Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies (UWI) Professor Sir Hilary Beckles.
The Caribbean deserves better!
So says Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies (UWI) Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, while also declaring “We are not calling for any special treatment”.
He was at the time contributing to Tuesday’s UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Latin and the Caribbean (RBLAC) XII Ministerial Forum for Development in Latin America and the Caribbean 2020 virtual side event entitled “Towards a new classification for Caribbean economies”.
Discussions were initiated on moving from purely income-based classifications for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to categorisations based on vulnerabilities, and to reach awareness within the international community.
“What is holding back our region is not so much a shortage of capital in and of itself, it’s the combination of the shortage of capital, plus the shortage of skills. And that is a devastating relationship that is holding back this region,” he warned.
“And I would argue therefore that when we speak about the need for concessionary funding; when we speak of debt forgiveness and debt abolition – when we speak of that relationship we have to focus on restructuring, diversifying the Caribbean economy for the future to place it on a more sustainable basis. And a critical part of that is capacity building in the area of skills training, professional development, access to higher education to uplift the social capital to make it much more productive to deliver the outcomes that we are looking for.”
Professor Beckles, stressing the urgency of the situation, reminded the panel that this year, 2021, will see events such as the Fifteenth Session of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD 15); the World Trade Organization WTO's 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12); the EU-Caribbean Forum; and the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26).
He therefore maintained that with all these activities, “We have to bring results to shape those conversations”.
“If we cannot somehow forge the results for concessionary funding; for looking at how to invest in bringing the Caribbean onto a more sustainable basis; bringing the Caribbean to a more competitive level – we are not going to get the benefits of any of these conversations in 2021, which will mean that 2023/2024 we haven’t actually have moved in any direction,” he explained.
“There is an urgency of now, these are very pressing issues for practical purposes. This is not an academic discourse about whether or not we should politicalize the issue of concessionary funding. This is about an existential threat to the Caribbean that has been growing decade by decade by decade, and now COVID has blown the roof of the Caribbean house. And having blown the roof off the Caribbean house, when we look inside – we look, and we can now see that what has been revealed has been concealed for decades. That we are still trying to exit our colonial history; that we are still being punished for the audacity of building nations.”
The Vice-Chancellor added, “The Caribbean was there at the beginning, and where have we ended at the end of this journey… We have ended in the circumstance where the western world that never supported our development, continues to see the Caribbean as a place that must not be treated for its commitment to justice; its commitment for democracy and making a contribution to the freedom of every country in this hemisphere. The Caribbean deserves better; it has a right to better.” (TL)