Welcome to the JICA Saint Lucia Office website!
Saint Lucia is a small island country in the Caribbean Sea with a land area of approximately 620 sq km (about the same as Awaji Island) and a population of approximately 180 000.
The country's name is said to derive from the fact that the day Columbus is said to have 'arrived' in the country was the feast day of Saint Lucia, famous for the Italian folk song 'Santa Lucia'. The temperature is mild and the country is tropical in nature. The twin 'Piton Mountains' in the south-west are a famous World Heritage Site, which also feature on the national flag.
More recently, Julien Alfred, who won the women's 100 m at the Paris Olympics in August 2024, became famous as the 'gold medalist of a small island nation'.
Surrounded by beautiful sea and nature, Saint Lucia attracts a large number of tourists every year but is also challenged by an economic structure that is over-dependent on tourism. In addition, the country faces a number of challenges, including frequent disasters stemming from climate change, declining and degraded marine living resources, fossil fuel-based energy supplies and non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
JICA has provided technical cooperation, facility improvement and human resource development to Saint Lucia, mainly in the fields of disaster prevention, environmental management and fisheries.
The Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV), who are familiar to Japanese people, are now a major pillar of cooperation in Saint Lucia, with more than 270 people having been dispatched to date. The Saint Lucia Office will make the most of the human networks and relationships of trust fostered through such cooperation to contribute to the building of social infrastructure and sustainable economic development.
There are many island states in the Caribbean. These Caribbean countries, including St Lucia, share common challenges, which are also being addressed through the framework of regional organisations such as the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).
It is also possible to share knowledge with small island states in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, which share common challenges as small island states. The Saint Lucia Office will contribute to the development of the Caribbean region as a whole, in collaboration with the Dominican Republic Office, which has jurisdiction over these countries, and other JICA offices around the world.
Now that you have read to the end, we hope that you have developed an interest in Saint Lucia and the Caribbean. I hope you will take the next step and think what you can do in your company, university, NGO, municipality and as an individual to contribute to development cooperation.
JICA will continue its activities based on the vision of “Leading the word with trust” based on your ideas.
JICA Saint Lucia Office
Resident Representative
TAKATA Hirohito
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