Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1: The State, Economy and Health 3031308883, 9783031308888

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Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1 The State, Economy and Health Edited by Sherma Roberts · Halimah A. F. DeShong Wendy C. Grenade · Dwayne Devonish

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1

Sherma Roberts Halimah A. F. DeShong Wendy C. Grenade  •  Dwayne Devonish Editors

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-­19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1 The State, Economy and Health

Editors Sherma Roberts School for Graduate Studies and Research The University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus Bridgetown, Barbados Wendy C. Grenade Department of Humanities & Social Science St. George’s University St. George’s, Grenada

Halimah A. F. DeShong Institute for Gender and Development Studies The University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus Bridgetown, Barbados Dwayne Devonish The Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business and Management The University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus Bridgetown, Barbados

ISBN 978-3-031-30888-8    ISBN 978-3-031-30889-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30889-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

These volumes are dedicated to the people of the Caribbean whose lives have been and will be indelibly shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Foreword

Enter a Virus It has been compared to the Spanish Flu of 1918. But the strangeness of the coronavirus affair could also be compared to H. G. Wells’ 1897 novel War of the Worlds, where Planet Earth is convulsed by an alien force, brought under its heel, until the enemy is overwhelmed by bacteria. Let me liberally adapt the opening words of the 2005 musical of Wells’ classic by Jeff Wayne, narrated by Richard Burton, to the corona pandemic: No one would have believed In the early years of the twenty-first century That human affairs were about to be sorely tested by an invisible pathogen

The first few weeks of 2020 remain hard to describe without emotion. A virus had emerged from Wuhan—a hitherto largely unknown Chinese city—and people carrying the infection were turning up in various cities and countries, and at ever-galloping rates and concerns. There was incredulity and optimism at first, as islanders hoped that the virus would miss them and that their surrounding oceans and diminutive sizes and populations would somehow provide a cordon sanitaire, keeping the pesky microorganism at bay. But islands and islanders are not the isolated and forlorn spaces and peoples often wrongly imagined and stereotyped in fiction: they are intimately connected to the rest of the world on whose flows and dynamics—of people, money, freight—they depend and thrive. And so, by March 2020, the first cases of SARS-COV-2 had arrived home. And thus, vii

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set in the shock, the panic, and the realisation that the ‘enemy’ was now here, within and amongst us. Islandness and smallness were now parts of the problem as well as the solution. A number of island territories have deemed it best to enforce absolute restrictions on travel to or from their jurisdictions, with all the associated challenges and difficulties that this imposed, both on those locked in and those locked out. In most other small island states, however, the policy response was different. Governments rose to the challenge to ‘flatten the curve’: seeking an elusive and dangerous balancing act between maintaining economic and social activity while thwarting an unbridled escalation of infections which would have led to the overwhelming of their fragile health sectors and thinly-peopled ranks of doctors and epidemiological and paramedical staff. The ‘V’ words that ruled the airwaves in 2020 were ‘virus’ and soon, ‘ventilators’, as medical units scrambled to obtain and operate machines that could assist the breathing of the severely infected. By 2021, the V words had changed to ‘vaccines’ and ‘variants’, as science came up with responses to neutralise the virus and build herd immunity in populations, even as the virus evolved and morphed into more contagious (but mercifully less lethal) strains. By 2022, it appears that—with the exception of China—the worst may be over; most people are jabbed and leading fairly normal lives; and the protocols of social distancing and mask-­ wearing are no longer imposed (although encouraged), and perhaps remaining compulsory when visiting hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, health centres and people’s homes. Admittedly, another Omicron variant is making its rounds, but there is no longer that palpable and heightened sense of pan-national emergency and anxiety. Indeed, the V words that topped the headlines in 2022 are not COVID-19 related: they are Vladimir and Volodymyr, the first names of the respective heads of state of Russia and Ukraine, engulfed in war.

The Great Disruptor Writing in 2023, the coronavirus is not an afterthought; it is not a closed historical chapter. And it is certainly not fiction. Ask the almost seven million who have perished from the virus. It has been a war-of-sorts and, in the end, a triumph of human ingenuity, resilience and adaptability. It has pushed through words into our vocabulary which had hitherto been reserved for abstract others: such as vaccine hesitancy, lockdowns, and quarantine. It has impacted on how we work, how we commute, how we

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spend our holidays, how we live together, if and how we pray, how we teach and learn, and how we do business. It has affected people’s decisions to have children or get married. It has alerted communities everywhere to the significance of mental health. It has led to a surge in the number of pets (dogs in particular) and heightened human–animal bonds. It has forced people to live together, leading to an increase in cases of separation and divorce. In spite of densely populated spaces, a new sense of loneliness has crept in, especially with the aged and infirm, forced to stay inside, possibly leading to suicide. The pesky virus and its multifaceted effects have inspired so much literature, including the poignant poetry of Olive Senior, the Poet Laureate of Jamaica (featured in this collection).

This Double Volume This double volume is a supreme testimony to the COVID-19 saga in the Caribbean. The intrepid team of co-editors have ably assembled a rich compendium of chapters that address the first burning question: how has COVID-19 impacted on the ways we live and ‘do’ things in the island Caribbean? The resulting suite of chapters covers an impressive portfolio of social, political, economic and environmental insights, practices and challenges, all drawn from distinct target populations—from the expression of individual liberties to the practice of unemployment insurance (Volume 1); and from prison inmates to victims of domestic violence (Volume 2). The scope of analysis is also varied, ranging from individual Caribbean jurisdictions and regional sub-groupings to the whole Caribbean archipelago. Of course, the drama that seeps through these pages is a poignant testimony that the impact of a pandemic on a range of small island states and territories can be quite idiosyncratic. Here is a geography that has been troubled, and continues to be troubled, by deep questions about its vulnerability in the face of disaster; its ability to rebound and express resilience; and its stock of social and economic capital being able to ride, or respond to, the inevitable waves of crisis. Small island governments that were already ubiquitous became even more assertive in their public policies, notably in their health policies. Sensitive and dominant industries, like international tourism, went belly up. Issues of food security exposed a fragile dependence on imports. Realpolitik confirmed that small states did not carry much clout when it comes to securing ventilators (in 2020) and

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vaccines (in 2021). Personal relations between politicians and top public health officers could make or break virus-containment strategies. The Caribbean is gifted with its own regional university, and I am delighted that a cross-disciplinary team from the University of the West Indies has bravely taken up the challenge to present readers with this detailed scorecard of the aftermath of COVID-19 in this particular region. Interestingly, it is a team of largely female academics who edit and contribute to the volume. This is quite a unique feature in small island state scholarship beyond the Caribbean. Of course, the following pages do not just describe and document; they also analyse and propose. And it is here the second burning question is raised: now that we have lived through and survived the pandemic, what are the prospects for a ‘new normal’? Has the coronavirus experience signposted new ways of doing the same things; or suggested altogether new things to do? Beyond the increase in ‘platform work’ and food delivery services are the parameters of vulnerability, resilience, and anything in between, now being seen in a somewhat different light? And with what consequences on women and men, business, governments and civil society? Perhaps a more vibrant, robust and sustainable Caribbean? It may be too early to come up with hard-and-fast conclusions on this point. Indeed, looking specifically at international tourism, we are probably led to assume that a ‘post-­ pandemic panic’ has set in and we are back to where we were in the benchmark (pre-COVID-19) year of 2019, or hoping to get there as quickly as possible … perhaps forgetting that cries and concerns about ‘over tourism’ and environmental degradation had become quite strident in many parts of the region by that time. In such a case, one wonders: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose? Have past concerns been forgotten or sidelined in the rush to get back on track? Have we learnt anything at all? It is a pertinent question, and I urge readers of this double volume to approach the text with a critical stance. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on  Covid-19 and the Caribbean makes a seminal contribution to the literature, and it does so now, when we can finally speak of a before-COVID (BC!), during COVID, and post-COVID epochs (while acknowledging that the virus is likely to remain around for some time). The books’ encyclopedic content provides readers with the details of the facts ‘on the ground’ and highlights the massive disruption that the pandemic has caused, across the board. Readers will also espy morsels and insights of wisdom and prediction in these pages that help us to approach the subject matter with an open and

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inquisitive mind. After all, the future beckons: other than for its historicity, does not the past have value precisely for its ability to inform future action, behaviour and policy? Indeed, pertinent questions are raised, which future Caribbean scholars and practitioners and peoples at large will help to address, and perhaps answer. Many address the obvious challenges of small size and small scale, and to which the only sensible solution is regional collaboration. With the scramble towards ‘vaccine nationalism’, the region may have witnessed a debacle similar to that of the West Indies Federation. Other contributions deal with the messy challenges of human comportment and psychology: the hesitancy towards vaccination; the turn towards, or away from, religion; and the diverse impacts on social groupings, from children to the aged, infirm, and disabled. The breadth of topics and enquiry is precisely what I like most about these volumes and is probably the main contribution to the scholarly literature. The phenomenal reach means that they have most bases covered, and proudly defy academic nationalism. Other books or articles have focused on the obvious COVID-19-related suspects: its implications for health, international tourism, online learning or working from home. To cite the title of one of the contributions, the coronavirus may be too small to see but simply too painful to ignore. And it is just as painful to ignore the sheer extent of the virus’ impact. Indeed, which parts of our lives has this pesky virus not affected? Kudos to Sherma Roberts, Wendy C. Grenade, Dwayne Devonish and Halimah DeShong, plus the dozens of contributors, for regaling us with this unique, timely and insightful, homegrown collection of interdisciplinary perspectives on COVID-19 and the Caribbean. Godfrey Baldacchino: Professor of Sociology, University of Malta, Malta; Editor, Island Studies Journal (2006–2016); Small States & Territories Journal (2018–); Past President, International Small Islands Studies Association (ISISA) (2014–2020). University of Malta, Msida, Malta 

Godfrey Baldacchino

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Professor Troy Lorde, for providing monetary and institutional support for the publication of these volumes. A special thanks to Dr. Glenda Niles for her editorial expertise, respect for timelines and professionalism throughout this process. The editors also extend gratitude to all contributors who graciously and valiantly rose to the challenge of telling the Caribbean story.

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Contents

Part I State Responses and the COVID-19 Pandemic   1 1 Introduction  3 Sherma Roberts , Dwayne Devonish, Wendy C. Grenade, and Halimah A. F. DeShong 2 COVID-19  and Human (In)Security in the Caribbean: An Assessment of Grenada 13 Wendy C. Grenade 3 Navigating  Motherhood and Work: Caribbean State Responses in a Global Health Crisis 39 Daniele Bobb 4 Revisiting  Democracy in the Anglophone Caribbean in the Context of COVID-19 and Beyond 57 Sandra Ochieng’-Springer 5 Elite  Authoritarianism Versus Individual Liberty: The Politics of COVID-19 Management in Barbados 77 Tennyson S. D. Joseph and Sonjé Greenidge

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6 COVID-19  Pandemic: Mainstreaming Risk Assessment and Management101 Wayne Charles-Soverall and Ken Hackshaw Part II Navigating COVID-19: Economic Development Issues in the Caribbean 123 7 COVID-19  and the Caribbean: Economic Perspectives125 Kari Grenade, Zanna Barnard, Jason Cotton, Donna Kaidou-­Jeffrey, and Patricia Welsh 8 Social  Insecurity: COVID-19, Unemployment Insurance, and the Case for Reform in the Eastern Caribbean149 Dalano R. DaSouza 9 Managing  COVID-19 in the French Caribbean: The Case of Martinique177 Hélène Zamor 10 Using  Monitoring and Evaluation and Evidence-Based Data to Build a More Resilient and Sustainable Caribbean Post-COVID-19195 Nadini Persaud and Ruby Dagher Part III Tourism and Hospitality Perspectives on COVID-19 217 11 Absorb,  Adapt, or Transform? An Exploratory Analysis of Small Tourism Businesses’ Resilience Strategies During the Pandemic219 Sherma Roberts 12 “Furloughed  and Frustrated But I Am Fighting”: Women Hotel Workers and the Cost and Value of COVID-19249 O’Neil Joseph

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13 The  Impact of Government Policies on Hotel Performance During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of Caribbean Countries267 Swechchha Subedi and Marketa Kubickova 14 COVID-19:  A Catalyst for E-Commerce in the Food and Beverage Service Industry in Barbados?293 Paul A. Walcott 15 An  Analysis of Residents’ Affinity for Tourism and Tourists During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Barbadian Experience321 Aquíla Williams and Sherma Roberts Part IV Business Responses to the Pandemic 349 16 Key  Recommendations for Managing Organisational Change Hesitancy in Caribbean Workplaces Amid the COVID-­19 Pandemic: A Conceptual Paper351 Dwayne Devonish 17 Understanding  the Pandemic Transformed Consumer: What Is the New Normal?367 Barney G. Pacheco and Marvin H. Pacheco 18 The  Impact of Fear and Loneliness on the Buyer-Seller Interface and Service Quality in the Context of COVID-19: A Caribbean Perspective393 Joseann Knight 19 Too  Small to See but Too Painful to Ignore: Regulatory Solutions to Sudden Stop in Cash Flow in MSMEs Caused by the COVID-19419 Ankie Scott-Joseph

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20 COVID-19  and AML/CFT Regulation of the Barbados Global Business Sector445 Alicia D. Nicholls Part V Responses to COVID-19: Public Health and Public Policy 465 21 Regional  COVID-19 Pandemic Response in the Caribbean: Contributions of the Caribbean Public Health Agency Expert Advisory Group467 Joy St John, Tracy Evans-Gilbert , Natalie Greaves , Edmund Blades, and Michael H. Campbell 22 One  Hand Cannot Clap: Building Resiliency Through Collaborative—Policy Decisions in the New COVID-19 Era491 Marlene George-Mitchell and Kenwyn Taylor 23 Public  Policy in a COVID-19 Era: The Cost of Self-­Autonomy507 Nassoma Cammock-Graham 24 COVID-19  Vaccine Acceptance and Uptake in the Caribbean: A Cross-Country Intersectional Perspective529 Talia Esnard and Khadijah Williams 25 Afterword:  Re-imagining Caribbean Futures Post-­COVID-­19551 Halimah A. F. DeShong , Dwayne Devonish, Wendy C. Grenade, and Sherma Roberts Index563

