By Oliver West From Emerging Markets

Peter Phillips, Jamaica’s finance minister, warns that populations in the Caribbean will lose patience with the international community unless they provide the resources to modernise infrastructure

Jamaica’s finance minister has called for the international community to pay urgent attention to the Caribbean’s economic troubles, or face grave social consequences.

Peter Phillips, the widely praised finance minister who has led Jamaica’s unprecedented progress with an IMF programme, said that the Caribbean — where growth is low but debt and vulnerability to climate change is high — is facing a particularly difficult situation.

“I have a real concern that if there is not a marshalling of global attention on the Caribbean to address the debt overhang and need for significant inflows of resources, then what we will see is a kind of failing, or political economy risk,” said the minister.

Without improvement, “populations will lose patience with existing institutions, and that brings the risk of a further setback, such as social disturbance and discontent”.

Resources were needed across the Caribbean to revitalise and modernise infrastructure, and set the platform for a growth rebound, said Phillips. And time is of the essence.

“Time and time again in the Caribbean, people become willing to spend massive resources after the problem has festered rather than use a little more foresight and will to deploy much smaller resources and prevent the emergence of the problem,” he said.

When asked who should do the marshalling, Phillips said he would look to the “main historical and trading partners of the Caribbean” such as the US, Canada and UK, as well as multilateral institutions.

TOURISM DEPENDENT

The Inter-American Development Bank’s latest economic report on the Caribbean said that economic growth remained a challenge for the many tourism-dependent countries in the region — despite improved visitor numbers from the strong economies of the US and UK.

Education also remained a big problem, said the IADB, adding that sharp declines in male enrolment in secondary education left “an important share of the population with low levels of education and potential adverse social effects”.

Despite progress in Jamaica, where an IMF programme has brought down debt levels, improved the fiscal balance and re-opened international capital market access just a two years after a domestic debt restructuring, the Caribbean as a whole is vulnerable, said Phillips.

“Our region is middle income, but very vulnerable to climate related shocks, and vulnerable because of its small size, limited resource base and limited administrative capacity,” said the minister. “It is highly indebted, and yet lacks the diplomatic and political leverage to compel global attention.”

For more on this story go to: http://www.emergingmarkets.org/Article/3496416/Caribbean-faces-social-unrest-unless-world-treats-it-better-warns-Jamaica.html