There remains much to be done to ensure optimal coherence among the plans. The pressures around the annual budget and its associated medium-term macroeconomic plan have tended to override the requirements of the other plans. For several decades, Jamaica’s governments have focused on stimulating economic growth, and hoped that some of the benefits would accrue to the poor. Yet the economy has only been able to achieve an average growth rate of less than 1 per cent per annum for the past 40 years, and the decline in poverty during the 1990s and early 2000s is generally attributed to the decline in the rate of inflation and the growth of remittances.