Notes on Contributors

Zanna Barnard  is a senior economist at the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB). She currently works with the Financial Stability Team in the bank’s Research Department, after serving as a country economist for twelve years. Zanna is a former member of the Hewanorra Airport Re-development Project Review Committee of Saint Lucia, Grenada’s Fiscal Responsibility Oversight Committee, the Monitoring Committee for Grenada’s Homegrown Programme and the Public Expenditure Review Commission of the ECCU. Her publications have focused on fiscal policy, tourism, trade, financial stability and economic adjustment programmes. Edmund Blades  is a consultant microbiologist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Barbados. His research has focused on the exploration of the impact of African dust carried in Atlantic trade winds on the health of Caribbean populations. During the COVID-19 epidemic, he was a member of the Caribbean Public Health Agency’s Expert Advisory Group, providing guidance on the management and testing of biomedical samples. Daniele Bobb  is a lecturer at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit, the UWI, Cave Hill Campus. Her research interest includes gender and development, social policies, mothering, and women and work. She completed BSc. Psychology with Political Science (First Class Honours) and an MPhil in Political Science at the Cave Hill Campus. Bobb is co-author of the 2021 book Marginalized Groups in the Caribbean: Gender, Policy, and Society and has several refereed essays in academic journals and edited books. She is involved in many outreach and xix

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research projects in the areas of youth empowerment, the marginalisation of vulnerable groups, gender and infrastructure, and gender and education. She is steadfast in her devotion to the work for gender equity and enhancing the quality of life for all. Nassoma  Cammock-Graham  received an LLM degree in Legislative Drafting from the University of the West Indies in 2020, and LLB in 2015. She is a registered legal practitioner for the islands of Jamaica and Saint Lucia. She currently works as a legal consultant, specialising in public policy, legislative drafting and commercial law. She has served in various capacities in the public sector of the Caribbean as a legislative drafter, legal officer, consultant and research assistant. She has assisted with policy and legislative initiatives in the islands of Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Turks and Caicos, and Saint Lucia. Michael  H.  Campbell is Senior Lecturer in Behavioural Science/ Psychology with the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies—Cave Hill, where he teaches undergraduate and postgraduate clinical psychiatry. Mike has collaborated with colleagues across disciplines on over thirty publications in the following areas: psychological measurement, health psychology and bioethics. He has provided disaster and crisis mental health support for first responders, military and communities in Florida, Barbados, and the Southern Caribbean for over twenty years. He is the past president of the Barbados Society of Psychology, a fellow of the American Psychological Association and an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society. Wayne  Charles-Soverall  is a retired senior lecturer in Public Sector Management, having taught courses in the areas of public administration, public policy and public sector management at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus. Wayne brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the classroom and board room through his service and consultancy in several local, regional and international organisations in Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, UNDP and CARICOM.  His professional work highlights a passion for public sector management and public policy research and he has conducted extensive research in the areas of strategic planning and management, strategic leadership and change management in the public service, performance and productivity, public sector reform, public service motivation and the psychological contract, public enterprise management, and corporate governance.

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Jason  Cotton currently functions as a country economist at the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB). He has led CDB country teams in the preparation of policy-based loans and country strategy papers and provides analytical reports to the bank’s management on economic, social and political developments in his assigned CDB borrowing member countries. Jason also represents the CDB at the Caribbean Regional Technical Assistance Centre (CARTAC) Steering Committee meetings and prepares reports (on-demand) to the bank’s Board of Directors and management on information related to its support to CARTAC. His research publications are in the areas of fiscal policy, the balance of payments and vulnerability and resilience in Small Island Developing States. Ruby  Dagher  is an international development professional, researcher, consultant and replacement assistant professor. Her work experience in international development and her research have given her significant expertise in public policy, state capacity, evaluations, donor–recipient relationships, power dynamics and economic development. She holds a PhD in Public Policy and Administration from Carleton University, a Master’s degree in Public Policy and Administration from Carleton University and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Economics from McGill University. Her research interests are focused on foreign aid policy and donor programming, evaluation, post-conflict development, fragile states, post-conflict legitimacy, decentralisation and state legitimacy, role of civil society in non-Western cultures, the Middle East and the Caribbean. She has several publications in reputable journals and is the author of Building Locally Recognized State Legitimacy in Post-Conflict Countries and coauthor of The Role of Monitoring and Evaluation in the UN 2030 SDGs Agenda. Dalano  R.  DaSouza  is a Caribbean policy analyst. He holds a BSc (Economics & Management), an MSc (Banking & Finance) and a PhD (Economic Development Policy) from the University of the West Indies (UWI). Dalano spent several years in private sector finance working in numerous senior roles before transitioning to academia. He is currently a member of faculty at UWI Cave Hill, serving as an assistant lecturer in the Department of Economics. His research areas include development policy, banking, finance and transportation. Dalano is also a Caribbean podcaster and is one-half of the popular ‘A Lawyer & a Policy Analyst Walk into a Bar’ podcast. Available on eleven platforms globally, the podcast raises

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awareness on Caribbean economic, political, legal and social issues in a format that any regional citizen can understand and relate to. Halimah A. F. DeShong  is a senior lecturer and head of the Institute for Gender & Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit of the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus. Her research and publications include a focus on gendered violence, feminist methodologies, anti-colonial feminisms, qualitative interviewing, and the analysis of talk and text. She is the co-editor of Methodologies in Caribbean Research on Gender & Sexuality (2021) and is editor/author of several special issues of academic journals; she has also refereed journal articles and book chapters. Dr. DeShong served as Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ (SVG) Ambassador and Second Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations (December 2019 to December 2021) for the country’s tenure on the UN Security Council. She has advised Caribbean governments on genderbased violence policies and laws, is the author of SVG’s National Genderbased Violence Action Plan, co-creator of a GBV/HFLE curriculum for post-secondary school students, and was the lead researcher and author of the qualitative component of the UN Women/CARICOM/Caribbean Development Bank Women’s Health Survey on violence against women in Grenada. Dwayne  Devonish is Professor of Management and Organisational Behaviour in the Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Management Studies at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies. His primary scholarly and research interests include organisational health and wellness, human resource management practice, leadership and employee relations, and strategic organisational management. Talia  Esnard  holds PhD in Sociology and is a sociologist and current head/chair of the Department of Behavioural Sciences, at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine campus, Trinidad and Tobago. Her work addresses women, work and organisations, particularly within the entrepreneurial and educational spheres. Some of her work has been published in the Journal of Motherhood Initiative; Women, Gender and Families of Color; Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership; Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning; and NASPA Journal about Women in Higher Education. She is the co-author of Black Women, Academe and the Tenure Process in the United States and the Caribbean, and most recently a co-­ editor for Mentoring as Critically Engaged Praxis: Storying the lives and

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Contributions of Black Women Administrators. She was a recipient of the Taiwan Research Fellowship (2012) and Canada-CARICOM Faculty Leadership Program (2015 at Brock University and 2018 at Ryerson University). Tracy  Evans-Gilbert  is a consultant in Paediatrics, Tropical Medicine and Public Health at the Cornwall Regional Hospital, Jamaica. She is Senior Associate Lecturer in Paediatrics at the University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica, and Courtesy Assistant Clinical Professor of Paediatrics and Global Health Preceptor at the West Virginia University. Evans-Gilbert has co-authored close to 40 peer-­review articles in public health, clinical research in childhood infectious diseases with an emphasis in HIV, arboviral diseases and immunisation. She serves on various local, regional and international COVID-19 immunisation-related committees and is the principal investigator of the Caribbean Paediatric COVID collaborative survey. Marlene George-Mitchell  is a part-time lecturer with the Department of Political Science at the UWI, St. Augustine, and at UWI-Roytec Tertiary Institution, lecturing in Politics and Public Sector Management courses. She is also a PhD candidate (Government) attached to the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine. Her research focuses on the impact of political marketing on voting behaviour in Trinidad and Tobago. Her research also extends around political institutions in the Caribbean countries and their role and impact in the development of the countries’ resources (human and other). Natalie Greaves  is qualitative researcher and Lecturer in Public Health at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus (Barbados), where she also coordinates the MPhil/PhD programme in Public Health and Epidemiology. Her research portfolio revolves around the exploration of lived experience data to inform public health policy, particularly in the areas of cancer control and palliative care. Natalie has brought her research expertise to the infectious disease and planetary health space, aiding in the exploration of the intersection between COVID-19 and resilience mechanisms amongst the peoples of small developing states. Sonjé  Greenidge  is a post-graduate research student at the Cave Hill Campus pursuing an MPhil in Political Science. She holds a first-class honours degree in Sociology and Political Science. Her research interests include Caribbean democracy, human rights, and the political agency of

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the church in the Caribbean. She writes published articles on corruption for Integrity Group Barbados, of which she is a member. Wendy C. Grenade  holds a PhD and MA in International Studies from

the University of Miami with concentrations in Comparative Politics and International Relations and an MA in Human Resource Management from the University of Westminster, London. She is currently a professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, School of Arts and Sciences, St. George’s University (SGU). Prior to joining SGU in August 2022, Grenade was employed for sixteen years with the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados, as Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer in Political Science. At the UWI, she served as deputy dean (Outreach and Graduate Studies), Faculty of Social Sciences, and as head, Department of Government, Sociology, Social Work and Psychology. Prior to joining the UWI, she taught as an adjunct professor at Florida Atlantic University and was also a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Miami, European Union Center. Her research interests include governance and democracy, regional health security and Caribbean politics. She has authored over twenty peer-reviewed articles and is the editor of Grenada Revolution: Reflections and Lessons (2015). In addition to her experience in the field of higher education, Grenade was employed with the Government of Grenada, for twenty years, in the Grenada Public Service and the Grenada Diplomatic Service, with postings in Washington DC and London. Kari  Grenade  is an economist with over twenty years of experience in macroeconomic policy. Her expertise is in the areas of public finance and general macroeconomics, with a focus on economic planning and sustainable development. She has published in those areas in peer-reviewed regional and international journals. She has held senior and other positions at the Caribbean Development Bank and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank. She has also served as chairwoman of the Technical Working Group for Grenada’s National Sustainable Development Plan 2020–2035 and is the lead author of the plan. She is currently an IMF long-term macroeconomic advisor in the Ministry of Finance, Grenada. She holds a PhD in Public Policy and Public Administration. Ken  Hackshaw  is managing director and lead consultant at KHBC Limited and the founder and president of the Caribbean Risk Management Academy (CRMA). His international career spans 23 years working in

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executive management positions in New York and London, in the fields of Operational Risk Management, International Operations and Business Process Re-engineering. He returned to the Caribbean after gaining extensive experience internationally and first established the Trinidad and Tobago Risk Management Institute (TTRMI). The CRMA was founded a few years later with regional relationships and partnerships in Risk Management. He holds a B.Sc. in Business Management, a Diploma in Law from the University of London, and a Post-graduate Diploma in Risk Management and Strategic Thinking from Stanford University. Tennyson  S.  D.  Joseph  is Associate Professor  in Political Science at North Carolina Central University. He attained his PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK. His publications include General Elections and Voting in the English-Speaking Caribbean 1992–2005 (co-authored with Cynthia Barrow-Giles), Decolonization in St. Lucia: Politics and Global Neo-Liberalism 1945–2010, and Defending Caribbean Freedom. He is also regular columnist in the Daily Nation newspaper in Barbados. He served briefly as the Administrative Attaché to the prime minister of St. Lucia (Kenny Anthony) between 2000 and 2003 and was an opposition senator in the parliament of St. Lucia for a brief period in 2007. O’Neil  Joseph  is a PhD candidate in History at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus. His research explores the social and cultural histories of Caribbean societies, issues of identity and the intersections of gender and sexuality. At present, he is engaged in an oral history project which seeks to centre the voices of Tobagonian women in the island’s social and economic history. His writing has appeared in refereed journals such as Women’s History Review and Tout Moun-­ Caribbean Journal of Cultural Studies. Donna  Kaidou-Jeffrey is a macroeconomist at the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB). Previously, she served as an economist with the Ministry of Finance, Saint Lucia. Her expertise is in the areas of general macroeconomics and public policy with a focus on sustainable development. She has published research in finance, sustainable development (tourism and water resource management), and the blue economy. She holds an MPhil in Economics.

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Joseann Knight  is Lecturer in Marketing at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies. She entered academia in 1999, after working in the field of management consulting. Knight has published in reputable peer-reviewed journals, primarily in the areas of consumer behaviour, branding and teaching and learning in higher education. She is a follower of Jesus Christ. Marketa Kubickova, PhD  is an associate professor at the University of South Carolina in the School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management. Dr. Kubickova has received her PhD from the University of Central Florida, Orlando. Prior to joining academia, she held a number of managerial positions in several upscale international hotels. Her research interests mainly focus on competitiveness, tourism economics and governance, with special emphasis on developing economies. Dr. Kubickova has mainly published in the hospitality and tourism domain and is currently teaching hotel management classes. Alicia D. Nicholls  B.Sc. (Hons), M.Sc. (Dist), LL.B. (Hons), is an international trade specialist and Junior Research Fellow with the Shridath Ramphal Centre for International Trade Law, Policy & Services of The University of West Indies, Cave Hill Campus. She lectures part-time both in the SRC’s Masters of International Trade Policy (MITP) programme and in the Department of Government, Sociology, Social Work and Psychology. Alicia’s research interests include foreign investment law and policy, financing for development, and global financial regulatory issues. She is a frequent presenter on these and other contemporary trade matters at academic and industry conferences. She regularly contributes articles to a variety of international and regional publications, including IFC Review, the world’s leading industry publisher on issues affecting international financial centres (IFCs). She is also a frequent contributor to the Caribbean Studies Association’s monthly newsletter.She holds a Bachelor of Science in Political Science (First Class Honours), a Master of Science in International Trade Policy (with distinction) and a Bachelor of Laws (Upper Second Class honours) from the University of the West Indies. She also holds the FITT Diploma in International Trade from the prestigious Ottawa-based Forum for International Trade Training (FITT).She is a fellow of the Caribbean Policy Consortium, an advisory board member of the Caribbean-ASEAN Council, a member of the Network of Experts of the Caribbean Chamber of Commerce in Europe (CCCE) and a member of the Academy of International Business (AIB). She is also a

