Governance for Job Creation in the Caribbean

Governance for Job Creationin the Caribbean Professor Neville C. Duncan Director SALISES, UWI, Jamaica

Changed and Changing International Environment • However contemporary globalisation is examined, there remains considerable scope for Caribbean governments to determine: • their different degrees of insertion in the world economy; • how to open or close the economy, when to enter markets and which markets; and • how to work for the universalising of equitable access to and use of "technology".

Notwithstanding supremacist and unilateralist actions of rich countries, the small, mini- and micro-states of the Greater Caribbean need to maintain their sovereignty, capacity for self-determination, protection of human rights of their citizens, and to achieve sustainable and high quality livelihoods for all their peoples.

Contemplating the 21stCentury • Two major pairs of issues are of vital importance as I contemplate the 21st century. • The first concern is that Caribbean leaders have placed tremendous amount of resources into trade negotiations of various sorts – with regard to the WTO, FTAA, REPA and now with the CSME.

The real truth is that financial crises and surges in private capital markets have disrupted and continue to disrupt the global economy far more quickly and to a far greater effect than any trade phenomena.

It is vitally more importantto manage financial crises and surges in private capital markets than it is to deal with trade and trade related issues.

The second concern, in relation to the most striking changes occurring in the 1990s, as a marker to the arrival of the 21st Century, is the rapidly growing importance of Developing and Emerging countries in the world economy, representing an emergent shift of power away from the world’s richest 7 countries.

The loud plea is that we must not be blinded by our weaknesses and even by our limited successes, (as in the case of Barbados, in being placed on a higher level on the global pecking order than most states in the world) and not see this fundamental change that is already manifest in many ways and is strongly increasing.

One picture of the state of the world for developing countries states that we are poor, need foreign investment, possess unsustainable economies, and that we need to submit to international financial regimes, donor agencies’ terms and conditions for assistance, liberalize trade through the WTO and or the FTAA, and so on.

The counter to this viewis the new kinds of power residing elsewhere than in the world’s richest 7 countries.

According to the World Bank, by the year 2010 developing and emerging countries will account for 56 per cent of global consumption and 57 per cent of global capital formation,

And developing countries as a group are still generally projected to grow at roughly double the rate of the industrial world during this decade.

These two aspects help to offer the hope that in the non-military arenas, notwithstanding the use of the military or its threatened use to counter such rising awareness and power, other countries may be able to successfully balance against self-regarding interests of G7 countries.

Defining Civil Society • The non-state sector embraces all actors other than political parties and parliament (and its directly supportive institutions including the public bureaucracy).

This means that labour and business organisations, Non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community-based organisations (CBOs), professional associations, philantrophic groups from the Churches to private organizations, and other not-for-profit organisations constitute the non-state sector.

Defining Civil Society • Usually, the notion of civil society is used, but only as a heuristic device, to separate business and labour from the non-state sector. • One reason is that on occasions, business and labour organisations seem to be in their own special relationship with the state as ‘social’ partners.

Defining Civil Society • Technically, local government, as dependent state-created institutions, should be lumped with the state but many have preferred to see local government, revitalised and restructured as one of the pillars in a new system of governance incorporating civil society and central government.

Caribbean civil society both feeds on and reacts to globalization. • It is best categorized, not in terms of types of actors, but in terms of positions in relation to globalization:

of supporters (enthusiastic about globalization – allies of transnational business, proponents of 'just wars for human rights' and the enthusiasts for technological development)

rejectionists (those who want to reverse globalization and return to a world of nation states). • They think all or most manifestations of globalization are harmful, and they oppose it with all their might. They tend to want to go backward to an idealized version of the past rather than transform into something new.

Reformists (in which a large part of civil society resides). • They accept global capitalism and global interconnectedness as potentially beneficial to humanity but see the need to 'civilize' the process.

They favour the reform of international economic institutions and want greater social justice and rigorous, fair, and participatory procedures for determining the direction of the new technologies, and strongly favour a global rule of law and press for enforcement.

Alternatives (people and groups who wish to opt out, to take their own course of action independently of government, international institutions, and transnational corporations). • Their primary concern is to develop their own way of life, create their own space, without interference.

There are two ways to see Civil Society: • One way is to see it as a way of minimising the role of the state in society -- as both a mechanism for restraining state power and as a substitute for may of the functions of the state.

Humanitarian NGOs provide the safety net to deal with the casualties of liberalisation and privatisation strategies in the economic field. • Funding for democracy-building and human rights NGOs help establish a rule of law and respect for human rights without taking account of the primary responsibility of the state in these areas.

Another view of Civil Society is that it exists to increase the responsiveness of political institutions. • It is about the radicalisation of democracy and the redistribution of political power.

