Foreword

• Author: Sir Neville Nicholls
• Profession: Former President of The Caribbean Development Bank
• Pages: 9-10

INTRODUCTION

ix

I am very pleased to write this brief foreword for Sir Courtney

Blackman’s book, The Practice of Economic Management: A Caribbean

Perspective. This volume contains 22 papers which, although dealing

with a variety of economic and financial issues, reveal one

continuous theme — the crucial importance of sound economic

management for securing the development of developing

countries, and the greater applicability to dealing with the

problems of small countries of what Sir Courtney calls, the

managerial approach to economic development.

As is well known, Sir Courtney was the first Governor of the

Central Bank of Barbados, and served with distinction in this office

for three consecutive five-year terms from 1972. Throughout this

period, Sir Courtney strongly advocated a managerial approach to

dealing with the problems of small developing countries in

preference to the economic approach used by establishment

economists, especially those in the Washington-based IFIs such as

the IMF and the World Bank, with their ‘one size fits all policy

prescriptions’. He did this not only through the policies promoted

by the Central Bank and in the advice given to government but

also in his writings and public addresses.

Sir Courtney was, however, equally critical of those economists

from the region who adopted a mainly left-wing ideological

approach to the problems of small developing countries, and were

blinded by ideology to such an extent that they appeared not to

be too concerned about the welfare of the broad masses of people

in whose interests they professed to be working.

FOREWORD