The Impact of the Gloomier Global Outlook on Latin America, Caribbean

April 23, 2012
By
Nicolás Eyzaguirre

The IMF has sharply marked down its forecast for world growth and now expects a mild recession in the euro area. Naturally, weaker world growth will affect economic activity in Latin America and the Caribbean, says Nicolás Eyzaguirre, Director of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department in a recent blog. The Fund expects the world economy to grow by just 3¼ percent in 2012, ¾ percentage points lower than its September forecasts. In contrast, the forecast for the U.S. economy for 2012 is unchanged, as incoming data signal a stronger—but...

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No Growth in the Caribbean without Investment

April 23, 2012
By
Dr. Ronald Ramkissoon

Ms Barcena is quoted as saying “in Latin America and the Caribbean, the investment ratio is not enough to maintain high growth rates,” while Mr Smith called for the creation of “an environment in which the private sector can emerge as the new engine of economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction…” The reality is that following the global financial crisis in 2008, most...

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Caribbean Human Development Report 2012

April 23, 2012
By
Heraldo Muñoz

Latin America and the Caribbean countries are suffering a common and grave problem: citizen insecurity. The world homicide rate is 6.9 per 100,000 persons, but in Latin America and the Caribbean many countries show homicide rates of over 20 per 100,000 persons, with a couple of them even reaching rates of over 60 per 100,000 persons. Although Latin America and the Caribbean represent less...

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Drugs, Guns and Cash

April 23, 2012
By
crime 2

Shifting socio-political dynamics in the Americas over the last decade have empowered and emboldened Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) and Localized Criminal Organizations (LCOs), as their expanding drug transit routes to the U.S. and elsewhere are posing a serious and escalating threat to the sovereignty of many countries within Central America. According to the Executive Summary of the recently published ‘Drugs, Guns and Cash Analysis...

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The Excrement of the Devil faces new challenges

April 23, 2012
By
Prof. Anthony T. Bryan

Juan Pablo Pérez, a Venezuelan founder of OPEC called oil “the excrement of the devil,” because for countries blessed with the resource, easy wealth appeared to be a definite path to state economic failure. But this “resource curse” has not affected all oil producing countries and some have managed their fossil fuel resources well and wisely. Today the “excrement of the devil” faces new...

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Striking the Balance

April 21, 2012
By
BP Trinidad and Tobago's (bpTT) Serrette platform in Trinidad waters in the company's east coast offshore acreage. Photo: BPTT

This year the Energy Chamber has provided us with the theme ‘striking the balance’ – which I personally find to be very intriguing and wide in scope. There are so many places we could go with this topic. If you speak with someone from my company you will find that we often think of the topic of balance in terms of mutual benefits. In...

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A More Dynamic ECLAC

April 21, 2012
By
Dianne Quarless

Referring to an ECLAC-commissioned assessment conducted by former Barbados Foreign Minister, Dame Billie Millie, Ms. Quarless said the report found that ECLAC fell short in providing support for the analyses, research and studies that it conducts. “We identify the challenges but we don’t do enough in recommending the solutions, neither are we going out to the member states and engaging them. So what we...

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Caribbean tourism industry holding its own amidst turbulence in the marketplace

April 21, 2012
By
sunset

The Caribbean tourism industry is holding its own, remaining afloat and resilient amidst turbulence in the marketplace. Tourist arrivals to the Caribbean region remained buoyant in 2011, continuing the recovery process which began in 2010. Still, there were signs that we are not yet out of the woods, the figures revealed uneven growth among the destinations and revenue continued to lag arrivals. Overall, the...

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Beyond Aid- Towards Effective Development Cooperation

April 21, 2012
By
Ambassador P.I. Gomes

The shift at the Busan Forum is captured by the Outcome Declaration in that critical section entitled: “from effective aid to cooperation for effective development”. Key words are of course “cooperation” and “effective development” that sharply contrast with the decades-long “donor-recipient” terminology and thinking that underlined a prevalent mind-set and attitude. That attitude, intentional or otherwise, unfortunately portrayed “aid” policies and programmes as if...

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