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member of the International Studies Association (ISA) and the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA). Sandra  Ochieng’-Springer, PhD is temporary Lecturer in Political Science at the Department of Government, Sociology, Social Work and Psychology at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus. She teaches undergraduate courses in Comparative Foreign Policy, Theories and Practices of International Negotiations and Diplomacy. She teaches the following courses in the Integration Studies and eGovernance Graduate Programmes: New Regionalisms in the Global Political Economy, Comparative Government, Caribbean Political Economy and Investigative Research Methods. She also teaches the following courses at the UWI, Open Campus: Introduction to Caribbean Politics, Political Leadership and Public Governance, Professional Development in Political Science, E-Governance for Small Island Developing States, Political Mobilisation and Management and Contemporary International Relations of the Caribbean. Her research interests include the global political economy, small states and policy autonomy, comparative political development, regional integration, Caribbean and African Governance. She has also published in these areas. Barney  G.  Pacheco is Marketing Lecturer in the Department of Management Studies, the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus. His academic qualifications include an MSc (Administration) from Concordia University and a PhD (Marketing) from the University of Colorado, Boulder. His research interests are in the areas of consumer psychology, decision making and strategic brand management. He has extensive experience in consumer behaviour research and has provided consulting services to both Caribbean and Fortune 500 companies in the healthcare, financial and manufacturing sectors in projects involving brand equity measurement, customer satisfaction monitoring and market share analysis. Over the past decade, he has also been engaged in delivering executive development programmes for leading private-sector corporations and governmental organisations. His research has been published in several professional peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, the Journal of Internet Commerce and the Journal of Global Marketing. Marvin H. Pacheco  is a strategic marketing consultant, an adjunct lecturer at the University of the West Indies and founder of E.X Caribbean

xxviii 

Notes on Contributors

Business Consultants Limited, a management consulting company focused on optimising marketing strategies for business growth. He holds a PhD (Business Administration) from the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus. Pacheco has conducted multiple projects within the region, utilising marketing analytics techniques to develop innovative marketing and communication strategies for Caribbean private sector firms. His areas of pedagogy include marketing research, international marketing, digital marketing and marketing analytics. His research interests include event marketing and digital marketing with a focus on the use of augmented reality. Pacheco has authored numerous technical reports and his research has been published in Small States & Territories and Latin American Advances in Consumer Research. Nadini Persaud  is a lecturer in Evaluation at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados. She is a Fulbright scholar and holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting (First Class Honors), a Master of Science in Project Management and Evaluation (Distinction), and a PhD in Evaluation (Western Michigan University). She also has two professional designations: Certified General Accountants [CGA] (Gold Award) and Chartered Professional Accountants (CPA), both from Canada. She serves as a board member on a number of regional and international organisations. She has several publications in reputable journals and is the co-author of the Research Methodology Basics: From Conceptualization to Write-Up, co-author of The Role of Monitoring and Evaluation in the UN 2030 SDGs Agenda and author of Strengthening Program Evaluation Culture in the English-Speaking Caribbean: A Guide for Evaluation Practitioners and Decision-­Makers in the Public, Private, and NGO Sectors (in press). Sherma Roberts  is a senior lecturer and director (Ag.) of the School for Graduate Studies and Research at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus. In addition to teaching, she has served as chairman of the Tobago Tourism Agency and previously held positions as chairman of the Tourism Advisory Council in Barbados and deputy chair of the Barbados Tourism Product Authority. She is the lead author in the widely used book Contemporary Caribbean Tourism: Concept and Cases and has coedited four other books, the most recent being, Managing Crises in Tourism: Resilience Strategies from the Caribbean. Sherma has written and presented papers in areas pertaining to community participation, corporate social responsibility, sustainable tourism, diaspora tourism, destination management, tourism resilience and tourism entrepreneurship. Sherma is an alumnus of Brunel University (PhD), the University of

  Notes on Contributors 

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Surrey (MSc. distinction) and the University of the West Indies (BA History and Postgraduate Diploma, International Relations). Ankie  Scott-Joseph is an economist; she is currently a lecturer of Economics at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, where her focus is on microeconomics, regulations of financial institutions and developing Caribbean business environment. Scott-Joseph also serves as a research associate of Central Bank of Barbados and the Center for Economic Research. She has held consultancy positions at the Commonwealth Secretariat, the United Nationals and Latin American and Caribbean Economic System and of the Caribbean. Previously, she worked as an economic statistician in the Canada/Eastern Caribbean Central Bank Debt Management Advisory Services Unit (DMAS) prior and economist in the Ministry of Finance, St Vincent and the Grenadines. Her research interest is in the theory and practice of fiscal policy and public sector debt. She has received awards for her research work, including the Emerald Publishing Company 2020 Literati Awards for Excellence and the prize for the best papers written by young official statisticians from the International Association for Official Statistician, New Zealand. Joy St John  rose in the ranks of Public Health in Barbados from 1994 to become the first Barbadian Chief Medical Officer of Barbados in 2005. She represented Barbados on the Executive Board of WHO, becoming the first Caribbean person to chair the Executive Board from 2012 to 2013. She became the assistant director general at the WHO HQ in Switzerland in 2017. There she held the portfolio of Climate and Other Determinants of Health and successfully completed the first phase of the Climate Change and Health SIDS Initiative. In July 2019, she became the executive director of the Caribbean Public Health Agency. CARPHA has led the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic and Dr St John’s leadership has seen her have over 300 speaking engagements about COVID-19 as she engages with multiple sectors, and health leaders and heads of government in CARICOM. Swechchha  Subedi  is a doctoral student at the University of South Carolina, School of Hospitality, Restaurant, and Tourism Management. She completed her Master’s in Hospitality and Tourism Management from Oklahoma State University. She currently teaches a hotel management class and her research interests include tourism planning, tourism governance, crisis management, and the role of power and trust. Prior to pursuing her academic career in hospitality, she worked in hotels in the US and in Nepal.

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Notes on Contributors

Kenwyn Taylor  is a political scientist attached to the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, as a part-time senior lecturer. He graduated from that institution with a PhD in Political Science. His writing focuses on highlighting the importance of the strength of the political management process during periods of economic and social disquiet in the Caribbean. His book, How Caribbean Leaders Successfully Managed Needed Economic, Entrepreneurial and Social Adjustments, contextualises the consequences of weak management of small countries in the region who are forced into situations over which they have no control. Paul A. Walcott  completed a BSc in Computer Science and an MPhil in Physics at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus before pursuing a PhD in Information Engineering at the City University (UK). After completing his PhD, he joined a UK financial company as a software engineer and developed financial software systems. Later, he returned to the Department of Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics at The Cave Hill Campus to lecture in computer science. He teaches courses in software engineering, e-commerce and information systems, and supervises undergraduate and postgraduate students. He is passionate about teaching and learning and has won teaching and research awards, developed undergraduate and postgraduate academic programmes, conducted professional development training and completed a postgraduate teaching and learning certificate. His research in cross-classroom collaborative project-based learning, game-­ based learning and e-commerce have led to peer-reviewed publications and the development of teaching and learning tools. Patricia Welsh  a national of St. Kitts and Nevis is a results-oriented professional economist and certified director with over 25 years of experience working at the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB). She currently holds the position of policy specialist in the Office of the Chief Director Policy, Governor´s Office, ECCB, and has served in a number of senior positions within the bank. Prior to joining the bank in August 1996, Ms. Welsh worked at the Planning Unit—Ministry of Finance and Development as an economist for the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis. She holds an M.Sc. in Financial Economics from Brunel University and a BA in Social Sciences with a concentration in Economics from the University of the Virgin Islands. Ms. Welch has co-authored a number of research papers in areas related to interest rate policy and labour market analysis.

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Aquíla Williams  received her BSc in Psychology with Sociology in 2017 and MSc in Tourism and Sports Management (with distinction) in 2021 from the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus. Her current research interests include sustainable tourism, and tourist–resident relationships and interactions during crises. Khadijah Williams, PhD  is a social worker and independent researcher (Village Academy Jamaica) and part-time lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work, Mona, Jamaica. She completed her PhD in Applied Social Sciences at Lancaster University, UK, with an emphasis on child welfare and protection. She holds a Master’s degree in Social Work Management and Administration and a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work, Psychology and Human Resource Management and postgraduate qualifications in University Teaching and Learning from UWI, St. Augustine and Competency Based Education and Training (CBET) from the VTDI/ HEART Trust, NSTA, Jamaica. She believes in bridging scholarship and that practice is critical to the process of innovation and social change and therefore places the same value on academic work and practice. Her work experience and research interests include children and young persons (CYP) affected by crime and violence in high-risk communities, infected with and affected by HIV/AIDS, teenage mothers, CYP in educational settings, residential care and transitioning from state care, affected by natural disasters, in rural settings, the impact of migration on CYP, the relational aspects of child and youth care and development, capacity building for families and child/youth care settings. Hélène Zamor  a native or Martinique, studied in Linguistics at the UWI Cave Hill Campus where she obtained her PhD in 2008. She has been teaching French at the Department of Language, Linguistics and Literature, and is an active member of the Caribbean Studies Association and Barbados-China Association. Her main areas of research include Caribbean culture, music and dance. She published an article titled French Caribbean Village Shops: the Martinican Débits de la Régie (Wadabagei) in A Journal of the Caribbean and Its Global Discourse. She has conducted research on the sugarcane and rum industry. In 2018, she published an article on rum manufacturing in Barbados and Martinique in the Journal of the Barbados Museum Historical Society. A monograph on the sugarcane industry in Martinique was also published in 2019. ‘The Importance of Language and Culture to the Growing Sino-Caribbean Relations’ was published in the journal, Global Discourse in November 2021.

Abbreviations

ACHR ACS ADR AFD AML/CFT

American Covenant on Human Rights Association of Caribbean States Average Daily Rate Agence Française de Développement Anti-money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism AMLA Anti-Money Laundering Authority ANOVA Analysis of Variance ARS Agence Régionale de Santé ASEAN The Association of Southeast Asian Nations ATA Anti-Terrorism Act ATAA Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Act AU African Union BAICO British American Insurance Company BBD Barbados Dollar BCCAMCV Barbados Concerned Citizens Against Mandated and Coerced Vaccination BERT Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation BEST Barbados Employment and Sustainable Transformation BHTA Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association BIBA Barbados International Business Association BIDC Barbados Deposit Insurance Corporation BMI Body Mass Index BPO Business Process Outsourcing BSL-2 Biosafety Level 2 BTMI Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc.

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ABBREVIATIONS

CACEM

Communauté d’Agglomération du Centre de la Martinique CAESM Communauté d’Agglomération de l’Espace Sud de la Martinique CAF Corporación Andina de Fomento CAIHR Caribbean Institute for Health Research CAIPO Corporate Affairs and Intellectual Property Office CANREC Caribbean Network of Research Ethics Committees CAP Nord Martinique Communauté d’Agglomération du Pays Nord Martinique CAPE Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination CARICOM Caribbean Community CARIFORUM Caribbean Forum CariPHLN Caribbean Public Health Laboratory Network CARPHA Caribbean Public Health Agency CBB Central Bank of Barbados CCIM Chambre de Commerce et de l’Industrie de la Martinique CCJ Caribbean Court of Justice CCRIF Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility CDB Caribbean Development Bank CDC Center for Disease Control and Prevention CDD Customer Due Diligence CDEMA Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency CECESEM Conseil Economique Social Environnemental de la Culture et de l’Education de Martinique CEO Chief Executive Officer CFATF Caribbean Financial Action Task Force CHTA Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association CHUM Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de la Martinique CLICO Colonial Life Insurance Company CMML CARPHA Medical Microbiology Laboratory CMS CARPHA Member States CMTs Change Management Theories COVAX COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 CRMA Caribbean Risk Management Academy CSME Caribbean Single Market and Economy CTM Collectivité Territorial de la Martinique CTO Caribbean Tourism Organization CTSP Corporate Trust and Service Provider

 ABBREVIATIONS 

xxxv

DIECCTE Direction des Entreprises, de la Concurrence, de la Consommation du Travail et de l’Emploi DKA Diabetic Ketoacidosis DMO Destination Management Organization DNA Deoxyribonucleic Acid DNFBPs Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions DRASS Direction des Affaires Sanitaires et Sociales DSS Dominica Social Security EAG Expert Advisory Group EC Eastern Caribbean ECCB Eastern Caribbean Central Bank ECCU Eastern Caribbean Currency Union ECD Eastern Caribbean Dollars ECDD Enhanced Customer Due Diligence ECHR European Convention on Human Rights ECHR European Court of Human ECLAC Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean ERM Enterprise Risk Management ESI Economic Support Index EU European Union FATF Financial Action Task Force FBSI Food and Beverage Service Industry FDI Foreign Direct Investment FIA Financial Institutions Act FIU Financial Intelligence Unit FOMC Financial Oversight Management Committee FSB Food Service Business FSC Financial Services Commission FST Fonds de Subvention Territoriale GDP Gross Domestic Product GDPR General Data Protection Regulation GNIS Grenada National Insurance Scheme GOG Government of Grenada GOTT Government of Trinidad and Tobago GRSP Groupements Régionaux de Santé Publique HDU High Dependency Unit HIC High-Income Country HIPAA Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act HPST Hospital, Patients, Health and Territories HRI Hotel Restaurant and Institutional IBU International Business Unit ICCPR International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

xxxvi 

ABBREVIATIONS

ICU Intensive Care Unit IDB Inter-American Development Bank IDEA Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance IFC International Financial Centre IHR International Health Regulations ILO International Labour Organization IMF International Monetary Fund IMPACS Implementation Agency for Crime and Security INSEE Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques IR International Relations ITT Integrated Threat Theory JA Jamaica JTUM Joint Trade Union Movement KPO Knowledge Process Outsourcing LAC Latin America and the Caribbean LDC Lesser Developed Countries LGBTQ Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning LTC Long Term Care M&E Monitoring and Evaluation MDC More Developed Countries MER Mutual Evaluation Report MIS-C Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children ML Money Laundering MLFTA Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (Prevention and Control) Act MLFTAA Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (Prevention and Control) Amendment Act MOLSED Ministry of Labour and Small Enterprise Development MRS Missions Régionales de Santé MS Microsoft MSDFS Ministry of Social Development and Family Services MSMEs Micro Small and Medium Enterprises NCDs Non-Communicable Diseases NDP New Democratic Party NIB National Insurance Board NICSL National Insurance Corporation of St. Lucia NIS National Insurance Scheme/System NISSVG National Insurance Scheme of St. Vincent and the Grenadines NIV Non-Invasive Ventilation NOW National Organization of Women NPIs Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions NPLs Non-Performing Loans

