From The Barbados Advocate

No more excuses for not lifting your country out of this global financial crisis.

This was one of the messages that Founding Partner of Riverwood Capital, Nicholas Brathwaite, sent out during his presentation on “Innovation, Entrepreneurship and the Pursuit of Socio-Economic Advancement” recently at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre (LESC).

Speaking as one of the members of a panel discussion on “Technology Pathways to Economic Development” as part of the 3rd Annual Diaspora Conference, he said that he recognised that the global economic crisis hit the region hard financially and otherwise, which resulted in things like a decline in our major earner of foreign exchange – tourism and a decrease in foreign direct investment (FDI), among other things.

“No doubt that the global economic crisis was tough on the Caribbean. It was actually tougher on the Caribbean than it was on the United States. For many Caribbean countries, the crisis resulted in a lower tax base; a decline in tourism; a reduction in FDI; a decrease in donor activity; we had to spend more money on social welfare; and we had to go out and borrow. There was a problem no doubt.”

However, we can no longer use this crisis as an excuse for not moving forward. “No more excuses. What we need now is a credible strategy for sustainable economic growth. We must respond and adapt to the changes that we face today and make the Caribbean stronger so that we do not have to have a repeat of this in the next few years or decades.”

In addition, we cannot continue to do the same things in the same order and expect different results. “We need to make serious changes. Over the last 35 to 40 years, the Caribbean has made some changes and some improvements. We have seen some progress, but many of our governments and businesses still operate based on old practices and old traditions. Philosophically, we still seem to be tied to old colonial practices. By the way, the colonisers are trying to figure out how to not do those things anymore that we are holding on to so tight. How many times have the Diaspora come to the Caribbean and tried to get something done, only to be told, ‘That is not how we do things down here.’”

Instead, we must except that change is expected, so persons must acclimatise themselves with it while governments learn to adapt to change if they are going to lift their respective countries out of this global economic crisis, said Brathwaite.

“Traditions are important, but we cannot afford to let them wear us down. We have to change. By the way, change is inevitable. Change would happen. We need to embrace and encourage change. In the Caribbean, we tend to be resistant to change in general. We tend to get into our comfort zone and stay there. We have to get out of that.” (PJT)

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IMAGE: Nicholas Brathwaite profilemagazine.com