Building Montego Bay's Foundation for Data-Driven Government
Paul Bèl Kay supported Montego Bay's participation in the Bloomberg Philanthropies City Data Alliance, helping translate international learning into a practical citywide data strategy and resident-focused improvement programme.
St. James Municipal Corporation | Bloomberg Philanthropies City Data Alliance | June 2024–February 2025
Violet Palmer served as a City Lead for Montego Bay, alongside Dr. Joan Dove, supporting programme coordination, municipal engagement, strategic development and delivery of the programme's required outcomes.
The Opportunity
Montego Bay entered the City Data Alliance at an important stage in its institutional development.
The city needed stronger systems for governing, securing, sharing and using data, as well as greater internal capacity to apply evidence to public-service delivery and municipal decision-making.
The programme created an opportunity to establish these foundations while testing data-driven problem-solving against a live resident challenge.
The Programme
Over eight months, the Montego Bay team participated in executive education, peer learning, specialist workshops and more than twenty coaching sessions supported by the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center for Government Excellence. The work examined municipal data practice across five pillars:
The team then applied these principles through a Resident Impact Data Project focused on understanding vendor needs and identifying more effective approaches to food safety, sanitation, livelihoods and the street-vending environment.
A Resident-Centred Shift
The initial problem framing focused primarily on vendor compliance and food-safety enforcement.
Research and early stakeholder engagement revealed that sustainable solutions also needed to address vendors' operating conditions, access to facilities, customer traffic and ability to maintain their livelihoods.
The project therefore shifted from a compliance-led approach to a more balanced, resident-centred model that considered the needs of vendors, the municipality, residents and visitors.
The Citywide Data Strategy
The engagement culminated in a comprehensive citywide data strategy supported by an implementation activity plan.
The strategy defines sixteen priority actions to be pursued over three years, with assigned ownership, milestones and target timeframes.
Its recommendations strengthen the foundations for secure information management, record digitisation, improved data infrastructure, stronger governance practices and more consistent use of evidence across municipal operations.
The Outcome
Montego Bay completed the programme with a structured roadmap for becoming a more data-informed municipality and joined an international network of cities using data to improve outcomes for residents.
As Jamaica's first participating city and one of the early Caribbean participants, Montego Bay also created a foundation that can inform data-modernisation efforts across other Jamaican local authorities.
Programme Led By
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