David Jessop, ContributorA reading of the lengthy and at times opaque communiqué from the recent Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Heads of Government meeting in Barbados suggests a region close to stasis.
Its papering over of divisions on issues such as trade negotiations, air services and the administration of the proposed regional development fund; its emphasis on statements of intent and the creation of inter-regional task forces and committees; the sense of delay; and its exhortations to implement previous decisions suggest a region that is not moving at the pace at which the rest of the world is changing.
This may be unfair. It certainly ignores some of the innovative approaches adopted at the meeting, including much closer engagement with key private-sector players.
It also takes no notice of the important declaration on social well-being.
However, these views do to a significant extent reflect public perception and the external reaction to a communiqué that in places requires explanation if its context is to be understood.
Among world's premier tourism destinations
This slow pace of delivery of regional objectives stands in contrast to the pace of change in many Caribbean nations.
For example, earlier this year, when presenting his budget, Barbados' Prime Minister, Owen Arthur, said that he expected his nation to become by 2025 a fully developed society. By this, he said he meant one that was pros-perous, socially just and globally competitive.
To achieve this, the island is aiming to become one of the world's premier tourism destinations, a centre for high-grade financial services and would have to re-engineer its agriculture and manufacturing sectors.
It is doing so by developing its human capital, promoting and exporting its intellectual property while amending its legislative and administrative systems.
Trinidad, too, is moving towards achieving a similar, if more robust, economic status, albeit by following a different path. Its oil and gas reserves, its petrochemical-related industries, and its strong financial and manufacturing sectors have set it on a course that suggests statistically at least it too will be able within two decades to make a similar claim about its level of development.
There are other success stories in the region.
The British overseas territories of the BVI, Anguilla, Turks and Caicos and Cayman have most, but not all, of the characteristics of countries approaching developed world status, suggesting that circumstance, governance, vision and human capital matter much more than population size.
Cuban model
In its own way Cuba has begun to secure its economic and social future, globalising its outlook through relationships with China, India and others. It is moving rapidly towards an economy that is services based. Ally this to the probability that before too long the island may introduce a new economic approach that offers more materially to the Cuban people and despite its inefficiencies, it too will continue to grow.
Other Caribbean nations also have the capacity for success. For instance, if Guyana continues to work on finding an environmentally friendly way of relating its proposals for the road from Brazil's North to a new port near Georgetown, its economic growth could become meteoric.
The Dominican Republic and Jamaica are also moving forward economically, attracting significant levels of foreign investment despite the apparent entrenchment of poverty and social inequality.
These comments on the progress of very different economies are not intended to be partisan.
Rather, they are intended to reflect a view that positive change is achievable if there is long-term stability, wise governance and a high degree of political consensus, even if unspoken.
It is also not to ignore in most of these nations, the pockets of poverty and deprivation that exist or the social inequalities that seem particularly to characterise the rise of market-based economies.
Just as significant has been the success of many of the region's largest companies through the delivery of well-managed national, regional or extra-regional investment strategies.
Inter-regional mergers
Some are now seeking to engage in inter-regional mergers, acquisitions and consolidation or are finding ways to combine with companies from outside of the region, all processes that are likely to accelerate with the coming into being very soon of a Caribbean Exchange Network between Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados.
What this all suggests is that unless regionalism, and in particular the Caricom Single Market and Economy, can be accelerated and made to work in a practical way with benefits as observable as those nationally, self-interest may become more apparent and more divisive.
There are already signs that this is happening with the now close to stalled Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations with Europe, in respect of making operational the Regional Develop-ment Fund, or over inter-regional air transport.
A week or so ago I chaired a presentation on the Inter American Development Bank's strategy paper on the Caribbean.
During the discussion that followed a prominent academic made the point that she could see little incentive in the region to create the mechanisms that would make the CSME work. She could, however, understand why Europe had succeeded.
Two world wars and an overwhelming desire to avoid any future chance of conflict had, she said, motivated European nations to cede sovereignty to a commission with executive power and to provide it with the financial resource to ensure integration.
But sadly for the Caribbean, she could not yet see, she said, the issue or the threat that might motivate the region enough to accelerate the pace of integration.
David Jessop is the director of the Caribbean Council and can be contacted at david.jessop@ caribbean-council.org.
