Robert Buddan, Contributor

Conscientious social movements have been trying to revive the social agenda for democracy, governance, and development in the midst of market triumphalism of the past decades. At the World Social Summit in Copenhagen in 1995, world leaders reached a consensus to put people at the centre of development and pledged to conquer poverty. The Beijing Conference on Women, also in 1995, produced a Plan of Action for women's empowerment.

Also in that year, a Caribbean symposium on poverty, empowerment, and social development was held to establish a new social agenda for Caribbean policy and research in the post-structural adjustment period.

In 1997, UNICEF was successful in getting the IMF to adopt the slogan 'structural adjustment with a human face' to recognise the importance of social budgets and social protection. In 2000, countries of the world adopted the U.N. Millennium Development Goals to eradicate extreme poverty by 2015.

The IMF is being asked to catch up with the kind of thinking that social development must go hand in hand with economic development and the World Bank now seems more aware of this. Its recent findings confirm that crime poses heavy social and economic costs uponCaribbean societies. It is more prepared to encourage lending institutions to support youth and inner-city projects that will complement crime-control policies.

Jamaica's social agenda

Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller puts it clearest, saying, "Unless we deal with the social development of the majority of our people, there can be no sustainable economic growth." Government did sustain its commitment to the poverty reduction programme and the poverty rate was cut in half between 1995 and 2005. And, Government has embarked on an ambitious programme to transform the educational system.

Now, there is a determination to invest more in children. Marjorie Newman Williams and Fabio Sabatini explained why this was so at the 1995 Caribbean symposium. They said, "If child-centred policies were put in place for even a single generation, there would be less to do in the next because fewer of these children would as adults be unable to cope with their own families." They would also be more able to cope in society generally.

Government will spend more on early childhood education this year.

The Early Childhood Commission is leading a public education and consultation process towards early childhood policies and towards a national parenting policy. A special curriculum is being developed for the first time for children under thre years old. More trained teachers are being placed at basic schools in all parishes.

Caregivers will have to be certified and early childhood institutions will have to be registered. A national nutrition programme for early childhood institutions is being implemented. A child and adolescent hospital will be established in western Jamaica. A comprehensive national plan of action is being implemented and international organisations such as UNICEF and the World Bank are lending support.

The Prime Minister announced these initiatives in her budget presentation of May 1, which we celebrate Child's Month.

She is determined that the plans for early childhood development be sustainable and are not reversed. She believes that the programme will contribute towards building stronger families and a stronger nation, one more ethical and productive.

The Family Agenda

This is a continuation of a social legislative agenda that goes back to the Domestic Violence Act (1996), Property (Rights of Spouses) Act (2003), Child Care and Protection Act (2004), and Early Childhood Education Act (2005). Other legislation to come include, the Child Pornography Bill, the Obscene Publication (Amendment) Bill, and the Sexual Harassment Bill. These, of course, build on three critical legislation of the 1970s: The Status of Children Act, The Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, and The Maternity Leave with Pay Act. In addition, the Office of the Children's Advocate has recently been established.

These children and women's legislation express the policy on the Jamaican family. They express the Prime Minister's philosophy that 'every human being is valuable, and in a democratic society, should have fair access to opportunities for self-development.' This fits consistently with the social philosophy behind the movement that has revived the social agenda of which she and her close advisers have been a part.

Indeed, the United Nations adopted the position in 1987 that development is a human right. The development of the human being begins at birth. The new rights-based movement (and new human rights approach) holds that poverty is a denial of human rights, including the rights of children. It holds a view that the rights of the human person exist from birth to death, not just the human rights of the adult person. For instance, the right to vote is a right enjoyed by adults 18 and over. The rights of the child are rights that begin at birth.

Social governance

Advocacy of children and family rights are consistent with community governance since this is where the family's circumstances are immediately determined. As the African proverb goes, 'It takes a village to raise a child'. The Prime Minister has said, "I have always advocated a community-centred approach to development, focused on building people's capacities and initiatives for their own emancipation as the way forward."

There is an unfinished agenda to fulfil to make social governance sensitive to people. There is no doubt that public sector modernisation has improved governance. However, the revived social agenda calls for a new sensitivity of governance to people-centred issues.

Professor Norman Girvan and colleagues identified a problem of Caribbean governance that they referred to as bureaucratic paternalism. This is a style of governance where people are told, not asked; asked but not given; given but not given equally or fairly; given but not with a choice; given after making requests repeatedly; promised but not served; kept waiting; not being involved in decision making; being asked after the decision has already been taken; being involved but not taken seriously; not having the same opportunities for involvement; making efforts but not seeing the effect; developing hope in someone or an office, only to be let down.

Exist among all service

To one degree or another, these problems exist among all service providers at local and central Government and in public and private sector. In fact, some are worse in the private sector because customers are hardly asked or involved in decisions. The problems of bureaucratic paternalism will never all go away because they are natural to bureaucracies to one or another degree. Some of our institutions are very good but not all of them are. Yet, the Prime Minister will have a tough task to be seen as people-friendly if the administration that she heads is not seen to be. Her government's policies will not be people sensitive if the government agencies are not.

The social agenda must continue to evolve alongside a political agenda that makes social, economic, and political solutions interdependent and so mutually re-enforcing. The real challenge for governance, as the past has shown, is that onecannot concentrate on one aspect while ignoring the others. Balanced governance is needed in order to balance people's lives.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, Mona, UWI. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm.