By Latonya Linton
KINGSTON, Jamaica, (JIS) – The Social Development Commission (SDC) will continue to implement programmes and initiatives, aimed at strengthening the local economy for the 2026/27 fiscal year.
Executive director of the SDC, Omar Frith, made the disclosure on the JIS television programme ‘Get the Facts’, recently.
“At the top of the agenda for the new financial year, we want to continue to strengthen the local economy. We want to continue to provide access to grant funding for local economic enterprises. In the financial year [2025/26], we would have assisted over 300 local economic enterprises with over $8 million in grants,” Frith added. “So, we are looking to do a similar allocation this year to approximately 350 other such local economic initiatives. So, we’re encouraging those nano-enterprises, whether you have a corner shop, whether you are a barber, reach out to your SDC parish office to see how you can benefit from one of those grants.”
Frith also mentioned that the Commission wants to strengthen its participatory governance framework.
“We want to ensure that more people are volunteering and contributing to decision-making at the community level. So, we [also] want to ensure that we are providing more access to training and development of community-based organisations to ensure that youth are also engaged and continue to be strong volunteers,” Frith said, noting that for this financial year, the SDC will also focus on staff development.
“While we are taking care of the country, we have to take care of the staff, and we have been going through a very important transformational and organisational restructuring,” Frith said. “We want to continue to build the capacity of our staff to deliver excellent service, but we also want to improve our plans, improve our physical buildings, so that our staff can work in an environment that makes them more productive.”
The SDC is the principal community agency working with Jamaica’s 775 communities. Its approach to community development is in line with international best practices where communities are involved in identifying and designing strategies aimed at improving their quality of life.