Canada and the Caribbean have a historical friendship that is strong and abiding. Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD) is an integral part of this relationship, working in partnership with the Caribbean region on the priorities the region has set for its countries.
The Caribbean has identified the need to address the security risks that crime poses to sustainable economic growth. To deliver on this priority, Canada’s development program is assisting governments in the region to advance the rule of law and strengthen legal institutions so they can counter rising crime and maintain law, order and personal security.
To this end, the Government of Canada today announced the following initiative:
- Citizen Security and Justice Program ($20 million over five years): This project seeks to improve security and justice for people in crime-prone communities in Jamaica. Some project activities include:
- providing training in conflict resolution, healthy parenting and gang interruption techniques to community members;
- setting up community action committees to implement safety plans, promote positive citizen-police relations, and ensure government services are better coordinated at the local level;
- making job skills and entrepreneurship training more accessible for vulnerable groups, particularly at-risk youth and women; and
- increasing access to justice for people, especially women and children, by providing victim-support services, dispute resolution, and public education on justice-related rights and services, and by diverting children from the courts and incarceration into reintegration programs.
The project is implemented by Jamaica’s Ministry of National Security using loan funds from the Inter-American Development Bank and grant funding from Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada as well as the UK’s Department for International Development.
Our support for these initiatives advances Canada’s Strategy for Engagement in the Americas and its three goals of: increasing mutual economic opportunity; addressing insecurity and strengthening institutions; and fostering lasting relationships.
Canada has made the justice sector a priority in the Caribbean. In Jamaica, Canada has also been helping with the country's Justice System Reform Agenda through the Judicial Undertakings for Social Transformation project (ongoing until 2016). This project enlists the support of Justice Canada to assist the Jamaican courts, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution, the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, the Legal Reform Department, the Attorney General's Department, and the Ministry of Justice in an ambitious set of systemic reforms aimed at helping Jamaica achieve its national goal of achieving a more secure and just society.
For more information on how the Government of Canada is helping in Jamaica and in the Caribbean, please visit Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada’s website, The Americas: Our Neighbours, Our Priority and Panorama.
