclusion and without domination, humiliation, and exploitation.

A budget that does not uplift people, especially those at the bottom of the social and economic pyramid, by giving them economic dignity is not worth the time that goes into its preparation or the paper on which it is printed. We have a long way to go in this country before the average citizen feels that the advancement of his/her interests, and not just balancing expenditures against revenue and growth in gross domestic product, is the primary goal of the budget.

A necessary step in that direction is to elevate Vision 2030 to strategic importance. Replace the monarchical Throne Speech with a “state of the nation” address by the prime minister based largely on the country’s performance against Vision 2030 targets. Following a month or two after, the budget would essentially serve as a resource plan to finance critical human, environmental, social, and related development outcomes.

How many times have the words Vision 2030 come out of the mouths of successive ministers of finance in the annual budget debate? The PIOJ’s Review of Economic Performance, April-June 2022, treated this vital aspect of Jamaica’s road map to the future as an afterthought, an appendage to the fiscal report. This dismissive attitude on the part of policymakers and development leaders toward the vision of a better future must change if Jamaica is to ever achieve its immense potential.

Henley Morgan is founder and executive chairman of the Trench Town-based Social Enterprise, Agency for Inner-city Renewal and author of My Trench Town Journey — Lessons in Social Entrepreneurship and Community Transformation for Policy Makers, Development Leaders, and Practitioners. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or hmorgan@cwjamaica.com.