Economic Transformation and Job Creation: The Caribbean Experience

The question of economic transformation is an immediate and practical one for the English-speaking Caribbean. In the postindependence period, Caribbean governments seemed blissfully unaware that the inability to transform their economies was leading to serious unemployment problems. The statistics are quite stark. Unemployment rates in the Caribbean range from 6% in the more prosperous states to 23% in the less prosperous ones. This use of economic transformation and job creation continues to be a major challenge in the first decade of the twenty-first Century. This is the subject that is treated with impressive urgency in this volume entitled Economic Transformation and Job Creation: The Caribbean Experience.

This book was edited by The Most Honourable Professor Sir Kenneth Hall, former Governor-General of Jamaica and Mrs. Myrtle Chuck-A-Sang, the Managing Director of The Integrationist. The most honorable professor Sir Kenneth, former governor-general of Jamaica, is a well-known and respected Caribbean academic who utilized the skills of his profession to analyze the main factors leading to the success of the Caribbean integration process. Professor Sir Kenneth joined his academic work to a passion for education and has held positions of chairman of the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC); pro-vice-chancellor and principal, UWI; chancellor, University College of the Caribbean; and deputy secretary-general, Caribbean Community. He is currently a Distinguished Research Fellow of the University of the West Indies. Myrtle Veronica Chuck-A-Sang, MA, has coedited several publications with Professor Sir Kenneth Hall on a range of issues relating to Caribbean regional integration and international relations. She was the former director of the UWI-CARICOM Institutional Relations Project, Caribbean Community Secretariat, and is currently the editor and managing director of the Integrationist, editor of the Integration Quarterly.