Inner City Basic Services For The Poor Project (ICBSP)

The ICBSP is funded by a US$29.3 million loan from the IBRD with counterpart funding of US$3.5 million from the Government of Jamaica (GoJ), making a total project cost of US$32.8 million. Loan Agreement No. 4819-JM was signed on May 4, 2006 and became effective ninety days thereafter with a Closing Date of December 31, 2011. The project is implemented in twelve pre-selected inner city communities in Kingston, St. Andrew, St. Catherine, St. James and Clarendon.

The table below lists the twelve pre-selected inner city communities by parish 

	Parish	Communities	Intervention
	Clarendon	Bucknor
	St.Catherine	Central Village
		Tawes Meadows
		March Pen (Africa)
		Dempshire Pen/Jones Pen
		Lauriston
		Knollis (Bog Walk)
	Kingston & St.Andrew	Jones Town
		Federal Gardens
		Whitfield Town
		Passmore Town/Browns Town
	St. James	Flankers

The project design centered around the GoJ identifying inner city renewal – with a focus on crime and violence prevention – as a key priority. It was conceptualized within the context of the development of a comprehensive inner city renewal programme which aims to provide a general framework for integrating the dimensions of human, social, economic and environmental development of inner city communities. The project is, therefore, structured with three components as follows:

Component 1: Access to Services

• Basic infrastructure comprising integrated network infrastructure in project areas for water, sanitation, drainage, secondary and tertiary roads, community centres, recreational facilities. Also the installation of community garbage skips, replacement of zinc fencing with alternative perimeter fencing; street lighting and regularization of illegal electricity connections.

• Access to financial services which facilitates access to microfinance services in project areas for productive purposes and incremental home improvements. This is done through performance-based service contracts aimed at creating incentives for existing financial institutions to provide microfinance services in project areas.

• Land tenure regularization which finances the implementation of a pilot land titling initiative and technical assistance for the preparation of a national policy on squatter management and informal urban settlements

Component 2: Public Safety Enhancement and Capacity Building

• This finances integrated packages of consultant services, training and technical assistance focused on both short-term mitigation and conflict resolution and medium-term social prevention and capacity enhancement interventions.

• In particular, this subcomponent finances the delivery of violence prevention services in social prevention areas including mediation and conflict resolution; alternative livelihoods and skills development; family support programmes such as Bridge Jamaica ; youth education and recreation; and Community-Based Organization (CBO) capacity building.

Component 3: Project Management

This finances consultant services, training, goods and operating costs for project management and administration.

Selection of Benefitting Communities

The selection of project communities was carried out by an inter-agency panel comprising the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), the Ministry of National Security, the Social Development Commission (SDC) and JSIF. The aim of the selection process was to ensure that high priority areas with respect to public safety were given preference.

The communities were chosen using stringent criteria and taking into consideration communities where there is greatest need. The criteria used for selecting the communities were:

• Poverty levels
• Access to household water connections
• Crime and violence characteristics (levels and ability to intervene)
• Strength of community-based organizing
• Tenure considerations associated with the settlement