 ABBREVIATIONS 

OCC ODPEM OECD OECS OFCs OFDA OxCGRT PAHO PCR PEM PFM PGE PHE PHEIC PME PNM PPM PSO QR Code RECs REDCap RevPar RIE RIVM

xxxvii

Hotel Occupancy Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Offshore Financial Centres Online Food Delivery Applications Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker Pan American Health Organization Polymerase Chain Reaction Protein Energy Malnutrition Public Finance Management Prêts Garantis par l’Etat Public Health England Public Health Emergency of International Concern Petites et Moyennes Entreprises People’s National Movement Parti Progressite Martiniquais Public Sector Organisation Quick Response Code Research Ethics Committee Research Electronic Data Capture Revenue Per Available Room Regional Integration Evaluation Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment RSS Regional Security System RTC Resistance to Change RT-PCR Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction SAR Suspicious Activity Report SARS Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome SCD Sickle Cell Disease SDGs Sustainable Development Goals SEED Support for Education Empowerment and Development SERVQUAL Service Quality SET Social Exchange Theory SGU St. George’s University SI Stringency Index SIDS Small Island Developing States SKNSSB St. Kitts and Nevis Social Security Board SLTB St. Lucia Tourist Board SMEs Small and Medium-sized Enterprises SMMEs Small, Micro and Medium-sized Enterprises/Businesses

xxxviii 

ABBREVIATIONS

SNA SOE STBs STR T&T/TT TF TPE TT TTAL UAE UI UK UN UNCTAD UNDP UNICEF UPP URCAM US USD UWI VAT VUCA WB WEF WHA WHO WTTC

Systems of National Accounts State of Emergency Small Tourism Businesses Smith Travel Research Trinidad and Tobago Terrorism Financing Très Petites Entreprises Travel and Tourism Tobago Tourism Agency Limited United Arab Emirates Unemployment Insurance United Kingdom United Nations United Nations Conference on Trade and Development United Nations Development Programme United Nations Children’s Fund United Progressive Party Union Régionale des Caisses d’Assurance Maladie United States United States Dollars University of the West Indies Value Added Tax Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous World Bank World Economic Forum World Health Assembly World Health Organization World Travel and Tourism Council

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1

Fig. 4.1 Fig. 7.1 Fig. 7.2 Fig. 8.1 Fig. 8.2 Fig. 8.3 Fig. 8.4 Fig. 8.5 Fig. 8.6 Fig. 8.7

Confirmed Cases and Deaths in CARICOM Member States and Associates June 2021–February 2022. (Source: World Meters.info. Available at (www.worldometers.info) Our World in Data. Available at (www.ourworldindata.org)) 21 Number of lockdowns per country. (Source: Caricom Today) 64 Public debt (percent of GDP). (Sources: Ministries of Finance, Central Banks and WEO) 135 External current account balance (percent of GDP). (Source: UNCTAD)137 Contributions versus expenditure 2019. (Source: National Social Security Authorities’ annual accounts. *—Figures are from 2018) 155 Total income versus expenditure, 2019. (Source: National Social Security Authorities’ annual accounts. *—Figures are from 2018) 155 Reserves/benefit expenditure. (Source: National Social Security Authorities’ annual accounts) 156 Number of pensioners. (Source: National Social Security Authorities’ annual accounts) 156 Social security UI disbursements. (Source: National Social Security Authorities. *- UI spending not available by sex (latest available data as of March 2022)) 160 UI recipients by sex. (Source: National Social Security Authorities (latest available data as of March 2022)) 161 GNIS UI recipients by industry. (Source: GNIS (latest available data as of March 2022)) 162

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List of Figures

Fig. 8.8

Total GNIS UI pay-outs by industry. (Source: GNIS (latest available data as of March 2022)) 162 Fig. 8.9 SKNSSB UI recipients by industry. (Source: SKNSSB (latest available data as of March 2022)) 163 Fig. 8.10 Total SKNSSB UI pay-outs by industry. (Source: SKNSSB (latest available data as of March 2022)) 164 Fig. 8.11 NICSL UI recipients by industry. (Source: NICSL (latest available data as of March 2022)) 164 Fig. 8.12 Total NICSL UI pay-outs by industry. (Source: NICSL (latest available data as of March 2022)) 165 Fig. 8.13 NISSVG UI recipients by industry. (Source: NISSVG (latest available data as of March 2022)) 166 Fig. 10.1 Road map/game plan for the catalytic transformation needed to build resilience and sustainability in the Caribbean 203 Fig. 13.1 Cumulative COVID-19 cases (who 2021) 277 Fig. 13.2 Conceptual model 279 Fig. 13.3 Yearly hotel occupancy (2019, 2020, 2021) (STR data) 280 Fig. 13.4 Yearly average daily rate (2019, 2020, 2021) (STR data) 281 Fig. 13.5 Yearly revenue per available room (RevPAR) (2019, 2020, 2021) (STR data) 282 Fig. 14.1 A sketch illustrating the approximate locations of the brick-andmortar businesses used in this study on a map of Barbados 303 Fig. 14.2 Delivacart’s delivery fees across Barbados 307 Fig. 15.1 The social exchange theory 324 Fig. 15.2 The integrated threat theory 325 Fig. 15.3 Total arrivals to Barbados for the period 2015–2019 329 Fig. 15.4 Residents’ opinions on how beneficial reopening for tourism will be for select businesses 336 Fig. 15.5 Residents’ level of concern with sharing public spaces 336 Fig. 15.6 Residents’ attitudes towards main categories of tourism 338 Fig. 15.7 Residents’ attitudes towards Barbados’ main source markets 338 Fig. 16.1 Extraction of conceptualisation and model of RTC. (Source: Giangreco (2002, 20)) 354 Fig. 17.1 Breakdown of the sample by age and sex 376 Fig. 17.2 Online grocery shopping habits based on level of fear of COVID-19377 Fig. 17.3 Home delivery of meals based on level of fear of COVID-19 378 Fig. 17.4 Food wastage during the COVID-19 pandemic 379 Fig. 17.5 Consumption of healthy food during the COVID-19 pandemic 380 Fig. 17.6 Consumption of unhealthy snacks during COVID-19 381 Fig. 17.7 Consumption of fruits and vegetables during the COVID-19 pandemic381

  List of Figures 

Fig. 17.8 Fig. 18.1 Fig. 18.2 Fig. 19.1 Fig. 19.2 Fig. 21.1 Fig. 21.2 Fig. 23.1 Fig. 23.2

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Consumption of dietary supplements during the COVID-19 pandemic382 The loneliness model 398 The fear model 400 Non-performing loans/gross loans, 2019–2021 440 Liquid assets, 2019–2022 440 EAG support for laboratory processes in Barbados 472 Prevalence of anaemia among 180 children aged 0–17 years hospitalized for COVID-19 stratified by presence or absence of sickle cell disease and MIS-C 480 Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the Caribbean. (Source: Our World Data. https://ourworldindata.org/ coronavirus [Accessed March 1, 2022]) 517 Types of vaccine-related legal documents in the Caribbean. (Source: Trumbo et al. (2013, 87)) 521

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3 Table 7.4 Table 7.5 Table 7.6 Table 7.7 Table 7.8 Table 8.1 Table 8.2 Table 8.3 Table 8.4 Table 8.5 Table 11.1 Table 11.2 Table 11.3 Table 11.4 Table 13.1 Table 13.2 Table 13.3 Table 13.4

COVID-19 in Select Caribbean Countries 2020–2021 19 Country overview 128 Real GDP growth rate (percent) 131 Unemployment rate (percent) 134 Average inflation rate (percent) 134 General government revenue and expenditure 135 Remittance flows (percent of GDP) 136 Foreign direct investment (percent of GDP) 137 Summary of responses to COVID-19 141 Contribution rates for social security systems, 2022 (percent of earnings) 151 Maximum insurable earnings, pensionable age, and life expectancy153 Projected sustainability of social security funds 154 Temporary UI benefits measures 160 Estimated economic impact of temporary UI (EC$ millions) 171 International visitor arrivals to Tobago and St. Lucia 2017–2020226 Population of small tourism businesses by sector 229 Profile of STB owners and managers 231 Adaptive strategies employed by STBs in St. Lucia and Tobago 236 Tourism contribution to the economy 273 Inbound tourist visitors by country of origin 274 COVID-19 data 278 Estimate of models 283

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List of Tables

Table 14.1 Table 14.2 Table 14.3 Table 14.4 Table 14.5 Table 15.1 Table 15.2 Table 15.3 Table 16.1 Table 16.2 Table 18.1 Table 18.2 Table 18.3 Table 18.4 Table 19.1 Table 19.2 Table 19.3 Table 21.1 Table 21.2

Table 22.1 Table 22.2 Table 22.3 Table 23.1

Company information for brick-and-mortar food and beverage operators in current study 295 Company information for food and beverage operators with only an online presence in current study 296 Coding the secondary data based on the pre-defined themes 304 The E-commerce initiatives existing businesses launched 306 The technology used by Barbadian FSBs to offer E-Commerce services during the COVID-19 pandemic 308 Residents’ sociodemographic profile 332 Results of the K-means cluster analysis 333 Descriptive statistics for each item of the scale 334 Categories of vaccine sentiments in populations 356 Comparison between vaccine sentiments and change sentiments357 Demographic profile of the sample 401 Measures for the loneliness model 403 Measures for the fear model 404 Support of discrimination against the unvaccinated 408 MSME definition 423 Thematic information 432 Braun and Clarke’s six-phase analysis guide 433 Cumulative COVID-19 cases, deaths, and case fatality rates by age group among children and adolescents 476 Demographic and clinical features, comorbidities, and supportive care among 238 children aged 0–17 admitted with COVID-19 infections among 9 hospitals in Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Barbados 478 Reported deaths from COVID-19 on July 31, 2020, in the Caribbean islands 493 Impact of COVID-19 on some CARICOM countries 500 COVID-19 cases and deaths per country as on 28 April 2022 504 Policy development and implementation standards 515

PART I

State Responses and the COVID-19 Pandemic

CHAPTER 1

Introduction Sherma Roberts , Dwayne Devonish, Wendy C. Grenade, and Halimah A. F. DeShong

Historically, Caribbean countries have had to navigate multiple crises, which have tested our collective resolve through time, and where the region’s

S. Roberts (*) School for Graduate Studies and Research, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Bridgetown, Barbados e-mail: [email protected] D. Devonish The Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business and Management, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Bridgetown, Barbados e-mail: [email protected] W. C. Grenade Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, St. George’s University, St. George’s, Grenada e-mail: [email protected] H. A. F. DeShong Institute for Gender and Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Bridgetown, Barbados e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Roberts et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30889-5_1

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landscape has been shaped by an interplay of vulnerability and resilience and by the convergence of external and internal forces. This confluence of factors has created a number of possibilities and contradictions for the predominantly small island developing states (SIDS) in the Caribbean. It is against this background and that of intersecting challenges of pre-existing socio-economic precarity, the existential threat of the climate crisis, and the various shocks emanating from the global political economy that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic must be considered. With economies characterised as small, open, and highly vulnerable to external shocks, including the ever-present threat of natural disasters, these shifts have been seismic. In the Caribbean, the ripple effects of the crisis have reverberated throughout every sector. The broader socio-­economic impacts were compounded as COVID-19 unmasked democratic deficits, disrupted access to education, exposed and deepened social inequalities, and brought to the fore psycho-social and mental health challenges for diverse demographic groups. There are still concerns about state overreach and the violation of civil rights and liberties, the escalation of gendered violence, a marked increase in women’s unpaid care work, drug abuse, child abuse, and suicide. There are also less documented stories of resilience among Caribbean people where entrepreneurial opportunities have been explored and exploited. We therefore suggest that the contemporary moment is the most defining period in modern history, requiring incisive intellectual scrutiny. This is where the current volume attempts to make a contribution. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean Vol. I provides a comprehensive, multi-, and interdisciplinary assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, using the Caribbean as the site of enquiry. The Caribbean here is conceptualised in a broad sense to include but transcend the Island Chain, incorporating the Caribbean Basin, the ethno-historic zone in Central and South America, and transnational diasporic communities (Girvan 2020). A primary focus of the edited volume is to interrogate COVID-19 as a multidimensional, inter-­mestic phenomenon. This edited collection seeks to unearth, explore, analyse, and document the varied experiences with, impacts of, and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic within the Caribbean regional space, through the prisms of diverse writers and scholars within and across multiple disciplines and vocations. For instance, we know that in every other region of the world, women and girls were more acutely affected by the pandemic and that gender, race, class, and geographic inequalities between and among women and men have deepened. This situation is worse for black and indigenous women, women within religious minorities, women under the

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5

threat of gendered violence, and women who were far more likely to be in positions of precarious employment prior to the pandemic. Among the most visible effects of the pandemic in the Caribbean were increased food insecurity, devastation of our tourism-­ based economies and the wider business sector, exacerbation of the digital divide in the educational sector, a sharp rise in unemployment and shifts in the care economy, escalation of state-led containment measures, and the resultant mental health strain. Despite these challenges, the exigencies of our times have also served to reinvigorate consciousness and actions necessary to create just societies, economies, and polities. For example, Landis (2021) remarks on a deepening regionalism that emerges from the necessary functional cooperation among the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member states to confront the pandemic systematically and scientifically in what are essentially small open economies with significantly constrained health systems. Landis (2021, 72) argues that “the practice and resilience gained from dealing with prior viral epidemics and annual weather-related disasters” is one of several bases for the strengthened regionalism demonstrated in the past two years. The edited volume is therefore an emic, etic, and forward-­looking assessment of how countries within the region continue to navigate the far-reaching consequences of living through a pandemic, while at the same time reimagining just futures. In so doing, the collection situates the analysis of the Caribbean experience along a number of “glocal” developments, with the rapid shifts occasioned by intersecting health, climate, socio-economic, political, and psychosocial crises. Why Interdiscinplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, and why now? This edited collection is unique for several interrelated reasons. One, the dearth in the literature on COVID-19 and the Caribbean warrants a need to generate knowledge from Caribbean perspectives. A significant body of work has already emerged on the COVID-19  in the Global North (Schwab and Malleret 2020; Mercola and Cummins 2021), but little is still known about the Caribbean environments, lives, and livelihoods under siege by this pandemic. Another feature of this book is that it intends to contribute to the discourse on vulnerability, resilience, and possibilities in small developing states and regions, and their capacity to confront and adapt to crises. Three, this proposed volume brings together in one place critical analyses of COVID-19 and the Caribbean to contribute to scholarly discourse and inform praxis as the world grapples with this unprecedented multidimensional crisis. The editors and contributors are all Caribbeanists whose insights are intended to collectively enrich the

