Martin Henry

OUR PATHS first crossed over the Five-Year Development Plan for 1990-1995. The second Manley government had assembled a large number of task forces to produce another five-year development plan. I was already working with the Science and Technology Task Force. Lloyd, a leader on the Community Develop-ment Task Force, needed an editor for their work. His good friend, Dr. Heather Royes, who knew me from when we both did work for the Scientific Research Council, recommended me.

Economist Dr. Lloyd Wright had walked away from university lecturing in the United States and a stint in the Jamaican diplomatic service, serving in Mexico, to devote himself to his passion: rural development. In later years, as he reconnected with his religious roots and cultivated his spirituality with as much passion as his pursuit of rural development, the city boy was never tired of retelling the story of his 'miraculous' return to his mother's country, the 3M area of North Manchester.

Lloyd hadn't been there for years when the urge came upon him to reconnect with his rural roots. On his way from Kingston to the Medina, Maidstone, and Mayfieldarea of Manchester, he broke his rule not to pick up strangers and picked up three passengers who flagged him down for a ride. One of them was a clergyman going to preach at the very place Lloyd was heading for! This had to be a sign from a then distant God that he was doing the right thing!

Out to change the world

Lloyd created the development agency, Projects for People (PFP), went to learn cheesemaking in the United States and started the 3M cheesemaking project for farmers in the 3M area.

Lloyd talked loudly and moved fast. He was out to change the world. And he was going to rope in anyone who could be remotely useful in his ventures. In later years, he took to email and the airwaves to communicate his development message to all and sundry and lobbied the movers and shakers.

When, as NGO representative, he was elected to chair the board of the Environ-mental Foundation of Jamaica, which was being set up with debt relief savings from the Government of the United States in '92/'93, he tapped me to help write policies and guidelines for the foundation.

He knew it was not the 'wise' thing to do, but Lloyd raided his retirement fund anyway to advance his ventures. As we tossed ideas around on the phone or at his Queen Hill house, he would often say he would if he could afford it, hire me on secondment to work on the plans we were hatching!

State neglect

In many ways, Lloyd's life is a metaphor of the unrealised prospects of development in Jamaica. He shared the ideals of Norman Manley, only to see so many of them frustrated. The reliance of his Projects for People on external funding support and the subsequent collapse of that NGO reflect the country's unsustainable reliance on aid and loans for development. It was Lloyd who was most responsible for my induction into the NGO community and he was, for many years, a key player in the Association of Development Agencies. The whole field, not counting the flourishing HIV/AIDS agencies, has shrunk to a shadow of its formerself and entire development agencies like his own PFP, have disappeared, as external funding has dried up with no local means of sustenance.

The state neglect of rural development, and, later on, concerns for urban decay were sources of distress - and stimulus - for Lloyd, blessed with boundless energy and optimism. Even in sickness, in between email accounts of Captain Kemo to his rescue as he went through cancer therapy in Florida, were fresh development ideas and plans. One of Lloyd's dreams, which we shared, was to create an advocacy think tank to push development issues.

His last wish was to die in Jamaica. And he barely made it. He came back from Florida on a stretcher on the national airline Air Jamaica, of course, on Saturday, July 14. He died just a few hours later at 3:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. His daughter Ghenete raided his email address book and got in touch with scores of his roped-in accomplices in development. We laid him to rest last Thursday. May his passion and ideas for development, especially rural development, live on.