Addressing disparities of human development
In the second of the guest column, ‘Reparation Time’ in collaboration with The Centre for Reparation Research (CRR) at The University of the West Indies. CRR’s first Research Fellow, Dr Ahmed Reid, highlights the disparities and the large deficits that currently exist between Caribbean countries and former colonial powers of Europe as a context for the demand for reparation for development.
THE UNITED Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index (HDI) is an important mechanism through which one can measure the quality of human development across the globe. The HDI can also be used to analyse the disparities and the large deficits that currently exist between Caribbean countries and former colonial powers of Europe. A brief glance at the 2018 HDI (See Table 1) shows that the former colonial powers of Europe have made considerable progress while in the Caribbean, persistent deprivations continue to haunt the region. There is no other way to say this: the Caribbean faces serious development challenges going into the 21st century.
CARICOM countries face growing multidimensional poverty. Since gaining independence from colonial Europe, most Caribbean countries have experienced low to no growth and a critical erosion
of human development gains. To quote George Beckford, the Caribbean region has been experiencing “persistent poverty”. So, after decades of persistent poverty and low economic growth, it is
clear to all that human vulnerabilities have increased. Most Caribbean countries have had a negative evolution in the HDI ranking over the past decade or so. Jamaica for example, has fallen 23 places while Dominica has fallen by 10. Haiti, which the HDI ranking has categorised as “Low Development,” ranks lowest among Caribbean countries. The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified these vulnerabilities.
In fact, COVID-19 has laid bare the levels of inequality and the structural weaknesses between the former colonial economies of Europe and those of the Caribbean. Unfolding before our very eyes is the impact technology divide is having on our education system. The cost is incalculable, and we stand to lose a generation of young minds because of this. Jamaica’s economy, according to data from the IMF, will contract by five per cent this fiscal year. The social and economic consequences will be felt for decades after COVID-19.
LONG-TERM LEGACIES
The development gaps in the HDI are structural and are the long-term legacies of enslavement and colonialism, legacies of centuries of exploitation of the region’s human and natural resources, and legacies that continue to harm the sustainable development prospects of the region. Put differently, the seeds of Caribbean underdevelopment were sown long before the region gained independence in the 1960s. We have read with interest the arguments put forward by various agencies and development experts about the current state of underdevelopment and mutlidimensional poverty that exists in the Caribbean.
However, as Professor Sir Hilary Beckles
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