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current volume. The broad definition of the Caribbean adopted in this collection allows for comparative analyses within a very diverse geographic space, while at the same time placing the Caribbean experience and Caribbeanist scholars/researchers/activists/policymakers in conversation with perspectives and counterparts from other regions in the world. Four, much of the early scholarly work on COVID-19 and the Caribbean can be found in peer-­reviewed journals. For instance, utilising public health perspectives, Murphy et al. (2020) document the variety of government measures introduced across the Caribbean and explore their impact on aspects of outbreak control. Similarly, Hambleton et  al. (2020) juxtapose COVID-19 with extreme weather events in the Caribbean and tease out lessons learnt. From international relations perspectives, Byron et  al. (2021) examine multilateral and regional policy responses and argue that the present scenario offers opportunities to deepen functional cooperation and build resilience within the Caribbean. However, the edited volume, although building on such works, seeks to contribute to the discourse on COVID-19 and the Caribbean in a more comprehensive manner, as it analyses cross-cutting themes, probes the intersections of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and re-imagines new pathways for the Caribbean ‘post’ COVID-19. As a scholarly text, the collection provides useful policy prescriptions with new pathways for the Caribbean as it seeks to move forward. In essence, this text connects theory and practice to bridge the divides among the academy, policy, and industry. This is a most vital contribution of the edited collection. This edited work therefore seeks to fill a research gap through an analytical treatment of COVID-19 and the Caribbean experience, using various theoretical, conceptual, and methodological frameworks, and empirical applications grounded in a wide cross section of disciplines. Against this backdrop, this volume seeks to address three (3) broad questions: 1. What were ‘the Caribbean experiences’ with and within the COVID-19 pandemic? 2. What were the general reactions and responses to the pandemic and its effects on various dimensions of these Caribbean experiences? 3. What are the key lessons learnt and principal takeaways emanating from our experiences with and treatment to the pandemic, and what

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viable alternatives, in navigating the pandemic, should be considered in our rebound and recovery efforts? In addressing the aforementioned questions and more, the collection leverages both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary lenses in the documentation of these experiences, reactions/responses, lessons learnt, and best practices in manoeuvring through the complex crises occasioned by the pandemic. In short, the collection mobilises critical perspectives brought to bear on research produced within and beyond the boundaries and boundedness of conventional academic disciplinary divides in response to the multidimensional crises of our time. The culmination of this collection offers a reimagining of our Caribbean contemporary futures in hope of finding home-grown solutions, avenues, and possibilities. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1: The State, Economy and Health is divided into 5 parts consisting of 24 chapters which weave together thematic strands that focus on governance, the macro and micro aspects of the economy, tourism and hospitality, business management, and public health policy. Together, the chapters in this volume tell the story of the extent and effects of Caribbean governments’ response to the pandemic and the ways in which industries and organisations have had to pivot to survive and transform their management and operational practices. Integral to this volume is a discussion about the tensions between public health, rights, and national capacities to manage the effects of the virus. The volume is grounded broadly in Caribbean Studies, with a focus on the social sciences and the humanities. The structure of Volume I is outlined below. Part I provides a body of work that thoroughly assesses the diverse effects of the pandemic on Caribbean environments and how the regional governments responded to mitigate the same. This body of chapters presents a cogent revelation and documentation of key threats and issues facing the state of democracy, human security, and individual liberties in the Caribbean societies amid the pandemic, and how the state and its machinery must continually navigate and confront the presenting challenges in preserving the essential ideals of democratic governance for all. The balancing of lives and livelihoods, coupled with the responses of full or partial shutdowns (alongside other severe mitigation/containment measures) of social and economic activity, has led to mixed reactions from various commentators within and outside the Caribbean region regarding the state’s

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management of the pandemic. Sharma and Arunima (2021) concede that “[h]istory confirms that in the times of crisis, civil rights and civil liberties are at the greatest risk” (441). This statement holds especially true for our society’s most vulnerable groups inclusive of the impoverished communities/populations, unpaid/informal female care workers, persons with disabilities, and the aged. Part I concludes with a holistic discussion of the needed best practices for assessing and managing the diverse risks presented by the pandemic and recommends several courses of action for the Caribbean governments to incorporate sound risk assessment and management practices within the wider net of public health policies that are more people-centred, balanced, and evidence-based. The body of work evident in Part II emphasises the unfortunate vulnerabilities of Caribbean economies amid the pandemic and recognises the multifaceted effects that this crisis has occasioned for both state and non-state intervenors in the pursuit of economic stabilisation and subsequent recovery. The chapters echo the recent views of the OECD that the pandemic poses the largest threat to the economies of developed and developing countries after the great financial crisis and recession of 2008–2009 (Bagchi et al. 2020). Tackling the delicate issues ranging from increasing unemployment and related strains on social security systems, reduced economic activity due to state-led containment measures, and reduced tourism receipts, to rising prices/cost of living, the chapters in this section make a strong case for how governments and other non-state actors can contribute to the mitigation of negative economic effects of the pandemic and support the recovery efforts at national and regional levels. Notably, calls for more robust and sustainable capacity building and institutional strengthening initiatives and programmes, coupled with holistic, proactive, and forward-thinking strategic decision-making at all levels of Caribbean society, are a recurrent theme in this body of work. It is a noteworthy and global fact that the tourism and hospitality sector has been one of the most heavily hit industries by the COVID-19 pandemic (Madeira et al. 2020). Against this backdrop, Part III judiciously examines the effects on and responses by the tourism and hospitality sector (and its stakeholders and agents) in the Caribbean region regarding the pandemic and its far-reaching strains. A thorough review and coverage of key issues affecting the sector includes the plight of women hotel workers affected by the pandemic, the impact of state-led and pandemic-related policies on hotels’ performance and survivability in the region, the

1 INTRODUCTION 

9

resilience capacity of small tourism businesses, and the variable appetites and concerns of Caribbean residents towards tourism and tourists in the Caribbean. Part III also considers how e-commerce and related innovations can be leveraged to sustain and bolster the food and beverage service industry in the face of the pandemic. Many scholars outside of the region have noted that the pandemic’s harsh impacts on the business sector should not go unnoticed, yet there is still insufficient measurement of these impacts across developing territories (Fairlie 2020). Indeed, Part IV provides a deeper assessment of the pandemic’s relationship with the business and consumer communities in Caribbean developing countries. The core body of work in this section carefully interrogates how different categories of businesses (from microsized to large enterprises) and sectors have reacted or responded to the myriad challenges and obstacles wrought by the pandemic. These challenges include the management of change, employee anxiety resulting from the unplanned move from traditional to non-traditional ways of working, vaccine hesitancy among the workforce, the shifting preferences, behaviours and service quality expectations and concerns of consumers, and the significant cash flow challenges and constraints faced by MSMEs. Part IV also assesses the importance and diverse implications of regulations for addressing internal financial controls and related compliance among global businesses in the region. Finally, Part V traverses the diverse experience of Caribbean societies in crafting and executing public health policies and related policy frameworks to cushion and respond to the dynamic and deleterious effects of the pandemic in the region. Public policy has been the most regarded instruments for tackling the effects of the pandemic in other countries outside of the region (Kim and Kim 2021; Lin and Meissner 2020) but has been the least understood in terms of its impact on social and economic recovery attempts in the developing Caribbean region. The body of chapters in this section assesses the key role and importance of public policies (including those related to the public health machinery) in addressing the mix of challenges presented by the pandemic including (but not limited to) the impact of the range of mitigation strategies and interventions used by the public health sector for controlling the spread of the virus in the population, the state of vaccine acceptance and uptake by the citizenry and the fight against rising misinformation, and the (resultant or accompanying) implications of vaccine hesitancy amid the reliance of formal or informal vaccine mandates. Part V also addresses the need and call for the revival

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of indispensable democratic principles of public dialogue, participation, trust, and civic engagement as vital ingredients to public policy design and implementation as the region moves forward in its fight against current and future pandemic events.

References Bagchi, Bhaskar, Susmita Chatterjee, Raktim Ghosh, and Dhrubaranjan Dandapat. 2020. Impact of COVID-19 on Global Economy. In Coronavirus Outbreak and the Great Lockdown, 15–26. Singapore: Springer. Byron, Jessica, Jacqueline Laguardia Martinez, Annita Montoute, and Keron Niles. 2021. Impacts of COVID-19  in the Commonwealth Caribbean. The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs 110 (1): 99–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/00358533.2021.1875694. Fairlie, Robert. 2020. The Impact of COVID-19 on Small Business Owners: Evidence from the First Three Months After Widespread Social-Distancing Restrictions. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy 29 (4): 727–740. Girvan, Norman. 2020. Creating and Recreating the Caribbean. In Contending with Destiny: The Caribbean in the 21st Century, ed. Kenneth Hall and Dennis Benn, 31–36. Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. Hambleton, Ian R., Selvin M. Jeyaseelan, and M.M. Murphy. 2020. COVID-19 in the Caribbean Small Island Developing States: Lessons Learnt from Extreme Weather Events. Lancet Global Health 8 (9): e1114–e1115. https://doi. org/10.1016/S2214-­109X(20)30291-­6. Epub 2020 Jul 2. Kim, Seoyong, and Sunhee Kim. 2021. Searching for General Model of Conspiracy Theories and Its Implication for Public Health Policy: Analysis of the Impacts of Political, Psychological, Structural Factors on Conspiracy Beliefs About the COVID-19 Pandemic. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18 (1): 266. Landis, R. Clive. 2021. Coronavirus and CARICOM: The benefit of a Regional University in a Coherent Pandemic Response. In COVID in the Islands: A Comparative Perspective on the Caribbean and the Pacific, ed. Yonique Campbell and John Connell, 71–91. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Lin, Zhixian, and Christopher M. Meissner. 2020. Health vs. Wealth? Public Health Policies and the Economy During COVID-19, no. w27099. National Bureau of Economic Research. Madeira, Arlindo, Teresa Palrão, and Alexandra Sofia Mendes. 2020. The Impact of Pandemic Crisis on the Restaurant Business. Sustainability 13 (1): 40. Mercola, Joseph, and Ronnie Cummins. 2021. The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing the Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal. Vermont and London: Chelsea Green.

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Murphy, M.M., S.M.  Jeyaseelan, C.  Howitt, N.  Greaves, H.  Harewood, K.R.  Quimby, N.  Sobers, R.C.  Landis, K.D.  Rocke, and I.R.  Hambleton. 2020. COVID-19 Containment in the Caribbean: The Experience of Small Island developing States. Research in Globalization 2: 100019. Schwab, Klaus, and Thierry Malleret. 2020. COVID-19: The Great Reset, 2020. Geneva: World Economic Forum. Sharma, Tanushka, and Arunima. 2021. Management of Civil Liberties During Pandemic. Indian Journal of Public Administration 67 (3): 440–451.

CHAPTER 2

COVID-19 and Human (In)Security in the Caribbean: An Assessment of Grenada Wendy C. Grenade

Introduction The contemporary moment is the most defining in modern history. COVID-19’s lethality has devastated economies, disrupted societies, and tested governance systems that were ill-prepared to deal with it. As on December 8, 2022, there were 642,924,560 confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally, including 6,625,029 deaths reported to the World Health Organization (WHO). By December 5, 2022, a total of 12,998,974 vaccine doses were administered (WHO 2021). The aggressiveness and virulence of COVID-19 exposed the vulnerability of powerful states and exacerbated security and development challenges for countries in the Global South. As the World Bank (WB) confirms, over the longer horizon, the deep recessions triggered by the pandemic are expected to leave lasting scars through lower investment, an erosion of human capital through lost

W. C. Grenade (*) Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, St. George’s University, St. George’s, Grenada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Roberts et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30889-5_2

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work and schooling, and fragmentation of global trade and supply linkages (World Bank 2020). The central questions are as follows: first, what was the impact of COVID-19 on the Caribbean, in general, and on Grenada, in particular, and what was the Government of Grenada’s (GOG’s) pandemic response? Second, theoretically, to what extent is human security a useful analytical tool to explore inter-related security threats which confront developing countries and the people within them? The objective of the chapter is to analyse the extent to which, as part of its pandemic response, the GOG sought to find viable trade-offs between health, economic, and political security. Methodologically, this is a qualitative case study that utilises two sources of information. Primary data in the form of in-depth semi-­ structured interviews with key participants from six key sectors: economic, health, tourism, law enforcement, education, and the diaspora. The interviews were carried out from January 4 to May 9, 2022, which allowed for reflection on the pandemic that begun in March 2020. The key participants were targeted, given their leadership and expert knowledge of their respective sectors. Secondary sources included official government documents, statements from international organisations, press releases and newspaper articles, among other sources. The chapter is divided into seven sections. Following this introduction, section one (re)conceptualises security with specific focus on human security. The second section discusses COVID-19 and the Caribbean. The chapter then focuses on Grenada’s socio-economic and political condition prior to COVID-19. It then highlights the implications of COVID-19 and the GOG’s response. The following section presents some sectoral policy challenges, lessons and good practices. Two main themes emerge from the analysis of the data: (a) tensions between health and economic security and (b) paradoxes of political security. The final sections provide implications for policy and research as well as conclusions.

