When it comes to harnessing the power of the Caribbean’s sizeable diaspora in North America and Europe, much of the recent emphasis has been on encouraging investment. This approach, in part, stems from two World Bank Group studies, one in 2013 and another in 2016.
The more recent of the two responded to a desire by Caribbean Central Bank Governors to know more about the diaspora’s potential for investment. The report, ‘Investing Back Home: The Potential Economic Role of the Caribbean Diaspora’, offered recommendations that might help mobilise diaspora capital.
The World Bank determined that although members of the diaspora were relatively active and quite enthusiastic about investing in the Caribbean, the forms of investment they undertook were quite limited. They were in three areas: non-productive investment in housing for retirement; support by relatives for entrepreneurial activity in small and micro-enterprises such as agriculture; and to develop businesses based on skills acquired overseas, such as information-technology, outsourcing, and nursing homes.