Every important meal has a recipe attached to it. We can throw caution to the wind and throw ingredients into a bowl and see what comes out but that is not the proper way to produce a meal that is fit for eating and pleasing to the tastebuds. For too long, governments have been trying to produce Barbadian Economic Success by throwing caution to the wind and ‘trying a thing’ to produce a strong Barbadian economy. We are not here to ‘try a thing’. We are here to create a roadmap to Barbadian Economic Success.
In the same way that you can’t create a great meal without a recipe. We, in the 21st century cannot create a strong, resilient economy without a recipe. However, that recipe cannot come directly from international organisations and other countries. That recipe must be homegrown. Yes, we must be aware of what is happening around the world. We must we willing to take advice from others. We can even learn from other countries, but at the end of the day, we must create an economy that benefits Barbadians, both at home and abroad.
We know that cou-cou is not an original Barbadian concept. However, we added flying fish and made it into something that is our own. It is our National Dish.
The same goes for our Barbadian economy. We need an economic policy that is ‘our own’. We can examine the economic policies of the United Nations and the European Union and even utilise some of the elements of those policies, but we must have our own Economic Policy. We must have our own recipe for Barbadian Economic Success.
If we don’t have our own recipe for Barbadian Economic Success we are setting up this country to fail. And as history and even the present teaches us, when countries fail, there are others willing and ready to move in to save them.
Featured photo source: https://barbados.org/blog/national-dishes-of-the-caribbean/