Conceptualising Security Traditionally, realist thought dominated the security discourse. This hegemonic theorising of security confined the concept to the military sphere as part of the grand strategy of great powers, preoccupied with survival in an anarchical world characterised by a Hobbesian ‘war of all against all.’ This conceptualisation of security emphasised military capabilities, national security, and the survival of powerful states in the international system

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(Mearsheimer 1995; Walt 1991). Within this context, security refers to “the study of the threat, use and control of military force, especially of specific policies that states adopt in order to prepare for, prevent or engage in war” (Walt 1991, 212). The neorealist discourse has at its core the concept of the ‘security dilemma.’ This generally refers to a situation where the military preparations of one state create an unresolvable uncertainty in the mind of another as to whether those preparations are for ‘defensive’ purposes only to enhance its security in an uncertain world, or whether they are for offensive purposes to change the status quo to its advantage (Wheeler and Booth 1992). Since the end of the Cold War, there is a debate on the meaning of ‘security’ and the agenda of Security Studies (Buzan et al. 1998; Ullman 1983). It is argued that the traditional focus on military security is no longer adequate, on its own, to explain non-military threats, such as environmental scarcity and degradation, the spread of diseases, overpopulation, mass refugee movements, nationalism, terrorism, and nuclear catastrophe. Proponents who advocate for a broadening of the security discourse argue that realists ignored the fact that “the lives and livelihoods of the overwhelming majority of people on this planet are at greater risk from diseases than from wars, terrorism or other forms of violent conflict” (McInnis 2013, 325). The concept of human security (UNDP 1994) is central to contemporary debates. Human security generally refers to security with a human face. The UNDP 1994 report identified seven elements of human security: (1) economic, (2) food, (3) health, (4) environmental, (5) personal, (6) community, and (7) political security. Within this critical security discourse, I define ‘security dilemma’ as a complex phenomenon that exists when the certainty of uncertainty and the intensity of risks and threats create a paradoxical relationship between the various dimensions of security so that difficult trade-offs have to be made that can severely impact survival of states and the people within them. This chapter focuses on three dimensions of human security—health, economic, and political security—to analyse the case of COVID-19 in Grenada. Health Security Historically in the West, disease was often seen as an impediment to exploration and a challenge to winning a war. Cholera and other diseases killed at least three times more soldiers in the Crimean War than did the actual

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c­ onflict. Malaria, measles, mumps, smallpox and typhoid felled more combatants than did bullets in the American civil war. (Brundtland 2003, 417)

There is no universal definition of health security, and its meaning is “quite fluid, imprecise and ambiguous” (Elbe 2010, 4). Generally, health security is viewed as part of a larger human security agenda, which focuses on freedom from want and freedom from fear. Concerns about global health and security are not new. In 1946, the principles set out in the preamble of the constitution of the WHO included the declaration that the health of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security and is dependent on the fullest cooperation of individuals and states (World Health Organisation 1946). Yet, despite that declaration, the praxis of Western-centric IR relegated health to the realm of ‘low politics.’ However, in the post-Cold War era, as globalisation intensified, the concept of health security became prominent. Importantly, in May 2001, the World Health Assembly (WHA) passed a resolution on “Global Health Security: Epidemic Alert and Response.” A background report to the meeting warned that: The globalisation of infectious disease is not a new phenomenon. However increased population movements, whether through tourism or migration or as a result of disasters; growth in international trade in food and biological products; social and environmental changes linked with urbanisation, deforestation and alterations in climate; and changes in methods of food processing, distribution and consumer habits have affirmed that infectious disease events in one country are potentially a concern for the entire world. (World Health Assembly 2001, 1 cited in Elbe 2010, 3)

Within the study of global public health, there is a similar debate on the need to securitise global public health. There is a body of work that concentrates on public health security. This refers to the activities required, both proactive and reactive, to minimise vulnerability to acute public health events that endanger the collective health of national populations. Global public health widens the definition to include acute public health events that endanger the collective health of populations living across geographical regions and international boundaries…Global health security, or lack of it, may also have an impact on economic or political stability, trade, tourism, access to goods and

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services and, if they occur repeatedly, on demographic stability. (World Health Organisation 2007, 1)

There is a case to be made for broadening the conceptualisation of security to include health threats. For instance, following the SARS outbreak in Asia in 2002, many security analysts made a case for infectious diseases to be treated as national security threats. For example, with fewer than 10,000 cases, SARS cost Asian countries US$60 billion of gross expenditure and business losses in the second quarter of 2003 alone. As Caballero-Anthony (2005) argues, given the multidimensional threats to national security posed by infectious diseases, such as SARS, it is imperative that states treat these diseases within a security framework. It is necessary to point out that security is one of many theoretical lenses that can be used to interrogate global health threats. However, it is outside the scope of this chapter to analyse the synergies and dichotomies among the human security framework and other approaches advanced by feminists, Marxists, environmentalists, and other scholar/activists whose work expose issues of gender, race, and class and the implications for peace, social and environmental justice, and economic security. Economic (In)Security Economic security generally refers to those aspects of trade and investment which directly affect a country’s ability to defend itself and policy instruments which are used for purposes of aggression or defence. In this study, economic security is directly linked to the interplay between vulnerability and resilience. It refers to a country’s capacity to withstand economic shocks, reduce unemployment and inequality, alleviate poverty, and create the conditions for human security, order, and political stability. Political Security From a human security perspective, political security refers to the enjoyment of civil and political rights and freedom from political oppression. As part of the social contract, citizens expect their governments to stimulate economic growth, widen economic opportunity, alleviate poverty, and provide welfare benefits. These are generally regarded as basic political rights to which citizens often feel a sense of entitlement. Yet, it may be impossible to provide equality of condition, or equality of opportunity,

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without imposing major governmental infringements on individual freedom. Therefore, there is a tension between economic freedom and economic welfare. For purposes of this case, political security is used interchangeably with national security to refer to security of territory through law enforcement and other instruments of security.

COVID-19 and the Caribbean The first confirmed case of COVID-19 within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) 1 was reported in Jamaica on March 10, 2020. During the first wave of the pandemic, the region was relatively successful in containing disease spread and fatalities, despite limited resources and relatively weak health systems. As of June 2020, there were 8327 confirmed cases and 185 deaths among twenty Caribbean countries (see Table 2.1). As the pandemic intensified and as Caribbean countries opened their borders in July/August 2020, confirmed cases begun to increase, although marginally in most countries. By November 30, there were 53,009 confirmed cases, and 1220 COVID-19-related deaths were recorded. Despite the comparative rise in confirmed cases from August to November 2020, the Caribbean region had not experienced the devasting effects of the health crisis relative to other regions of the world. In 2021, as the pandemic intensified and new variants emerged, the Caribbean followed the global trend of increased cases and deaths (see Fig. 2.1). Although COVID-19 is a relatively new phenomenon, there is emerging literature which seeks to analyse its impact on the Caribbean. In Campbell and Connell (2021), contributors analyse the impact of COVID-19 on two contrasting island regions—the Caribbean and the Pacific. They draw attention to the wide-ranging complexity of the pandemic and the comparative effects and responses on select islands during the first year of the pandemic. The volume focuses on six key themes: public health; the economies, to include tourism and agriculture; 1  The Caribbean Community consists of 15 full member states: Antigua and Barbuda; Barbados; Belize; Commonwealth of The Bahamas; Commonwealth of Dominica; Grenada; Guyana; Haiti; Jamaica; Montserrat; St. Christopher and Nevis; St. Lucia; St. Vincent and the Grenadines; Suriname; and Trinidad and Tobago. Most CARICOM member states are part of the island chain, but Guyana and Suriname are located in South America and Belize in Central America, while Haiti shares, with the Dominican Republic, the land and marine space of Hispaniola. CARICOM also consists of five full or associate members which are British Overseas Territories.

3 68

104

97 24 146 8

200

18 23 245 5933 698 11 19 15

15,205 98,064

393,873

287,432 398,746 62,240 30,265

65,851

72,016 112,610 787,183 11,425,866 2,963,314 4992 183,766 53,262

Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda The Bahamas Barbados Belize Bermuda British Virgin Islands Cayman Islands Dominica Grenada Guyana Haiti Jamaica Montserrat St. Lucia St. Kitts and Nevis 85 41 5406 9294 10,763 13 259 22

274

276 5743 260 71

7541

6 141

193 161 20,055 18,658 50,124 20 5296 446

614

4081 13,251 2514 313

12,586

109 1263

5336 5863 36,872 24,635 90,209 41 12,837 2749

4203

22,316 29,105 5704 2725

22,601

1137 4118

Nov 2021

0 0 12 105 10 1 0 0

1

7 2 9 1

11

0 3

0 0 151 233 257 1 2 0

2

7 147 9 1

163

0 4

June Nov 2020 2020

June 2021

June 2020

Nov 2020

Deaths

Confirmed Cases

Population

Country

Table 2.1  COVID-19 in Select Caribbean Countries 2020–2021

0 1 469 436 1075 1 84 3

2

47 329 33 1

254

0 42

June 2021

35 200 959 708 2329 1 270 27

2

194 544 106 37

665

4 107

Nov 2021

4973 5602 33,598 20,703 61,024 40 12,328 2661

1352

13,639 26,741 5558 2649

21,525

1053 3916

(continued)

35.68 29.22 33.33 0.42 16.19 28.45 23.99 46.05

82.95

119,435 53,955 72,282 652,332 153,182 1.06 mil 2949 96,913 50,872

46.15 46.35 76.28 54.14

32.31

60.55 54.92

284,659 398,131 101,341 34,608

263,795

18,782 114,309

Recoveries Vaccinations Vaccinations as % of Nov 2021 eligible pop 2  COVID-19 AND HUMAN (IN)SECURITY IN THE CARIBBEAN… 

19

515 130

41

587,511 1,400,240

38,805

748

5312 6669

85

2425

21,732 32,793

2225

3045

50,078 62,670

5326

2

13 8

0

18

522 847

12

3981

23

2966

1139 29,530 1870 53,829

72

Nov 2021

1220 4176 9292 307,668

6

117 120

0

June 2021

56,343

467,553 1.27 mil

49,816

69.17

35.96 44.95

18.76

Recoveries Vaccinations Vaccinations as % of Nov 2021 eligible pop

Source: World Meters.info. Available at (www.worldometers.info) Our World in Data. Available at (www.ourworldindata.org)

19,092,239 8327 53,009 188,859 391,570 185

29

110,998

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Suriname Trinidad and Tobago Turks and Caicos Islands Total

Nov 2021

June Nov 2020 2020

June 2021

June 2020

Nov 2020

Deaths

Confirmed Cases

Population

Country

Table 2.1 (continued)

20  W. C. GRENADE

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Fig. 2.1  Confirmed Cases and Deaths in CARICOM Member States and Associates June 2021–February 2022. (Source: World Meters.info. Available at (www.worldometers.info) Our World in Data. Available at (www.ourworldindata.org))

remittances; social tensions and responses; public policy; and future ‘bubbles’ and regional connections. This is a major contribution to the discourse on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and the challenges for governance, economic management, and development. CARICOM member states are predominantly SIDS, and the economic implications of COVID-19 were acute. In the initial phase of the pandemic, Caribbean economies spent between one per cent and four per cent of GDP to mitigate the immediate effects of COVID-19 on their economies (Jhinkoo-Ramdass, 2020). As Jhinkoo-­Ramdass asserts further, Caribbean economies were forced to implement health and safety, fiscal, and social measures. In terms of health and safety measures, all CARICOM countries enforced lockdown measures, although to different degrees. All had to allocate additional and scarce resources to the health sector. With respect to fiscal measures, most CARICOM countries instituted tax relief for affected sectors and sought financing from international financial institutions. A major challenge for Caribbean governments was

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how to respond effectively to such a grave and multidimensional crisis. Murphy et  al. (2020) document the variety of government measures introduced across the Caribbean and explore their impact on aspects of outbreak control. There is no doubt that COVID-19 exacerbated development challenges. Byron et al. (2021) found that there is need to embrace multidimensional development and pursue human welfare as the central goal of development. They argue that economic growth, while essential, will not automatically bring social development. Their findings confirm that despite the region’s long-standing advocacy for broader notions of development as policy drivers, Caribbean countries were caught off guard by the crisis. Their research found that inadequacies in the region’s education, health, and social protection systems were laid bare early in the pandemic, notwithstanding the stellar efforts of governments to mitigate adverse social impacts and prevent systemic collapse. Byron et al. (2021, 113) conclude that the COVID-19 crisis “presents an opportunity to re-­ engineer governance models, reimagine the social contract and explore how to provide a stronger social safety net for the population in general.” In a similar vein, Knight and Reddy (2020) argue that economic recovery, post-COVID-19, must be based not just on national policies but also on a thoughtful regional strategy. They call for a think tank (composed of Caribbean academics and practitioners) to assist CARICOM to develop such a strategy and a coordinated plan to take advantage of ‘the post-­ pandemic rebound.’ A common thread in the literature is that as post-colonial economies and societies, COVID-19 further exposed the structural impediments that have shaped the contours of the Caribbean—unequal global power relations, unfair trade, economic dependency, poverty, inequality, gender injustices, among other harsh realities. Yet, the pandemic also brought to the fore the innate resilience, culture of regional cooperation, and diasporic resource mobilisation that characterise the collective spirit of Caribbean people. This study seeks to contribute to the discourse on COVID-19 and the Caribbean, paying special attention to Grenada.

Grenada: Pre-Pandemic Overview As a SID, Grenada has multiple interrelated vulnerabilities. Briguglio (2014) classifies Grenada as a ‘borderline case,’ with high vulnerability and medium resilience. Grenada is vulnerable to natural disasters and other

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environmental shocks. Consequently, economic (in)security is a serious concern for Grenada. As a post-colonial society, external factors have constantly shaped Grenada’s development path. As the CDB reports, during the period 2001–2008, Grenada experienced a series of severe shocks: terrorist attacks in the United States, September 11, 2001; Hurricane Ivan, September 2004; Hurricane Emily, 2005; escalation of prices of energy and essential foods in late 2007 and early 2008; global recession in 2008, impacting the tourism sector and reducing remittance income from the Diaspora (CDB 2014). When taken together, those shocks had a grave impact on Grenada’s economy and society. Social vulnerability is a major cause for concern in Grenada. Poverty is one of Grenada’s key developmental challenges. Poverty Assessment Reports were conducted in Grenada in 1999 and 2007/08 (Kairi Consulting, 2008, xvi). The report indicates that in addition to the 37.7% that are poor, there are 14.6% that are vulnerable. Cognisant of this reality, the GOG has introduced several initiatives, for example, a conditional cash transfer programme called Support for Education Empowerment and Development (SEED), and a Social Safety Network Framework which was launched in 2014 (CDB 2014, 2). Unemployment is another major challenge. The 2014 Labour Force Survey indicates that unemployment rate had fallen and was 29.5% down from 32.5% in 2013. Among women, it was 31.5%. Among youth (15–25 years), it had fallen from 53.2% to 45.4% (GOG Budget Statement 2014, 3). Young males in particular were more likely than any other group to be unemployed. Financial sector volatility has contributed to deeper levels of vulnerability. The collapse of two major insurance companies—British American Insurance Company (BAICO) and Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO)—after the 2008 global financial crisis is a pressing issue on the government’s agenda, and discussions are ongoing at the regional and sub-regional levels to resolve the problem. Politically, Grenada is a Commonwealth Caribbean country with a colourful political history (Singham 1968; Emmanuel 1978; Brizan 1984). Since its return to parliamentary democracy in 1984, after the implosion of the Grenada revolution and the United States invasion (Grenade 2015), Grenada has transitioned to electoral democracy. There are relatively stable institutions to include an Integrity Commission, the Office of an Ombudsman, and a social compact with civil society. Comparatively, there is relatively high levels of female political participation. Based on data from the World Governance Indicators, Grenada

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consistently scores positively along six key indicators: voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence/terrorism, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption (Kaufmann et al. 2010). Therefore, Grenada does satisfy the conditions for electoral democracy. Yet, there are glaring democratic deficits which include distortions of the first-past-the-post electoral system, which means votes do not always translate proportionally to seats. Additionally, there are other challenges to governance, which include absence of a parliamentary opposition (1999–2003 and 2013–2022), marginalisation and exclusion of opposition forces, and a political culture that does not promote consensus. Within such context, it is difficult to achieve genuine substantive democracy. Haynes (2001) defines full or ‘substantive democracy’ as going beyond electoral democracy to include meaningful participation and representation, government accountability, respect for human rights, and the subservience of the military to civilian rule. This type of democracy is required to effectively manage severe crises, such as COVID-19.

