After more than eighteen years in power, Jamaica's People's National Party (PNP) last week lost the General Elections, signalling the re-entry into power of the Jamaica Labor Party. For those of us with an interest in gender equity, this could immediately seem like a backward step, given the fact that the PNP's loss also means the loss of Jamaica's first ever female Prime Minister, Portia Simpson-Miller. It also raises more pressing concerns in this area, as we wait to see how the newly elected government will move forward on gender issues.

Historically, many of the more notable achievements in the gender equity in Jamaica have come under the PNP government. Issues such as HIV/AIDS, adolescent sexuality and gender-based violence have more forcibly come into the global policy arena during the PNP's almost twenty year rule, thereby shaping national policies which have had to speak – even if only in passing – to those and other related areas. The fact is that the Jamaican Labor Party does not have such a history and it is therefore up to the new governing party to determine how, and if, they will move forward with these and other sexual and reproductive health issues.

Real and urgent issues face the incoming government, most of which have not been given the same airtime in political debates as have issues such as economic growth and political mismanagement. One such issue is adolescent sexuality. The policy focus on adolescent sexuality typically revolves around teenage pregnancy and rates of HIV infection amongst this group. In Jamaica, teenage pregnancy has rightfully been identified as a core area for concern, with links being made between adolescent pregnancy rates and the "feminization" of poverty. According to a 2006 UNICEF report, adolescent mothers account for approximately 20% of all births in Jamaica, with only 34% of them returning to school after giving birth to complete their education. This accounts for a significant section of the potential labor force that remains uneducated, impacting not only the cycle of poverty, but related areas such as sexual health, as many women enter into unhealthy sexual relationships in order to provide for themselves and their families.

Interestingly, despite its focus on the economic empowerment of the population and, by extension, Jamaica, the JLP in its' Manifesto makes no mention of adolescent sexuality, thereby missing a significant link between adolescent sexual health and the economic and social development of the country.

It therefore remains to be seen whether the newly elected government will sustain or improve upon previously implemented projects such as the Improved Reproductive Health of Youth Project, which was developed in an effort to create youth-friendly adolescent health care services.

In the meantime, activists and interest groups in Jamaica will need to remain watchful and increasingly vigilant to pressure the government to explore the link between economic growth and social development, underlining the fact that the sexual and reproductive health of Jamaican women and men is not solely a health care issue, but a development issue.

Some in Jamaica would likely suggest that it is the dawn of a new day for the country, it remains to be seen therefore if it will look anything like yesterday did…or if it will be worse.