Caribbean Development in a Changing Global Environment
| Author | Kenneth Hall |
| Pages | 3-13 |
CARIBBEAN DEVELOPMENT IN
A CHANGING GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
Kenneth Hall1
that they must participate in the global
economy. In order to do this successfully, it is
clear that they must find a new development
path for continued economic progress, as the
old approach to economic development has
been superseded by changes in the global
environment.
New Approaches
In this respect, several policy makers
and academics have been grappling with this
problem. For example, Owen Arthur suggested
that:
The building of a post-colonial econom-
ic relationship has as its principal focus
the creation of an environment to spur
the diversification of the typical Carib-
bean economy away from its traditional
mono-crop culture, to end its passive
dependence on aid and colonial type
protectionist trade arrangements, to end
its passive incorporation as a sub-species
into the metropolitan economy on which
it depended, and to create a basis for its
sustainable development by bringing to
the fore new mechanisms for domestic
development and new modalities for co-
operation with its international partners,
that can play positive transforming roles
in strategic areas, such as human resource
development and the creation of dynamic
private sector economies.2
Introduction
Globalisation and its policy prescriptions
have posed unprecedented challenges to
Caribbean countries and it has fundamentally
changed the environment in which Caribbean
development has proceeded for much of
the latter part of the twentieth century. In
particular, globalisation has put an increasing
stranglehold on small Caribbean economies
that are characterised by a high degree of
openness, limited economic diversification,
export-concentration in one to three products,
and have significant dependency on trade taxes
as a main source of government revenue.
More unfortunate for these economies
have been their small size; the high import
content of production and consumption goods
as a share of gross domestic product (GDP);
and the undiversified economic structures that
have constrained their economic adjustment
processes. One outcome of this situation
has been that during the last decade most
of these economies have experienced low or
declining economic growth, resulting in part
from external economic shocks and the loss
of special access, preferences and subsidies
from bananas, sugar and rice exports into the
European Union. Consequently, it has been
a difficult task for policy makers to find new
approaches to foster economic development,
given the changes in globalised markets.
More specifically, Caribbean countries are
now forced to rethink every aspect of their
domestic economic and social policies, given
1
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