UWI small business centre launches amid criticism of private sector inaction

A prominent University of the West Indies professor has declared he is not convinced that the private sector is doing enough to create opportunities for Caribbean people to help preserve social and economic stability, as a new UWI centre was launched to boost small business.

Professor Dr Justin Robinson, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business and Management (SCHSBM) said it was high time that Caribbean businesses start to provide more opportunities as countries continue to battle high debt and low economic growth.

He also complained about the slow the Caribbean had gone from a “monoculture of sugar to limited diversification”, but was still facing a number of fiscal challenges.

He declared: “If our economies cannot deliver jobs, cannot deliver opportunities, and if it cannot deliver purpose for those on the blocks and in the field then something more elemental than GDP [gross domestic product], debt and deficits is at risk – our social community, our social fabric, our stability will be at risk if our economies cannot deliver opportunities to Caribbean people.”

Addressing the launch of the UWI business school’s Caribbean Micro Small and Medium Enterprise Development Centre on Tuesday during an online forum, Professor Robinson said critical to the creation of opportunities is a thriving private sector and an enabling environment created by governments.

The UWI academic said: “A vibrant dynamic private sector I see as a critical missing element as we seek this economic development and opportunity so as to preserve our social and other aspects of stability.

“There was a discussion that coming out of independence, Caribbean people were advised to seek ye first the political kingdom and all else will follow. I would suggest that we have sought the political kingdom and all else hasn’t followed.

“We have also sought the education kingdom and that has provided us with opportunities but all hasn’t followed as well.”

He said he was hoping the new centre at the Cave Hill School of Business would help to bridge the gap by way of providing developmental

“What I see as the purpose of this centre is for Caribbean citizens who want to seek the commercial kingdom. Your university is here for you as you seek to embark on that journey of seeking commercial success,” Professor Robinson said.

The Caribbean Micro Small and Medium Enterprise Centre brings together a range of services and programmes that UWI Cave Hill offers, all aimed at developing and supporting entrepreneurs and operators in the micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSME) sector in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean.

The activities under the new centre will consist of the motivational and support services programme known as Student Entrepreneurial Empowerment and Development (SEED) and the practical entrepreneurship research programme for start-up business, the Lean Launchpad.

The centre will also offer a range of advisory services for business owners who are seeking to transform from one stage to the next, focusing in several areas such as mergers and acquisition, initial public offering, strategic planning and management, data analysis for decision making, mapping and managing organizational culture for success

In addition, the Department of Management Study will offer four annual management clinics in both a face-to-face and online format.

Ayana Young-Marshall, the SEED programme’s coordinator, said several well-known Caribbean brands have been acquired by extra-regional interests, making way for “the creation of that next wave of brands”.

She said: “I look forward to ensuring that the Cave Hill Campus is that centre, that light that is coming from the west, although it seems very dark right now with these ashes, but I assure you that we are going to continue to identify means, livelihoods, opportunities and innovation stemming from any challenge that is thrown to us as Caribbean people.”

Young-Marshall also promised that the new centre will do what it could to help “make sure that the promises and opportunities that have been given to us and not necessarily realized, but critical now more than ever before in the context of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy, will be realized”.

Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the Cave Hill Campus Professor Eudine Barriteau said the launch of the centre came at a critical but opportune time for the region, adding that she was “confidently” expecting it to “deliver crucial assistance to a sector that can help regional economies to rebound”.

“By so doing, it will also help to advance the university’s very critical mission of revitalizing Caribbean development . . . I look forward to its transformational development on our region’s businesses and their landscape,” said Professor Barriteau, who insisted that one of the key mandates of the university was to help the region’s people to address and overcome challenges. (MM)