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Two Lectures: The Role of Academia in National Development Planning (March, 2021)

In 2019, I had the privilege of serving as a Guest Speaker during the UWI Research Days and the 6th University of Technology (UTech), Faculty of Education and Liberal Studies’ Annual Graduate Students Conference. The topics covered were the role of academia in national development and promoting partnerships for development, specifically as it relates to Vision 2030 Jamaica and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The demands for adaptation, innovation, and agility in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic have led me to reflect on those two experiences and the dialogue around the role of academia in supporting national development planning for social and economic recovery and accelerated growth. In this article, I will revisit some of the key points from the lectures delivered at the two events with a focus on the role of academia in national development. I will incorporate lessons learned since then as well as considerations regarding COVID-19.

In the two lectures, I spoke to the role of academia in advancing development within the context of Jamaica’s country experience in the design and implementation of Vision 2030 Jamaica and the integration of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – in Jamaica’s national development process. The response from faculty, students and other stakeholders was aligned with the position of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ). It reflected a common belief that academia, like our partners in the private sector, civil society, and other segments of the development community, is a critical player in ensuring that Jamaica’s development is sustainable, equitable, inclusive, and driven by the creativity and innovativeness of the Jamaican people. We at the PIOJ recognize that development fuelled by advancing the higher forms of capital – human, institutional, cultural and knowledge – requires partnership and collaboration across cultural and geographic boundaries. Academia occupies a pivotal position in the arena of national and global partnerships for development. Academic scholarship and disciplines reflect the historical and cultural evolution of development perspectives and institutions as well as the products of global alliances and the interactions among and within nation states. Academia provides common language, concepts, and perspectives that development practitioners have utilized to develop global agendas, such as the 2030 Agenda, which articulate shared values and principles.    

The engagement of academia in efforts towards national development has been long established. It can be readily traced to the writings of ancient philosophers and the advancement of rationalism and science as the approach to the study and explanation of society towards the achievement of orderly development. The ideas, research, and social critiques of academia laid the foundations for the establishment of modern democracy, economic and trade ideologies, the rise of environmental sustainability as a central tenet of development, and a range of organizational models geared towards redefining and shaping global value chains and maximizing productivity and profits through the development and protection of human capital. These form strategic underpinnings of national and global plans for sustainable development and inclusive growth.

Academia and academic institutions are also responsible for tertiary socialization and creating environments and exposure to ways of thinking—and ways of thinking about thinking (metacognition). They also develop and disseminate the applied methods and tools that help us to unpack ideas otherwise taken for granted about ourselves and those around us. In so doing, we synthesize the mass of information on who we are and the nature of the world we live in to develop clearly defined variables that can be studied and then reassembled in theories and models that drive development. Our exposure to academia should prepare us to work collaboratively – help us to hone the skills to collaborate, innovate, and creatively steer our interactions away from zero-sum games and impasses. 

Academia, including faculty and students, has played an indispensable role in providing knowledge-based and revolutionary fuel in the development of independent nation-states. Caribbean academia has been central in articulating the Caribbean identity, its social structure and institutions as well as its evolution and growth. Many of the graduates of regional and national tertiary institutions have made indelible marks in Jamaica’s public and private sectors, civil society and non-governmental spheres. The graduates of these institutions are among the Jamaicans who serve in prominent leadership positions in regional and international organizations, advancing shared development goals. They are also part of the Jamaican diaspora that has made significant contributions to the development of Jamaica and the countries in which they reside.  

As an economist and development practitioner, I have first-hand knowledge of the applications of the fruits of academic labour in national development. Academia played a pivotal role in shaping the 21-year Vision 2030 Jamaica – National Development Plan (NDP) and continues to play a key role in Plan implementation. It has also played a key role in the integration of the SDGs in the implementation of Vision 2030 Jamaica. Members of the academic community were part of the country delegation to deliver Jamaica’s 1st Voluntary National Review (VNR) to the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development in 2018. 

