Caribbean gov­ern­ments and peo­ples need to heed the sol­id eco­nom­ic ad­vice be­ing of­fered by the Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (ECLAC). It is a sure means of the re­gion be­ing able to come out of the neg­a­tive im­pact that COVID-19 has had, and the ex­is­ten­tial threat be­ing posed by cli­mate change.

The im­per­a­tive came from ECLAC Ex­ec­u­tive Sec­re­tary Jose Manuel Salazar Xiri­nachs at last Fri­day’s 21st Mon­i­tor­ing Com­mit­tee meet­ing of the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment and Co-op­er­a­tion Com­mit­tee (CD­CC).

The pro­gram­mat­ic out­line of Salazar Xiri­nachs is not new; it is di­rect­ed at Caribbean gov­ern­ments seek­ing to boost slug­gish growth in for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment in tourism, green en­er­gy, dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies and agri­cul­ture.

“The sub-re­gion needs to build a strat­e­gy that up­grades and di­ver­si­fies these sec­tors to en­hance their ca­pac­i­ty for in­te­gra­tion in­to glob­al val­ue chains, sub­sti­tut­ing for im­ports where economies of scale and ef­fi­cien­cies per­mit,” ad­vised Salazar Xiri­nachs.

To ad­vance the change need­ed, Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley and Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­to­nio Guter­res “have in­vest­ed their con­sid­er­able in­flu­ence and lead­er­ship in pro­mot­ing glob­al con­sid­er­a­tion of how we re­form the debt re­struc­tur­ing ar­chi­tec­ture,” Salazar Xiri­nachs not­ed.

The com­ments and ad­vice are giv­en in the Caribbean re­al­i­ty of a fall-away in the much-need­ed for­eign in­vest­ment and bor­row­ing; the ex­port of vi­tal for­eign cur­ren­cy need­ed here at home; and growth in the debt bur­den, which, ac­cord­ing to ECLAC, av­er­ages 75 per cent of the gross do­mes­tic prod­uct of the re­gion. That is com­pound­ed in T&T by the pur­chase of for­eign food sup­plies which now an­nu­al­ly amount to the an­nu­al av­er­age sum of US$5 bil­lion.

At the con­fer­ence, the For­eign Min­is­ter of Suri­name Al­bert Ramdin, who is al­so CD­CC chair­man, ad­vised re­gion­al gov­ern­ments to fo­cus their for­eign cur­ren­cy bor­row­ing on pro­duc­tive in­vest­ment, rather than oth­er forms of ex­pen­di­ture which do not de­rive re­turns to re­pay the debt.

ELAC’s sug­ges­tions con­cern­ing de­vel­op­ing and ex­pand­ing the economies and sta­bil­is­ing the re­gion al­so re­late to the oth­er ma­jor prob­lem haunt­ing parts of the re­gion, run­away and very vi­o­lent crime splurges. Youth un­em­ploy­ment av­er­ag­ing 25 per cent in sev­er­al Caribbean coun­tries is said to be a con­tribut­ing fac­tor to the so­cial plague, Salazar Xiri­nachs not­ed.

The above eco­nom­ic plan­ning ad­vice giv­en by the ECLAC of­fi­cial re­quires large quan­ti­ties of po­lit­i­cal will. The im­per­a­tives for change are be­ing dri­ven by forces which have al­ready im­pact­ed, and are mount­ing to ar­rive again at the con­flu­ence of the At­lantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Pa­cif­ic Ocean, all joined in­to and wash­ing the is­lands and con­ti­nen­tal lands which make up the Caribbean.

Find­ing and im­ple­ment­ing so­lu­tions to new prob­lems com­pound­ing old ones, and the sense of a clos­ing and un­re­lent­ing time frame to take ac­tion must be con­front­ed. The trans­for­ma­tion of the present re­al­i­ty in which the peo­ple of the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean live can­not be ig­nored; it must not be left to an­oth­er gen­er­a­tion.

The con­se­quences of liv­ing in the past are bear­ing down on our Caribbean lead­ers, and ques­tions are be­ing right­ful­ly asked about whether they are up to the task of dy­nam­ic and trans­for­ma­tive ac­tion.