Integrity advocates support State funding for CAFFE, but with guardrails

SOME governance integrity advocates believe that the Jamaican Government could provide a financial lifeline for Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE), but offered differing positions on how State subvention should be administered. As the electoral watchdog group continues to seek private sector assistance amid financial challenges following the withdrawal of US funding, Dr Trevor Munroe, founding director of National Integrity Action and former vice-chair of CAFFE, argued that Government funding could be a crucial source of support to its survival. Speaking with the Jamaica Observer last Monday, Munroe noted that CAFFE plays an integral role in safeguarding the integrity of Jamaica’s polls, and warned that inadequate funding could undermine the country’s democratic process.

“The recent narrowing of the funding base of CAFFE potentially weakens our citizens’ critical role in maintaining the electoral foundation of Jamaica’s democracy. It also undermines the important role that the organisation can and is seeking to play in building public awareness on the importance of voting as well as in the exercise of our other democratic rights,” he said. CAFFE, established in 1997, has monitored seven general elections, seven local government polls, and several by-elections and re-run elections.

Since 2025, however, the watchdog group has faced severe financial challenges following the Donald Trump Administration’s withdrawal of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funding from non-governmental organisations globally. The frozen funding has heightened concerns about CAFFE’s capacity to monitor future elections. “In these circumstances it is essential for Jamaica’s taxpayers to provide a budgetary allocation to help sustain CAFFE, possibly through a line item in the budget for the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ),” Munroe reasoned.

While acknowledging that ethical concerns could arise from the executive arm of government interfering in the operations of neutral bodies, Munroe argued that CAFFE’s integrity depends on its ability to maintain impartiality towards political affiliations. “For example, alertness to ethical concerns is always demanded when neutral regulatory bodies, like the NEPA [National Environment and Planning Agency] and the judiciary — the latter an independent co-equal branch of the Jamaican State — are financed…