Reparations study urged as development blueprint

A senior official has urged Barbadians to regard reparations not as individual handouts but as a transformative national strategy to tackle the deep social and economic inequalities inherited from slavery.

At a press briefing on an upcoming study into the economic legacy of slavery at the Accra Beach Hotel, programme advisor in the Office of Pan-African Affairs and Heritage, Rodney Grant, said the study should be seen as the foundation for a broader framework to address longstanding social and economic challenges rooted in the transatlantic slave trade.

The research, conducted by Public Interest Experts Incorporated (PIEI) and led by Dr Coleman Bazelon on behalf of the government, seeks to quantify the monetary value of reparations owed for the uncompensated labour of enslaved Africans between settlement of Barbados in 1627 and emancipation in 1834.

Dr Coleman Bazelon (right) speaking to press personnel, along with Programme Advisor in the Office of Pan-African Affairs and Heritage, Rodney Grant

Grant stressed that the initiative was never intended simply to secure financial compensation from Europe, but rather to guide meaningful, long-term national development:

“There’s several negative impacts that could have come out of slavery, and then based on the 10-point plan, there’s an approach that we have in terms of health, in terms of education, in terms of cultural reclaiming… We can frame what we want in terms of repair within this context.

“It makes no sense to talk about getting a million dollars and splitting it across the country… It is about the buildup of our institutional framework. That’s what’s absolutely important.”

Grant linked many of Barbados’ present-day challenges to the historical legacy of slavery, including public health concerns, environmental degradation and economic disparities:

“We can go back and trace the history… to some of the climate impacts of slavery. Because the industrial period was a part of that. We didn’t build any industrial factories that were built in Britain and in Europe, and we paid.

“We can go back and trace these things to the bad diet and the bad food… we can go back to environmental degradation and what was done to the land. So there’s so many things we can link to this… so many things that are built into the process of slavery that impact on us now.”

He acknowledged that reparations remains a sensitive topic among Barbadians but insisted that national dialogue is now unavoidable.

“We can’t hide from this subject anymore. We must begin to package it in a way that the whole country benefits and not individual by individual.”

Grant pointed to the Bridgetown Initiative, spearheaded by Prime Minister Mia Mottley, as an example of how complex global issues can be structured into actionable frameworks. That initiative aims to reform the global financial system to better support climate-vulnerable countries by easing debt burdens and unlocking critical funding for resilience and sustainable development.

“Packaging… like the Bridgetown Initiative… we don’t have all the answers and this is why we have to keep engaging,” Grant said.

He added that further details of the reparations study will be presented on Wednesday during the official launch of the Season of Emancipation, where broader public engagement on the findings is expected. (SB)