PROPPED UP FOR POLLS
Corporate Jamaica stepping up as USAID freezes funding for CAFFE election monitoring
Published:Wednesday | April 9, 2025 | 12:10 AMEdmond Campbell/Senior Staff Reporter
With financing from a key international funding agency recently coming to a halt, Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE) says it is banking on corporate Jamaica to support its plans to monitor the general election due this year.
Several local companies are stepping up to the plate to fill the void created when the Donald Trump administration froze United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funding to several non-governmental and governmental organisations around the world, including CAFFE.
Grace Baston, chairman of CAFFE, said her organisation is aiming to recruit at least 1,000 volunteers to monitor the national polls this year, an increase over relatively modest numbers in the last few general elections.
Depending on the number of volunteers the election watchdog is able to muster, its budget could run between $10 million and $20 million. The biggest ticket item for CAFFE is the stipend that is given to volunteers at the end of the exercise.
The election watchdog is buoyed by its experience in the February 2024 local government elections, where it successfully recruited and deployed about 400 volunteers to monitor the voting process.
When informed that USAID funding would not be forthcoming to assist in its election monitoring this year, Baston said CAFFE reached out to its private sector partners.
In making a pitch to corporate Jamaica, CAFFE underscored the extremely valuable service it offers in helping to ensure that elections are run according to the Representation of the People Act. It also emphasised the role CAFFE is playing by getting young people involved in the process, to reduce voter apathy among that demographic.
“If you can convince a dozen teenagers to leave their homes on election day, especially if they are studying for exams, if you can convince them that they should be at a polling station from 6:30 in the morning and remain there until up to 7 p.m., observing, recording and reporting, you are attacking the debilitating voter apathy that characterises so many of our young people,” she told The Gleaner.
Many of CAFFE’s volunteers are drawn from the sixth-form cohort in high schools across the country.
Commenting on the response up to this point from players in the private sector, Baston said Mayberry Foundation has been “extremely helpful”
She said companies such as Stewart’s Automotive, Supreme Ventures, WISYNCO and the JMMB Foundation have been generous in their responses to the organisation’s call for assistance.
“It was great to have funding from foreign sources. However, I think what this is doing is calling us to answer for ourselves. Are we serious about our own democracy? Are we serious about its protection and preservation?” she asked.
Baston said that over decades, CAFFE has demonstrated that it can efficiently, competently, fairly and transparently monitor elections as it seeks to preserve the integrity of the electoral process.
“We want to be able to ensure that, after an election, Jamaicans are confident that the process was fair, that the results truly reflect the will of the people,” she said.
“We know the EOJ (Electoral Office of Jamaica) is doing a good job, but we watch the EOJ as well,” Baston added.