COVID-19 and Grenada: Lives, Livelihoods, and Liberty For small developing countries, such as Grenada, COVID-19 brought to the fore a security dilemma: how to simultaneously protect lives, safeguard livelihoods, and guarantee liberty? In this section, I will analyse the interplay among health, economic, and political security in the GOG’s pandemic response. I will first focus on challenges and then on lessons and good practices. Health and Economic (In)Security: Lives and Livelihoods A major challenge was that the severity and persistence of COVID-19 meant it was imperative for policymakers to find viable trade-offs as they sought to balance health, economic, and political security. The GOG was relatively successful in managing the pandemic in the first wave by acting swiftly to implement tight protocols, such as border closures, stay at home orders, quarantines, business closures, and mandatory mask-wearing, among other restrictions. From a public health perspective, one expert confirmed that:

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A lot of the focus initially was about trying to keep COVID-19 out of the island, and they did obviously a good job of that initially until a number of things happened including the more infectious variances. So, a lot of the thrust was put on testing at the airports, at the ports of entry, and quarantining people for the appropriate length of time. Initially the protocols were tight and they continued to be tight up until late last year, basically, and so, by the time Delta came, the protocols were still tight at that time. (Personal interview, April 20, 2022)

Despite the tight protocols, the first case of COVID-19 was reported on March 22, 2020. It was an imported case from the United Kingdom (GIS 2020). During that initial phase, Grenada fared relatively well. As shown in Table 2.1, in June 2021, there were 161 incidences of COVID-19 compared to other OECS countries and the wider CARICOM. There were sporadic clusters during the initial phase, such as the outbreak connected to a major resort in December 2020 (Thiruvengadam 2021). However, by November 2021, there was community spread of the virus. Cases increased exponentially from 161 in June 2021 to 5863 in November of that same year. What accounted for this? The Delta variant was relatively more contagious and deadlier than earlier variants. Additionally, in December 2021, with the increase in social activities during the festive season, the Ministry of Health recorded an increase in cases and identified several factors that accounted for the spike, such as “increases in social gatherings, non-adherence to protocols, and a rise in travel to and from Grenada” (NOW Grenada 2021b). By early 2021, vaccines became available. The Ministry’s strategy included increasing testing at testing sites, which was available at all health centres and on weekends at various vaccine/testing pop-up clinics throughout the island. A health official reported, “We do not want to revisit the days of curfew, lockdowns, and other stringent measures, so we are asking the general public to be mindful of COVID-19 during their everyday activities” (NOW Grenada 2021b). Reported deaths associated with COVID-19 increased from one in June 2021 to 200 in November of that year. Importantly, there were 5602 recoveries by November 2021. However, vaccine hesitancy was a major challenge. A security dilemma was how to ensure protection of lives did not undermine livelihoods and survival strategies, particularly in the context of the feminisation of poverty. When asked what the impact of COVID-19 on the Grenadian economy was, a macroeconomic expert explained:

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The impact was significant. In terms of revenue, public finances were affected because of the contraction in economic activity. The Grenada economy contracted by 13.8 per cent. During the crisis in 2008/2009, the contraction was 8%. So that the 2020 contraction was the largest on record for Grenada to date. We can look at sectors. Tourism came to a virtual standstill. The sector was shut down from April 2020 to October 2021. Although hobbling out of the pandemic, the numbers are substantially below pre-­ pandemic levels. So for example, for 2020, there was zero tourist arrivals from March to October; zero every month. So that sector was hardest hit. Agriculture also suffered a negative impact, because of farmers having challenges to get to their land and fisher folk having challenges to go out to sea, given the lockdowns and other restrictions. In the construction sector, a lot of projects were halted, both in the public sector as well as private sector, projects came to a virtual standstill for a few months, well into 2020, some even into 2021. And of course, the private education sector, St. George’s University was severely affected. With the departure of the students in March 2020, that sector and the ancillary services sector such as real estate, rentals and so on, those were severely affected. So, there was broad-based, negative impact from a sectoral perspective. (Personal Interview, May 9, 2022)

The public policy challenge became how to manage life and livelihoods simultaneously. From a human security perspective, there were inherent tensions between health and economic security. It was reported that, “Many tourism-dependent economies reported mass cancellations. Hotels had become virtually empty by March, and cruise ships ceased to operate” (CDB 2019, 21). Grenada is highly dependent on tourism. While protecting lives was imperative, there were dire consequences for the tourism industry. In a focus group held with tourism industry practitioners in Grenada, an expert explained: 2019 was one of our better years. We were doing extremely well, way over 400 million EC dollars in circulation for the economy at that point, and the visitor numbers were up. They were really, really good, especially the stay-­ over numbers. I think they were like 160,000. In 2021, we saw a slow growth and a lot of that was because of the entry protocols, those were really tough for a lot of people to manage. (Focus Group, April 19, 2022)

Another tourism expert summed it up this way:

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In 2019 we had already crossed the half a million visitor arrivals from 2018 stay-overs. It was like 160,000 plus. Cruise was 340,000 plus, yachting was 24,000 plus, and with the creation of the guidance protocols, because the entire world had shut down, Grenada actually shut down, on March 20th with our last commercial arrival being on March 13. (Focus Group, April 19, 2022)

From a human security perspective, there is a security dilemma: the travel and tourism sector is one of the main root causes for the spread of infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. Yet, CARICOM SIDS depend heavily on that very sector as the route to manage the economy through foreign currency earnings. This dilemma meant that the GOG had to prioritise its expenditure. As a macro economist confirmed: The priorities were based on government’s overarching development priorities. And of course, it prioritises tourism. So the payroll and income support were predominantly geared towards the tourism sector. The hotels which had laid off or closed down were the main ones targeted for the income and payroll support. And of course, agriculture. A lot of assistance went to farmers as well and fisherfolk. There had to be trade-offs in terms of government’s priority and government sequencing of interventions like, you know, whether and to what extent you would want to frontload support to tourism or to any other sector. And then in the rollout of the programme, we realised that there was a lot of informal workers and a lot of women, and so that meant a reprioritisation because at the start you didn’t know what you were dealing with. (Personal Interview, May 9, 2022)

The WB confirmed that despite the unprecedented global effort, the pandemic has reversed gains in global poverty reduction for the first time in a generation, pushing nearly 100 million people into extreme poverty in 2020 (World Bank 2021). Therefore, COVID-19 exacerbated social vulnerability in Grenada, which was a major economic security challenge. One respondent explained it this way: Unemployment is one of the major challenges facing Grenada. This was severely impacted by COVID-19. The unemployment rate was approximately 15.4% at the end of 2019. And at the end of the first quarter in 2021, it went up to 28% or thereabouts. Close to about 14,000 persons lost their jobs just in the space of those four months. Most of the jobs were lost in tourism and construction. So we had that unemployment situation on the social side. It was on a good downward trajectory since 2019 or thereabouts

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with consecutively downward movements since the first quarter in 2019. But that was interrupted in 2020 with a significant spike in unemployment in the first quarter of 2020. And the poverty rate increased. We can’t fully determine because we don’t have the numbers. But we know at the end of 2020 the rate was 25%. It was still high but was a significant reduction relative to the 32% in 2018. (Personal Interview, May 9, 2022)

The GOG responded with a mix of policy measures to seek to promote economic security. As one respondent explained: In terms of public finances, revenue plummeted naturally and at the same time, expenditures increased significantly. To cushion the effect of the pandemic, there was a stimulus package announced in April 2020 that gave income and payroll support to various sectors. The Government’s Conditional Transfer Programme, the Social Protection Program (SEED)— that flagship programme—was expanded horizontally and vertically, meaning new people were added and existing people got additional amounts. So, expenditures were increased significantly. That meant that there was a deficit in 2020 and in 2021. So, the public finances came under strain. (Personal Interview, May 9, 2022)

Another major challenge was related to coordination. Some respondents maintain that there was never a structure in place to deal with a disaster of that magnitude. Others argued that COVID-19 was not sufficiently treated as a disaster and that the response was not adequately coordinated. A key respondent explained that “following the regional CDEMA [Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency] disaster management model, there is a pandemic plan that is in existence and a coordinating mechanism for crises and disasters. But we did not see it work” (Personal Interview, January 4, 2022). There was general agreement among respondents that there needed to be layers or tiers of communication and a system-based approach that transcended silos. Some respondents pointed to lack of role clarity and unclear channels of accountability. Political Security: Order, Rights, and Liberty The COVID-19 protocols brought into sharp focus the perennial tension between order and freedom. As countries engaged in a menu of restrictive measures, individual freedoms were curtailed for public health safety. National security became an interlocking force between health security

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and economic security. Yet, despite the imperative of national security, in some cases there have been concerns about excessive use of executive power through prolonged state of emergencies and violation of civil rights and liberties. As reported by Freedom House, the coronavirus outbreak presents a range of new challenges to democracy and human rights globally (Repucci and Slipowitz 2020). Political security is a key dimension of human security. Order, rights, and freedom came into conflict as governments sought to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights approved by the United Nations in 1948 is the best know human rights documents in modern times. There is an assumption that the rights are mutually supportive and can reinforce democratic norms. Yet, COVID-19 exposed tensions among democratic rights. For example, the right to freedom from arbitrary interference with one’s privacy, family, home, or correspondence and freedom from attacks upon one’s honour and reputation were infringed by contact tracing and home quarantines. In Grenada, there were strict restrictions on freedom of movement. Personal liberty was constrained through restrictions such as quarantines, curfews, shelter in place directives, and closures of educational institutions, workplaces, and religions institutions. A paradox relates to the fact that citizens often have expectations that the role of government is to ensure effective management of crises in the context of distrust of government. Trust between citizens and the state is a prerequisite for effective crisis management. What is emerging globally is a distrust in government, fractured state-society relations, and deep polarisation. As a close observer of Grenadian politics, I can attest that this global trend holds true in Grenada. As a key participant explained: We still have a lot of work to do in terms of governance. A lot of work to include other non-governmental organisations, not just those in government. If you look at the COVID-19 committee, it’s the same people on all the committees. It is like you are recycling people and not looking to get better ideas from others. There is no trust. If we don’t change that approach, we will suffer. (Personal Interview, April 20, 2022)

COVID-19 also disrupted the right to work, which is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) as a fundamental right. Nonetheless, the imperatives of public health demanded control on work-­ life. In Grenada, there were closure of businesses and offices and

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regulations for hotels, restaurants, financial institutions such as banks, credit unions and money services businesses, commercial ports and related businesses, airports, and commercial courier flights. While it was necessary to protect lives, the impact was severe, more so for the poor and vulnerable. Women, in particular, were gravely affected, most of whom work in the informal and tourism sectors and engage in care work. For many who did not receive a monthly salary, the inability to work meant limited access to food and the threat of food and nutritional security. This further weakened their immune systems and exposed them to the COVID-19 virus. Intimate partner violence was a major concern for many women who were forced to share violent spaces with partners during periods where there were ‘shelter-in-place’ and other stay-at-home orders. This fuelled personal (in)insecurity. Mandatory vaccinations for the hotel industry and other sectors were a major contention. Under the emergency powers, the first set of businesses listed to be vaccinated were the hotels and the guest houses, and that was a requirement. This was a direct tension between order, rights, and freedom. Health security collided with political security. Again, women were disproportionately affected, given the gendered division of labour that exists in Grenada’s political economy. Another issue concerned the right to worship. Enshrined in most Caribbean constitutions is the right to protection of freedom of assembly and association. Yet, the severity of the pandemic meant in effect governments had to trade off those constitutional provisions in the interest of public health safety. In Grenada, for instance, during periods of ‘lockdown,’ all places of religious instruction were closed, and there were restrictions on weddings and funerals. This flew in the face of cultural practices that define Grenadian and Caribbean way of life. As a close observer of Grenadian society, I can attest that there was much psychological trauma for persons who were unable to participate in the funerals of family members. Technological avenues, through ZOOM and other platforms, had to supplement face-to-face participation. Education was a major casualty of the pandemic. The UN Universal Declaration on Human rights states that the right to education shall be free and compulsory at the elementary stages. However,  Latin America and the Caribbean account for almost 60 per cent of all children who missed an entire school year due to COVID-19 lockdowns across the world (UNICEF, 2021). As a key respondent explained:

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We have seen a lot of mental health cases. Children have been home for a long time in the virtual environment, and they are coming back to school, with sometimes nothing to eat because a parent may have lost a job or maybe both parents may have lost their jobs. And you have that whole dynamic in the education environment, where there is now a need for more professional counsellors. But we do not have a national strategic plan to deal with mental health.” (Personal Interview, January 5, 2022)

For many countries in the developing world, a human security dilemma relates to inadequate capacity in the health system in a context where non-­ communicable diseases and mental health plague societies. COVID-19 magnified this challenge. A common aspect of Caribbean culture is the need to engage in carnivals and other social activities. For many, such events allow for a ‘freeingup’ of the body, mind, and spirit. COVID-19 disrupted Caribbean ­ carnivals as governments grappled with trade-offs between economic and health security. In Grenada, in 2020 and 2021, several citizens openly defied authorities and played the famous Jab Jab (NOW Grenada, 2021a). Attempts by law enforcement to contain the crowd were futile. Street vendors took the opportunity to ply their trade, since many of them suffered losses due to initial restrictions. Thus, health security, economic security, and political/national security were all compromised on several fronts.

