The Government has formally requested the international community, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, bilateral development partners, climate finance platforms, and multilateral development banks, to assemble a reconstruction support package that scales with Jamaica’s ambitions and needs.

Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness made the disclosure during a statement to the House of Representatives on Tuesday (November 25), where he provided an update on his attendance at the recent G20 Summit in South Africa.

Holness informed that the support package includes concessional loans and grants earmarked for resilient infrastructure, sustainable agriculture, including poultry and dairy, citrus and hydroponics, and for the automation of the agricultural sector.

At the G20 Summit, I engaged with Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank, to discuss Jamaica’s economic recovery, resilience-building, and development priorities. pic.twitter.com/wSl6AmJoeF

— Andrew Holness (@AndrewHolnessJM) November 23, 2025

The package also includes debt service relief and restructuring options to protect the country’s fiscal space and sustain growth.

He noted that the reconstruction support package will include “technical assistance through technology transfer for agriculture and other industries that we’re seeking to develop, and for the risk insurance and contingency financing instruments linked to climate change and natural disaster, an area which Jamaica is the prime example of how this is done and utilised”.

Holness informed Parliament that his administration has already mobilised approximately US$650 million (J$100 billion) for immediately available resources via pre-planned and prearranged disaster risk financing framework.

“At the same time, we have access to more than US$500 million through the rapid financing facility of the IMF. But I emphasised that our multiyear reconstruction effort will require substantially more support than these amounts alone can deliver. The loss is estimated at US$8.8 billion. However, a portion of that would be private losses covered by insurance. It is estimated, therefore, that there would still be a gap of approximately US$5 billion, which the Government would need to fund,” he explained.

“We have approximately US$1 billion, thereabouts, that we can allocate towards the reconstruction. So, we still need to find US$4 billion. How do you get this? You have to get out there in the international community. You have to bring your case to the world leaders. You have to ensure that the international capital markets see that you’re not going to only rely on their resources, that you can also have even greater support from the international financial institutions,” he added.

He further stated that this helps “to make a stronger case, and that is what we have done. The G20 Summit was a convenient place to meet all the leaders in one event”.

Holness said that by engaging proactively in the G20 and on the margins with major partner countries and institutions, Jamaica is asserting its voice in global economic governance, especially as a middle-income, small island developing state facing climate risks.

“Our emphasis on disaster resilience, sustainable agriculture, aligns neatly with Jamaica’s stated vision of leveraging technology, artificial intelligence, and automation within our agricultural sector, but not just within agriculture, within logistics, manufacturing, in everything that we are doing. And so, we are positioning Jamaica as the country that is embracing of technology and making ourselves not just the poster child of fiscal resilience but the poster child of economic resilience in the face of a disaster,” he argued.

The prime minister said that the bilateral talks with Brazil, India, France, South Africa, and Nigeria signalled Jamaica’s intent to broaden its external partnership beyond traditional donors.

Holness further informed of talks with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who will be sending an advanced team to Jamaica to come and see how they can assist.

“I suspect that the result of that will be a core of engineers that will come from Rwanda to assist with our reconstruction. The same thing will happen with Ghana,” he said.

Meanwhile, Holness said that in the weeks ahead, the government will prepare and circulate, to all partners, the detailed Jamaica reconstruction and resilience programme document, including costing, phasing, governance structures, environmental and social safeguards and expected impact in terms of job productivity and technology adoption.

“We’ll convene a partner donor round-table virtually and then in person to formalise the international support package with a view to securing commitments by the end of the first quarter of 2026,” the prime minister noted.

“Then we will commence with the first initial tranche of early action projects under our framework to demonstrate momentum, accountability and value for money to our partners as well as to the Jamaican people and to ensure that Jamaica’s disaster risk financing architecture is fully leveraged and our fiscal framework remains prudent and that all assistance aligned with our national development priorities and climate resilience goal,” he added.