A day-long consultation has examined multiple strategic ways in which the United Nations System may be of some assistance to Anguilla with its priorities for present and future development.
The meeting, on Monday, October 5, at La Vue Conference Centre, was led by Mr. Stephen O’Malley, the UN Resident Coordinator for Barbados and the OECS. It involved discussions with a large number of leading persons and organisations representing the public and private sectors in Anguilla.
The UN System, as the organising agency is called, takes in Barbados and the OECS, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. It is an effort, in the planning stages, for the design and implementation of a Multi-country Sustainable and Development Framework (MCSDF) covering the period 2017 to 2021.
A statement regarding the consultation, explained that following initial consultations with Governments about the feasibility of a multi-country approach, the UN System met in Barbados in May 2015. The meeting discussed the proposed approach and agreed on a timeline for the development of the MCSDF. During July and August 2015, a Caribbean Multi-country Assessment was drafted to serve as a basis for national consultations to be held in September and October 2015. These consultations involve a wide range of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders, complemented by a range of virtual and social media consultations. The consultation in Anguilla was part of that process, aimed at identifying a limited number of key strategic priorities around which the UN can focus its efforts across the region, including Anguilla.
Mr. O’Malley told the gathering in Anguilla: “After these fifteen consultations have been completed or about midway through them, we are going to synthesize the results in early November and then we will organise a meeting with all the countries in late November or early December. Once we have done that, we will begin to formulate a sub-regional programme for the OECS… To echo what the Chief Minister [of Anguilla, Mr. Victor Banks] said, an important point for us is that we have to build a set of priorities from the ground up; and we have to give as much weight to the views that Anguilla will have as Jamaica. So it is a real effort for us – particularly those of us who cover Barbados and the OECS – to make sure that this is not a programme which is based on what the larger territories want, but one that looks in a regional perspective.”
The UN official indeed highlighted a sore point not only in the mind of Chief Minister Banks, but also in the thoughts of many persons in the conference centre. Mr. Banks stressed a complaint he had made, at the recent Attorneys General Conference in Anguilla, that there were uneven playing fields “where the rules are made by the developed nations with callous disregard for our capacity to sustain the costs of the measures/agreements they formulate to support their own agenda.”
The Chief Minister stated that “Anguilla was at a critical junction in its journey towards economic take-off when we were struck by the impacts of the global recession in 2008.” He noted: “To put it bluntly, we have been in a virtual recession for the entire period since 2008.”
Mr. Banks was supported by a number of persons who suggested that small island states, like Anguilla, were in a vulnerable position – were at the mercies of the larger countries. They intimated that, with its small economy, more attention should be paid to Anguilla in terms of its economic difficulties and the need for a sustainable development framework from which the island would benefit. Some persons even went further, suggesting that Anguilla needed monetary assistance towards its development.
During the question and answer period that above suggestion, and other views, prompted the UN official to remark that: “We don’t have a bag of money [to give Anguilla].”
That matter did not end there. It was referred to during a panel discussion when both Mr. Marcel Fahie, an economist and retired public servant, and Mr. David Carty, a Businessman, Climate Change enthusiast and a retired educator, gave different perspectives.
“Certainly, in Anguilla’s case there is a strong strain of self-reliance throughout out post-emancipation history. We need to turn to that to see what lessons there are in approaching the question of sustainable development today,” Mr Fahie stated. “I want to suggest to you that despite our level of income – our per capita income – we really need to talk about saving…You know what saving is? Saying that you are postponing consumption today to consume more tomorrow – and in that process, we can use our savings to help expand our capacity for more production as the case may be.”
Mr. Fahie was pleased to recognise that more emphasis was now being placed on youth entrepreneurship in Anguilla – an opportunity for young people to get into business and be creative. “One of the things we should seriously look at is how we can maximise and open up real opportunities for our young people.”
He added: “My final comment is to support Permanent Secretary for Education, Mrs. Petty Barrett. This divide between academic and technical, we have to get that out of our head. That is psychological. My view is that we should be talking STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics – and on top of that we must add Arts and other creative industries. That is what we should be talking about.”
Mr. David Carty painted a gloomy picture of the possibility of sea level rise causing the disappearance of low lying portions of Anguilla’s coastal areas in years to come – thus destroying the “tourism engines of Anguilla”. He pointed out that Anguilla was suffering greatly from drought and that most of the water was being produced by reverse osmosis.
He went on: “But reverse osmosis depends too heavily on electricity. The need for renewable energy on a massive scale in Anguilla will change the balance of our environment in multiple ways. Now, back to Marcel’s point and the fact that we know that the UN does not have a bag of money. Anguilla can leverage the argument of climate change and no Government – either in Anguilla or the OECS – has done this to the extent that it should. It is an international moral issue…It is a dire threat to Anguilla at every level and we need to use it as a lever to extract from developed countries – not a grant, a loan – borrow millions of dollars to produce 20 megawatts of hybrid renewable energy in wind and solar at two percent a year for 50 years, and use the climate change argument as the rational basis for such a discounted loan.”
Mr. Carty suggested that if renewable energy was changed in a big way, and if there was a desperate revolution in agriculture to achieve food security, these approaches would be of much value to sustainable development. “Government also needs to look at the restructuring of its departments into a Department of Sustainable Development where the Environment and Economics come to the fore in a way that it had never been done before,” he added.
Earlier, two other panellists made brief statements. Mrs. Maeza Demis-Adams, Director of the National Aids Programme, spoke about health matters including HIV, non-communicable diseases and obesity; and Mrs. Chanelle Petty Barrett, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, spoke mainly about educational issues, behavioural problems, youth programmes and employment matters. Another panellist, Mr. Lynwood Bell, concentrated on the need to develop the offshore financial industry as a means of sustainable development.
The consultation, and the other activities regarding Anguilla’s need towards the design and implementation of the Multi-country Sustainable Development Framework, was chaired by Dr. Aidan Harrigan, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance.