Academia has contributed data, statistics, and information on multi-dimensional national development performance as well as regional and global trends. It has informed research, assessments, and capacity building towards improvement in the implementation of Vision 2030 Jamaica. It has produced theories and methods for statistical analysis and economic modelling and forecasting/projections on indicators such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The recognition of the importance of these to macro- and micro-economic planning, even within our family budgets, is evident from the demand for the information from the PIOJ’s Quarterly Press Briefing, which presents data on economic performance and projections for economic growth (GDP). Data and economic modelling and forecasting inform planning for the national budget, including budgetary allocations, estimates of expenditure and projections regarding revenue. The interaction between data production and statistical analyses represents the synthesis of the outputs of academia, private enterprise, public sector, and civil society action. Academia provides the tools to combine demographic, actuarial and management sciences with applied research utilizing administrative, survey and other forms of data. These inform a myriad of analyses and data related outputs, including demographic trends and projections, spatial mapping, and market research.

The application of the sciences to mapping and explaining the structure of the COVID-19 and post COVID-19 world requires a re-examination of the assumptions that underpin theories, formulas, and models regarding the following, among other areas:

  • Epidemiological and demographic trends and the relationship with public health, social organization, and governance
  • Economic value chains, including demand and supply chain dynamics and the “future of work”
  • Balancing the relationship between the financial sector and real sector (economy) towards inclusive economic growth, evident in areas such as financial inclusion and equity in access to capital and markets
  • Social protection throughout the life-course that is inclusive
  • Environmental management
  • and Inter-sectoral risk reduction, resilience, and adaptation

 

We live in a technologically driven age of globalization fuelled by the applications of technology-related theories that have influenced global logistics, transformed value chains and more open access to information. This globalization is also media-driven, including social media that relies not only on the application of technology but also on theories on groups, networks and communities that are part of the framework of algorithms that create “online” connections and groups. COVID-19 has created what many assume are enduring impacts on social interaction. Whilst technology and media are helping to shape these interactions, it is the evolving explanatory theories that will be employed to reshape the demand for and applications of technology, and the algorithms that inform online connections and categorizations/groupings. 

The recommendations that were posited in the 2019 lectures have been updated to reflect lessons learned and considerations for COVID-19: 

  • Academia has a recognized duty to advance scholarship and expand the knowledge base while critically examining the functions of our institutions, including government, for both explanatory and prescriptive purposes.
  • Academia is critical to the processes of innovation, discovery, and creation – and is central to not only identifying public health but also governance and planning solutions to the challenges presented by COVID-19.
  • Academia should support open access to a repository of scholarly work that can support the development of a society and economy that relies on the higher forms of capital – cultural, human, knowledge and institutional.
  • Academic programmes (education and training) should support certification in skills and competencies and technical expertise in areas that are globally competitive and will capitalize on Jamaica’s comparative advantage. The design and structure of post-secondary and tertiary education should be responsive to population dynamics, including migration trends, to ensure adequate numbers of skilled personnel to meet national development needs. It should also be responsive to the demands of the global market and the unique opportunities available to Jamaica.  
  • Academia can contribute to improving data, statistical and information systems, digitalization, and information literacy. This extends beyond the technology-based tools for collecting, processing, analysing and storing/warehousing and mining of data. It includes the methods for producing quality data, statistics and information, and digitalization. It also includes the theories and concepts that will be applied in building information literacy and the skills to identify contextual relevance, validity and reliability in data and information.  
    • The need for continuous and quick access to valid and reliable data has increased within the constantly changing nature of the post-COVID society. I challenge academia and our students, in particular, to develop relevant methodologies and technology-based tools for engaging informatics, and “big data”, statistical programming and other elements of data science within the context of small island developing states (SIDS).  

 Students are strategically positioned to engage academic scholarship with fresh perspectives and critically question the application of such scholarship in addressing our most pressing development challenges. I encourage students to innovatively reframe our development problems so that they can be easier solved with consideration for our strengths and constraints. 

In spite of COVID-19, Jamaica remains on the path to a sustainable future. We are committed to the implementation of Vision 2030 Jamaica and the SDGs. We continue to seek innovative solutions to the novel problems presented by COVID-19 as well as long-standing structural challenges. Academia has an important role to play in capitalizing on the opportunity that has been presented, to emerge from COVID-19 better equipped and with a stronger resolve to support the sustainable development of Jamaica for the equitable benefit of all. Let us all continue to work together to make “Jamaica, the place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business.”

 

Delivered By: Wayne Henry, CD, JP, PhD.

Director General, Planning Institute of Jamaica

March 2021

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