Just over four months after entering office as the sixth President of the Caribbean Development Bank, St Lucia-born Dr Dr Hyginus ‘Gene’ Leon has said that the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed some of the region’s frailties and pointed to some of the “structural issues” which have been impairing development long before the global malady hit.
The new CDB President ‘hit the ground’ running, visiting a number of CDB member countries where he met with Heads of Government and other officials to interface on a collective vision for an enhanced purpose-driven relationship between the funding institution and its members.
Even as the international community focuses on recovery from the pandemic, the message that appears to be coming from the CDB’s Chief Executive Officer is that the region may find itself in a position where it has to work harder to realize its recovery-related goals. Although he asserted that the advent of COVID-19 has created an opportunity to address structural issues, which have predated impaired development even before the pandemic.
Accordingly, Leon is recommending to governments in the region that the recovery effort embrace the fixing of the long-standing issues that have plagued its growth, not least the underdevelopment of its education system with a view to having it go beyond its pre-COVID level.
The CDB President has identified four sets of issues which he said the region needs to address if recovery from the prevailing pandemic is to be attended by growth. “One is resilient economies, second would be sustainable livelihoods, third is complete connectivity and the fourth is being agile, nimble and responsive as a region in terms of adaptability and being able to move in a competitive, highly productive, secure environment,” the CDB President said.
While he conceded that these goals will not be reached overnight he pointed to certain targets which he said he hoped could be achieved by the end of his first five years as president of the CDB. The first, he said, was making a big dent in establishing and having as operational the data hub concept which would promote very strong evidenced-based decision creation. The second is seeking the movement of the digital economy to at least 50 per cent of where regional leaders would like it to be, not in one country, but across the entire region. Third, the CDB President would like to see the region reduce the considerable implementation capacity that currently exists and finally, the commencement of the process of repositioning education systems to generate learning modes that facilitate the innovation which is key to going forward in terms of focusing on enquiry, discovery and problem-solving as opposed to simply focusing on certification. “If we could make headway into those four areas, I’d be very pleased at the end of my five years,” he stated. “We need to reimagine the region in terms of how its development is going to emerge and that reimagining can be put together through what I’m calling a stronger CDB.”
