Daraine Luton, Staff Reporter

Coordinator of the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NPEP), Lolita Knibb-Phillips, said her agency will soon be adopting a bottom-up approach in a bid to eradicate extreme poverty in Jamaica.

During an interview with The Gleaner on Tuesday, Poverty Eradication Day, Mrs. Phillips said very shortly, the Government's anti-poverty programme will include greater consultation with the public.

"We (the NPEP) hope to have more participation of the public. We are looking to, very soon, do some public consultation so that we can get the ideas of persons and communities, she said.

Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, in her message observing Poverty Eradication Day, noted that "over the past nine years, there has been a steady decrease in poverty generally, as is seen in the reduction from 16.9 per cent in 2004 to 14.8 per cent in 2005".

Careful planning required

The Prime Minister added that "this gap, however, needs to be closed and require careful planning and better distribution of resources among our most disadvantaged groups".

Like the Prime Minister, Mrs. Phillips said while the statistics are encouraging, there remains a lot to be done in poverty eradication.

"We are not satisfied. We are cognisant of the fact that there remains a lot more to be done. There is the argument that the figures are a bit different from the reality. We are cognisant of the fact that there needs to be a lot more done and that what we need more than anything else is to see the reality more on the ground," Mrs. Phillips stressed.