It refers to an active citizenship, to growing self-organisation outside formal political circles, and expanded space in which individual citizens can influence the conditions in which they live both directly through self-organisation and through pressure on the state.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • Both democratization (which has positive consequences for individual freedom, domestic stability, and international peace) and political order are good objectives. • In order for national governments and their publics to believe that there is extra-special value in transferring a fair degree of authority, power, responsibilities and resources from central government to sub-national levels they have to believe in the following dictate:

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • that the majority of individuals stand to gain in self-esteem and growth towards a fuller affirmation of their potentialities by participating more actively in meaningful community decisions.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • This belief, leading to commitment, is further advanced when governments and their publics accept that democracy is a journey towards more accountable governance. • It is legitimised when people adopt their own autonomous initiatives towards building:

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • a society which is gender just, culturally plural, socially equitable, politically participatory, peaceful, democratic and ecologically sane ... based on life-centred values—compassion, caring, nurturing and sharing (Kothari).

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • In spite of this, it would be impracticable to assume that non-state local level participation in development processes is not problematic – seriously problematic. • A strong democratic practice requires a political programme and a political strategy (Barber).

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • Barber stated, neither ideas nor institutions are self-implementing. • They demand a base: a political movement composed of committed democrats who understand themselves to have an interest in the realisation of strong democracy.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • As Barber indicated, rather than a piecemeal package of particularistic and unrelated modifications, our commitment to strong democracy requires a systematic programme of institutional reform.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role In other words, it is idealistic and unrealistic to assume that people in localities and communities, without deliberate preparation, are always going to seize the proffered opportunities for meaningful participation.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • Martin, speaking of theorists of anarchism posited that: • They never dreamed that if men were offered the truth they would not leap for it, that if they were told ugly facts they would prefer pleasant lies, that if reasonable ideals were offered them they would continue to act as their fathers had done; they did not see that the follies of the past were not only imposed but ingrained, that men carried their history not only on their backs but on their heads.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • Yet, as Thomas Paine once wrote, “government is a plain thing, fit for many heads”. • In a nutshell, people have within themselves all they need to participate effectively in a new structure of governance.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • These tools and knowledge have been bottled up within them partly because they have conceded to the mystification of professionals (politicians, economists, lawyers, engineers, bureaucrats and even several non-state actors) that the latter have both the language and the key to governance.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • It is just that we are not to cast pearls before the disadvantaged but prepare them to be the strings to receive with dignity and lasting connectivity the adornments which transform their lives into a high quality existence.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • There is the clear recognition of a number of factors. • The first is that in spite of rapid growth of civil society organisations in the Anglophone Caribbean, they cannot, and must not, be allowed to, supersede the role and function of local government, especially of a new and reformed local governance.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • What is needed is not a decomposition of the state authority and power but its co-integration with local government and community organizations as well as their national representative organs.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • The power and authority of the state must, necessarily, however, be diffused to new centres of action closer to ‘beneficiaries’ and participants – the principle of subsidiarity. • The meaningful participation, at all stages, of people in localities is necessary.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • The state remains central because none of these organizations (local government, NGOs/non-state actors) can, at any time, even with the most extensive and intensive capacity-building, be the agency through which the contradictions of planned change and induced development be primarily or ultimately addressed.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • It is in their interrelationship and shared, though not necessarily equal, responsibility, within the framework of a new system of governance, that a new synergy will be released producing better economic, environmental and social development as well as better government. • This is what will give true and sustaining voice to people in localities.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • The exercise of political will in favour of the maximum degree of participation at all appropriate levels is crucial. • In the prevailing culture, Central Government’s leadership in initiating and legitimizing the dialogue is necessary in order to achieve real results. The ethos embraces all the canons of good governance.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • Governments, local governments, NGOs, business and trade unions must be clear on the strategy and mission they are trying to achieve and to which they are committed. • National consensus has to be sought through the initiating and organizational action of governments, though the actual process must not be state-directed.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • The issue is more than just bringing the state back in, it is making sure that the state (now properly defined as incorporating all civil society in decision-making processes) reassumes its full responsibility for meeting the just needs of all its constituents. • It is to be people-centred, concerned with the achievement of practical equity in terms of material needs, and ensuring widespread satisfaction with all the non-material needs.

Participatory Democracy and Civil Society’s Role • Our governments have achieved, to a recognisable extent, the modernization of Caribbean countries, but, certainly, in parts of many cities and towns. Impoverished areas of inner cities, suburban squatter settlements and rural areas remain, almost as it seems, intractable problems. • This duality is another reason why governance reform is urgent and the development of people and economic activities in localities become a national imperative although relevant action must be local.

The Development of people in localites • The urbanisation rates in the Caribbean are incredible and the rates projected to 2010 and 2020 remain extremely high. The rate of growth is not slackening. The streets of towns and cities are not paved with gold. Also, many long-established townships and villages are being by-passed by national development and are becoming more marginalised.

The Development of people in localites • The migratory drive is based, on the push occurring because of the decline of agriculture, the deterioration in terms of trade, the collapse of traditional export markets, the depreciation of internal markets, the inadequacy of education at the secondary school level and the diversion of other economic activities to more central and urbanized locations..

Governance for Job Creation in the Caribbean