When the Caribbean and Central American economies finally leave the pandemic, most will be in crisis. As the IMF’s recent review of the Bahamas noted, recovery to pre-pandemic levels will ‘probably take years’ and the ‘dangers of disadvantage loom large’.
The same prognosis is expected to apply to almost every country in the region except those with new oil and mineral reserves. So much so that the IMF suggests it will be as late as 2023 when output improves, and 2025 when GDP per capita rebound and employment levels, pre-pandemic production, and the revenue necessary to underwrite social provision is restored.
In response, some in the region have called for a modern equivalent of the 1948 Marshall Plan that saw the United States transfer billions of government dollars to Western Europe to support post-war recovery, and as a bulwark against the Soviet Union on the meal.
In some respects, the similarities are close – the Caribbean and Central America are an essential component of US national security – but in others, they are not, as today most western governments consider it ‘ The private sector is the main driver of sustainable growth.
President Biden recently indicated that he intends to “rebuild the muscle” of Washington’s democratic alliances and plans to find common solutions to common problems.
“There is no longer a bright line between foreign and domestic policy”…. “The United States can no longer afford to be absent on the world stage,” he told US diplomats in a State Department speech. “When we invest in the economic development of countries, we create new markets for our products and reduce the likelihood of instability, violence and mass migration”.
In the coming months, these themes will be discarded in a hemispheric context. Already, Washington think tanks and lobbyists are trying to steer the policy announcements expected to be made at the virtual American Summit in America. Governments in the Caribbean and Central America, close to the new administration, are also making suggestions.
What is missing is the voice of private sector leaders in the Caribbean, Central America, and the United States who in the real world will have to drive economic recovery after a pandemic.
In plain terms, this is the moment when influential private sector leaders from the region and the US should be doing more. They need to make sure the US government’s legislative and executive branches hear their voice and ensure that there is significant Caribbean participation at the CEO summit that will coincide with a US-led government meeting.
Unfortunately, continually hearing the region’s corporate voice is no longer straightforward. No prominent private-sector-led organization in Washington promotes a practical agenda in the Caribbean and Central America alone.
In the 1980s, the private-sector relationship of the US-Caribbean Basin was catalyzed by Caribbean Central American Action (CCAA). At the time, President Carter and then President Reagan had come to recognize that stimulating part of the solution to their security concerns was in stimulating regional economic development and creating new employment. Both administrations understood that if this were to happen, business leaders had to get involved.
In response, CCAA brought together and supported small groups of US and regional business leaders who, with their support, went on to significantly influence US policy through ideas, initiatives, events such as Miami’s annual conference , and regional dialogues that promoted practical solutions. that governments, agencies and organizations can support them.
In the United States he led the formation of the Caribbean Basin Initiative and then the enactment of the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act, while in Europe parallel representations by key Caribbean sector actors influenced negotiating out-of-choice routes and creating treaties and agreements providing related support. private sector.
Although CCAA is no bigger and the world is very different, those who created these original private sector initiatives believe that this is the moment when a new private sector led pandemic venture with its genesis is needed in the region.
“We need to bring together the best private sector leaders from all sides. The Caribbean and Central America must build its own advocacy and constituency in Washington, but the impetus must come first from the region, ”Peter Johnson, CCAA’s first Executive Director told me recently.
He feels that recovery from the pandemic is causing many of the same problems, and that a small high-level group of private sector leaders from the Caribbean and Central America should now be meeting their US counterparts.
Developing a 21st century US initiative for the Caribbean Basin will “take vision and courage”, he said, and will require new players interested in positive economic outcomes for the region. He is also an advocate of the US Congressional Caucasus on the Caribbean, based on its strong diaspora connections.
In the past, when corporate leadership was largely exercised throughout the Caribbean and Central America by family-managed businesses, the value of investing time and resources in strategic lobbying was easier to achieve. Today, finding promoters is less easy when, generally, during a pandemic, corporate boards are reluctant to authorize such activity.
That said, it is not difficult to identify individuals among today’s Caribbean and Central American private sector leaders who are thoughtful, successful, outward-looking businesses and are invested in the US, the region and in places others, who understand the value of lobbying, and who have close links with regional heritage legislators in the US Congress.
What is missing so far and much needed now is a well-connected US private sector leader and convenor who understands the importance of mutually reinforcing economic relations. That is, someone with a political reach who can explain how a new business-related venture for the Caribbean and Central America could address growth, investment, trade and employment and the wider Biden Administration’s concerns about migration, warming global, security, and US domestic economic. recovery.
David Jessop is a consultant to the Caribbean Council
and can be contacted at
Previous columns can be found at