What do you want Belize to look like in the year 2030? It’s a
serious question but one that we probably don’t give much thought to –
after all for those on the daily grind – who has time to think about 2030?
But someone has to do it and the job has fallen to the Ministry of Economic
Development and Consultant Dr. Carla Barnett. She’s in charge of coming
up with a development framework that will steer successive governments through
the next 20 years. It’s no small feat and Dr. Barnett has embarked on
a series of nationwide consultations with everyone form home-makers to farmers.
Today, it was the media’s turn and we asked her about the trouble spot
where the jagged political landscape meets the smooth surfaces of Horizon 2030.
Jules Vasquez,
“It sounds almost incongruous because my experience has been that Belize
moves in fits and starts in five year spasms, that whichever government is in
and they rotate with increasing frequency, but whichever government is in will
take development in a certain direction and then a succeeding new government
will take it in another direction. So to propose a 20 year development plan
seems unrealistic.”
Dr. Carla Barnett, Consultant
“This is not a new idea, this is an idea that we have been talking
about for years and one of the important things we do have to address is how
we keep the country on track in spite of political change. Politics is supposed
to serve development, it shouldn’t be the other way around and therefore
we want to be sure that everybody, including the political parties in power
and out of power are involved in this discussion and that they sign on to whatever
we agree.”
Jules Vasquez,
“However don’t the electoral process and the development process
as it now stands work to a large extent at counter purposes, the electoral process
is about accruing votes which means sexy promises that you can make in a manifesto
while the development process is about a measured, sound, uniformed approach
to solving developmental problems?”
Dr. Carla Barnett,
“Not necessarily uniformed but harmonious and you’re right if
the elections process doesn’t contribute to smooth development then we
have to see how we can get them to work together and that is one of the problems
that we have. We’ve been talking with people of the north of Belize going
through to the south, we’ve already begun the conversations and people
are concerned about this because they understand the importance of politics
but they don’t like that politics then becomes the primary concern and
they would prefer the development of the country in the long run to be the primary
concern. So we are going to have to have conversations with the politicians
as well.”
Jules Vasquez,
“From another perspective it seems to descend into a type of talking in
bullet points, NGO speak, where every thing is achievable but nothing is real.
How do you answer criticisms like?”
Dr. Carla Barnett,
“It is really a reflection of the country as a whole and people have
to participate more and speak up for their themselves and insist that things
be done in a certain way. Our structures right now don’t necessarily facilitate
the kind of participation that people may want to have on a daily, weekly basis
and only changes of particular kinds will facilitate that. So that is one of
the things we are talking about, we’re asking people what kind of social,
legal, political changes that we as a country need to make to ensure that if
we determine what we want Belize to be like in 2030, these are the things we
have to do differently at the political level, at the community level, and at
the personal level in order that we can make the change otherwise we will be
going around the same circles for a long time and not getting anywhere.”
Jules Vasquez,
“So at the end of this process what will we have?”
Dr. Carla Barnett,
“At the end of this process we should have a generally agreed development
framework for Belize that will say in very clear terms what people want Belize
to be like in the 2030 and lay out the various pathways to achieving what Belize
will be like in 2030.”
Process of preparing a development framework for Belize.
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