Lessons and Good Practices Despite the challenges posed by COVID-19, some lessons and good practices emerged. First, the diaspora provides a reservoir of skills and expertise and, if well utilised, can enhance human security. Historically, the Grenadian diaspora has provided tremendous assistance to Grenada in times of crisis. One of the success stories of Grenada’s COVID-19 response was the enormous support from the diaspora. The GOG had recently established an Office of Diaspora Affairs within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There was a structure, a reporting system, and a coordination mechanism. Grenadians in the diaspora assisted by sending donations and tangible support and by lending their expertise. Technology was utilised, and there were weekly ZOOM forums where doctors, nurses, psychologists, mental health experts, educators, and other Grenadians overseas shared experiences, addressed questions from online audiences, and

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offered solutions. Several doctors and nurses visited Grenada and provided hands-on support in the hospitals to community health clinics and at testing and vaccination teams. St. George’s University was instrumental in transporting donations to Grenada while American Airlines and Jet Blue facilitated some Grenadians coming from the diaspora with medicine and other equipment. Within the Caribbean the Regional Security System shipped medical and other supplies from Grenadian organisations in neighbouring countries.” (Personal Interview, January 4, 2022)

Adaptability for resilience-building is a critical success factor in crises. For example, the tourism sector found creative ways through innovative marketing. It was reported that “There were sympathetic campaigns, with the hashtag ‘Grenada dreaming’ which focused on empathy and sympathy to clients with hashtag ‘Pure Grenada Just for you.’ The yachting and marine sub-sectors promoted Grenada as a safe and humanitarian destination” (Focus Group, April 19, 2022). Importantly, COVID-19 demanded the use of technology. What may be emerging is a new class of entrepreneurs who utilise technological platforms to start-up business, engaging in e-commerce to boost their economic security. Community participation is an imperative for successful crisis management. When the Delta variant hit Grenada, the impact was severe. Almost 200 persons died in less than six weeks. Testing, contract tracing, and vaccinations had to be intensified. Public health practitioners had to decentralise the pandemic response in collaboration with community leaders. Pop-up field clinics were set up in communities and, in some cases, at the request of communities. As a key respondent explained, “Comancheros organisation in St. Paul’s requested a pop-up clinic. That community group went out and mobilised people to be vaccinated” (Personal Interview, January 4, 2022). This partnership, although not widespread enough, suggests that crises create opportunities for greater inclusion and community participation. Partnerships were essential to the success of the pandemic response. An expert explained that “one of the things I think we did very well…at least we were able to get supplies in and SGU played a significant role” (Personal Interview, April 20, 2022). Regional cooperation was critical. CARICOM countries displayed a high degree of cooperation and solidarity in the procurement and distribution of vaccines among themselves, given the

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unequal access to vaccines globally. Barbados and Dominica received a gift of 10,000 and 70,000 Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines from the Government of India, and both countries shared vaccines with other Eastern Caribbean countries, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago (Jamaica Observer 2021). As CARICOM countries experienced spikes and vaccine shortages, other member states showed solidarity. For instance, Trinidad and Tobago “received donations of 2000 Oxford Astra-Zeneca vaccines from Barbados, 1600 doses from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, 9000 from Bermuda, 10,000 from Grenada and 5000 doses of Sinopharm vaccines from Antigua and Barbuda” (Media Institute of the Caribbean 2005). Similarly, Trinidad and Tobago donated 10,000 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca to The Bahamas, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Dominica (Trinidad Express 2021). Regional institutions such as the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), the Regional Security System (RSS), and the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) played an instrumental role. PAHO took the lead in “Procurement of COVID-19 test kits; funding of training of CARICOM laboratories on WHO approved COVID-19 PCR kits; and assessment of likely resource needs (human and physical plant infrastructure, such as estimation of intensive care unit beds, ventilator capacity and personal protective equipment regarding hospital readiness)” (Landis 2021, 87). As a regional public good, The University of the West Indies (UWI) played a significant role in monitoring and ensuring a coherent pandemic response. The UWI was invited by CARICOM to provide its research expertise to help synthesise the evidence based upon which informed decisions could be taken. The UWI used open access data to contextualise the evolving outbreak within CARICOM with modelling studies and daily surveillance outputs, supplemented with peerreviewed publications (Landis 2021, 87–88). As a regional university, the role of The UWI was critically important to the pandemic response.

Implications for Policy and Research For policymakers, a key lesson is that crises can be a catalyst for change, and the case suggests several implications for policy and research. 1. Regional integration and partnerships are critical to build collective resilience to prepare for and navigate crises. Further research is needed on comparative regionalisms and pandemic responses.

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2. Sustainable tourism development is a necessary imperative for long-­ term security and viability of small states. More research is needed to reimagine new pathways for sustainable tourism to promote health and economic security within SIDS. 3. The Caribbean political economy perpetuates the feminisation of poverty and other gender injustices. Women were disproportionately affected during the pandemic through loss of work, rise in incidences of intimate partner violence, among other factors. There is need for greater advocacy, research, and policy action to promote human security for Caribbean women. 4. Transformation in the political culture is an imperative to enhance political security. There is need for politics for sustainability. This is multidimensional, multi-level, and multi-actor and prioritises human security as a core dimension of politics. This approach to political life involves commitment, partnerships, and advocacy at the national, regional, and global levels by government and non-governmental actors. Research is needed to rethink politics and society to glean new insights that can advance human security.

Conclusions The study set out to address the impact of COVID-19 on the Caribbean, in general, and on Grenada, in particular, and the Government of Grenada’s (GOG) pandemic response. It also sought to explore the extent to which human security is a useful analytical tool to explore inter-related security threats which confront developing countries and the people within them. The case revealed that, initially, the GOG prioritised health and political security to combat the spread of COVID-19. There were strict protocols as order was privileged over liberty. The synergies between health and political security delayed community spread of COVID-19  in Grenada. However, Grenada is highly dependent on tourism, and it has a large informal economy. Therefore, travel restrictions and severe ‘lockdowns’ threatened economic security for every sector. As the case demonstrated, once the country opened up, new variants emerged, and incidences and deaths increased exponentially. This suggests that it was a challenge for Grenada to ensure health, economic, and political security simultaneously.

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There is need to debunk the false dichotomy between lives and livelihoods since both are inextricably linked. Consequently, there is an intricate relationship between health and economic security. In normal times, that relationship could be mutually reinforcing. As the mantra goes, ‘health is wealth.’ However, an effective pandemic response demanded trade-offs which presented a paradox for policymakers. That is, economic security is necessary to ensure both lives and livelihoods. Yet, in the pursuit of economic security, health security can be gravely compromised. Additionally, severe crises exacerbate the inherent tension among order, rights, and freedom. The case revealed that human security is a very useful tool to analyse COVID-19 and the Caribbean. Overall, COVID-19 presented a security dilemma, which demands a rethinking of Security Studies. In the context of the developing world, I define a security dilemma as a complex phenomenon that exists when the certainty of uncertainty and the intensity of risks and threats create a paradoxical relationship between the various dimensions of security so that difficult trade-offs have to be made that can severely impact survival of states and the people within them. This definition can contribute to debates which call for a more Global International Relations that takes into account the realities of the developing world.

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CHAPTER 3

Navigating Motherhood and Work: Caribbean State Responses in a Global Health Crisis Daniele Bobb

Introduction Caribbean scholars have been exploring issues of women’s work in the region for decades (Dunn 2004; Reddock 1994; Trotz and Peake 2001). Women’s work is presented as undervalued and subsidiary. Their social reproductive work is even more devalued as it is often invisibilised, naturalised, and instrumentalised. In their report to the CARICOM Secretariat on the status of Caribbean women in 1995, Mondesire and Dunn argue that “women’s unwaged and often invisible work in the home and in communities is another source of power which has not been fully tapped: by quantifying their voluntary labour, women stand to gain social and economic recognition for their efforts” (81).

D. Bobb (*) Institute for Gender and Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit, The University of the West Indies, Bridgetown, Barbados e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Roberts et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30889-5_3

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This untapped power was essential during the COVID-19 pandemic which reached the shores of Barbados on March 17, 2020. Barbados is a small island developing state located in the Southeastern Caribbean Sea. Like the rest of the world, Barbados’s economy was sustained primarily by the care work (paid and unpaid) of mostly women. In this chapter, the focus is primarily on care work done in households. This unpaid care work is “a spectrum of activities—physical, mental and emotional—which somebody does, without a wage, to keep individuals, families and communities going. It is, most centrally and most invisibly, the work of bringing up the future labour force and of daily replenishing the energies of the present labour force” (Andaiye 1994, 7). To demonstrate the complexity of unpaid care work, I analyse the experience of Nadie,1 a married mother and student at a regional university. While I will not be generalising from her narrative, her experience provides the evidentiary support to my argument. Although married, Nadie is the sole caretaker in her household even as she is employed and enrolled as an undergraduate student. Her experience provides important theorising on gender, work, and the economy. Using Nadie’s narratives, I illustrate the ways institutional inequalities, as they relate to paid work, operate conterminously with gendered inequalities which position women as disproportionately responsible for unpaid care work. The pandemic illustrated how this unpaid care work became the foundation for the survival of global economies. Partial national shutdowns, implementation of curfews, closure of many businesses, and job losses meant that economies were severely hampered during the pandemic. While remote work was introduced to ensure the continuation of economic activities, online school and the closure of day care centres left the burden of childcare primarily to women who were either unemployed, working from home, or frontline workers. Nonetheless, this care work remained crucial to the survival of labourers and the continuation of economic activities, as there was an extra need to sanitise, clean, and maintain safe environments both at home and in public spaces. However, a great portion of this work was done within the homes, as it is where most economic activities originated during the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, this labour that is often seen as ‘love’ and ‘natural’, and which absolves state responsibility, became crucial to state’s economic survival.

1

 A pseudonym was used to protect the identity of the individual.

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For decades, work done in the home was devalued, invisible, and taken for granted. Work has generally been defined as a public activity that has an economic value. Feminists began to have trouble with this conception as it excluded women’s care and domestic activities and reproduced gendered inequalities such as the gender pay gap and women’s exclusion from certain professions perceived as ‘male jobs’ (Nash 1995; Holmstrom 2003). Yet, the issues continue to be on the agenda for gender equality in the twenty-first century even as the pandemic magnified the centrality of care work (paid and unpaid) to the economy. In fact, policies and strategies relied on this work without offering support or acknowledging its centrality to implementation. Perhaps this invisible and naturalised perception of care work rests in the way work is adopted without a requisite unpacking of its complexity. Examining work from a political perspective, Weeks (2011) historicises the concept, specifically the values that inform the formation of the concept ‘work’. She argues that the concept shapes the way work is imposed on the body, how it is enacted, and how it is perceived and valued. While work is an activity of production, at times it can be leisurely. It becomes more than just economic, but is also social, cultural, historic, and political. I theorise that work is compact, discursive, empowering, and disempowering. Work regulates behaviours but behaviours are also shaped by work. As I conceptualise work, I explore its relation to mothering, which is sometimes described as work. Rowley (2002) believes that women’s caring work is so naturalised such that care work is deemed unproductive. She argues that historical influences on images of Caribbean mothers affect how these mothers interface with state institutions. My theorising goes beyond ‘images’ to explore the process of shaping and regulating maternal identities, and how this in turn influences maternal and worker practices. I argue that there are material and embodied effects of gendered ideologies that position mothers as solely responsible for unpaid care work. Embedded in the discussion on mothering is the concept work. Work is characterised as never-ending activities which are sometimes devalued and often under-appreciated. It engages multiple human facets and is often executed differently by different individuals and within various contexts (Lippe and Peters 2007). Political economists broadly categorise work as ‘paid’ or ‘unpaid’. According to Lynch (2000), within the realm of ‘paid work’ lies the hierarchy of jobs, whether white or blue collar or pink collar, each of varying value as depicted by the salary scale and sometimes qualifications required, and each with its own race, class, and gender

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inequalities. The National census report of Barbados defines paid and unpaid work as economically active or inactive. The “economically active” refers to persons who “worked”, “with job not working”, or “looked for work”, while economically inactive is characterised as persons with “home duties”, “student”, “retired”, or “incapacitated” for the major part of the year prior to the census (2010, 370). For women, being “economically active” also includes aspects of “economic inactivity” such as “home duties”. Thus, while this unpaid work is mentioned, it is not valued as important, even as some women see it as another job albeit unpaid. The 2000 National census report of Barbados was a lot clearer in its conceptualisation of work as economic activity when it noted that economically active population comprises all persons, men and women who provide or were available to provide the supply of labour for the production of economic goods and services, as defined by the Systems of National Accounts (SNA), during a specified time period. Domestic or personal services provided by unpaid household members for final consumption within the same household are not considered economic activities. (83)

It is clear that social reproduction is seen as valueless, but nonetheless it is described as work. However, the connection to the economy through the production and care of the labour force remains muted. Feminist economists have theorised social reproduction as all activities required to reproduce humans as social beings (Horwitz 2003). They argue that unpaid work underwrites the productive economy and have criticised measures such as GDP and national accounting systems for their failure to account for social reproduction. In theorising work, we must consider the socio-political and historical context (Denis 2003). For enslaved black women, work did not fit into normalised explanations of work. The enslaved were seen as labour, that is, as non-human executors of tasks. While the enslaved ‘worked’ in the fields or in the planters’ home, this ‘work’ was machine-like and racially ascribed to black people. In fact, black people were seen as possessing a physical capacity for doing labour-­ intensive work (Bush 1990; Spillers 1987) and thus ‘work’ became a set of practices within the political economic system of slavery. For enslaved Africans, the economic value of the activities that comprise work was absent especially since one was considered chattel/labour. The outcome of the practices, however, was economically profitable for the planters. Work was also not dichotomised as public or private but remained

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the only purpose of the enslavement and racialisation of Africans in the Americas. This was specifically apparent for enslaved mothers who (from their West African customs) took care of the home chores (cooking, cleaning, childcare) while being their masters’ chattel/labour/property. The Caribbean’s colonial experience of relations of gender has been layered and complicated by race and racism and exploitation and resistance based on class (Bush 1990). Gender identities as ‘man’ and ‘woman’ affect access to status, resources, and power in society (Barriteau 1995). While Caribbean women employ many different strategies to harness the resources they need to sustain themselves and their families, they also simultaneously engage in formal paid employment, and this is critical to understandings of their maternal experiences. Senior (1991) describes Caribbean women’s historical patterns of work as characterised by a sexual division of labour among indigenous peoples. However, from the mid-­ seventeenth to mid-nineteenth century when Caribbean societies were organised around plantation slavery, ‘work’ among the enslaved population was categorised based on race and class rather than on gender, and activities were mainly hard manual tasks. Although the work was (un)gendered, there were distinctions in factory work and the plantation household work: artisans were predominantly enslaved black men, and the cultivation of kitchen gardens and the selling of surplus produce in Sunday markets were primarily done by enslaved women (Beckles 1999; Mathurin Mair 2006; Shepherd 1999). Beginning in the post-emancipation period, the categorisation of work reflected a gender component in the image of the independent black women. When wage labour emerged in 1834, this emerging gender inequality was accompanied by wage differentials for men and women doing the same work (Beckles 1998). