WASH­ING­TON—The In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) says it is help­ing Ja­maica pro­mote in­no­va­tion growth and en­tre­pre­neur­ship ecosys­tems by pro­vid­ing a US$50 mil­lion con­di­tion­al cred­it line.

The Wash­ing­ton-based fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion on Tues­day said that the first in­di­vid­ual op­er­a­tion for US$25 mil­lion will pro­mote sus­tain­able and ro­bust growth among star­tups and Mi­cro, Small and Medi­um En­ter­pris­es (MSMEs) in Ja­maica.

“Ja­maica’s pro­duc­tiv­i­ty growth and in­no­va­tion chal­lenges re­quires a long-term vi­sion of iden­ti­fy­ing and pro­mot­ing high-growth po­ten­tial op­por­tu­ni­ties, as well as flex­i­bil­i­ty to ac­com­mo­date to the rapid­ly chang­ing tech­no­log­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment that is af­fect­ing the pri­vate sec­tor glob­al­ly,” the IDB said.

It said the project aims to pro­mote in­no­va­tion and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty among es­tab­lished MSMEs with high growth po­ten­tial; pro­mote sus­tain­able growth in scal­able star­tups; and cre­ate a sus­tain­able pipeline of high-growth po­ten­tial star­tups.

“This will al­low MSMEs to use in­puts and fac­tors in more pro­duc­tive ways (im­prov­ing pro­duc­tive process­es, cre­at­ing new prod­ucts, and adopt­ing more ef­fi­cient tech­nolo­gies, among oth­ers), en­abling faster growth,” the IDB said.

Therese Turn­er- Jones, IDB coun­try rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Ja­maica and gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Coun­try De­part­ment Caribbean Group (CCB), said “new busi­ness­es make an econ­o­my more vi­brant.

“This in­jec­tion of funds will help build Ja­maica’s en­tre­pre­neur­ial ecosys­tem, un­leash the cre­ativ­i­ty of the peo­ple, and con­tribute to eco­nom­ic growth as well as im­prove the lives of Ja­maicans,” she said.

The IDB said the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the project will be MSMEs, scal­able star­tups, new star­tups with high growth po­ten­tial and en­tre­pre­neurs with sus­tain­able busi­ness ideas, “who will re­ceive tech­ni­cal and fi­nan­cial sup­port to ac­cel­er­ate op­er­a­tions and tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance to scale-up ser­vices (out­reach to mar­kets, men­tor­ing and gov­er­nance, among oth­ers).”

The IDB said the pro­gram will cap­i­talise a Side­car Fund pro­vid­ing match­ing grants for ven­tures that are sup­port­ed by “an an­gel in­vestor,” ac­cord­ing to the De­vel­op­ment Bank of Ja­maica Lim­it­ed Ven­ture Cap­i­tal and Pri­vate Eq­ui­ty In­vest­ment Pol­i­cy.

The Ven­ture Cap­i­tal Fund will be man­aged by a Fund Man­age­ment Firm, se­lect­ed through a com­pet­i­tive process, the IDB said.

In ad­di­tion, it said the project will ben­e­fit pub­lic and pri­vate in­sti­tu­tions that con­form the in­no­va­tion and en­tre­pre­neur­ship ecosys­tem, such as in­cu­ba­tors, ac­cel­er­a­tors, busi­ness sup­port ac­cel­er­a­tors, acad­e­mia and tech­no­log­i­cal trans­fer of­fices, “that will be strength­ened with the pro­gram.”

The IDB said the pro­gram – which will in­volve in­no­va­tion in emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies such as Man­u­fac­tur­ing 4.0, elec­tron­ics, ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, big da­ta, cy­ber se­cu­ri­ty and biotech­nol­o­gy, among oth­ers – will be pri­or­i­tized, as well as sub-projects with po­ten­tial to solve prob­lems in ar­eas such as cli­mate change and gen­der in­clu­sion and di­ver­si­ty.