Caribbean Centre for Development Administration

• Author: Duke Pollard
• Profession: Sitting senior judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), the highest appellate municipal court of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)
• Pages: 734-742

734 THE CARICOM SYSTEM

27

THE CARIBBEAN SUBCENTRE OF THE

LATIN AMERICAN CENTRE FOR

DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION

The Group of Experts under the Chairmanship of W. Demas, set up in 1980 by the

Common Market Council to prepare a strategy for the Caribbean integration movement

during the decade of the 1980s, in its report of 1982 had determined, inter alia, that

implementation was one of the most intractable problems bedeviling the regional

economic integration movement. In 1992, the West Indian Commission, established

by the Heads of Government in Grande Anse in 1989, also determined that

implementation, or rather the lack thereof, was the Achilles Heel of the regional

integration movement. Both groups of experts concluded that implementation was an

event rather than a process. In the present submission however, implementation,

depending on the nature of the determinations at regional level to be implemented at

the national plane, may be a protracted process involving interventions by Ministers of

Government, public servants in several departments of Government, non-Governmental

organisations and the private sector. More often than not, however, the class of actors

featuring in the process invariably includes public sector administrators and herein lies

the significance of addressing deficiencies in the administration as an indispensable

dimension of national economic development. Furthermore, “with contracting resources

available from either multilateral or reduced bilateral sources, the demand for greater

efficiency and productivity in public administrations has been heightened. More

significantly an enhanced administrative capacity at all levels of the public bureaucracy

is a fundamental requirement to ensure cost-effective implementation of programmes”.

The general objective of the Centre is to render assistance to Caribbean countries

for the purpose of improving their administrative capabilities to accelerate social and

economic development. The operational objectives of the Centre include conducting,

promoting and coordinating research and comparative studies on the administrative

problems of Caribbean development; obtaining, analysing, publishing and distributing

information and data on the administrative aspects of development, including the

importance of technology transfers; providing technical advisory services on development

administration to Governments and multinational agencies of the Caribbean and

improving the administrative capacity of public servants of the Region.

The Centre consists of a Board of Directors, the Executive Secretary and other

officers considered necessary by the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors is the

governing body of the Centre charged with general responsibility for its operation. The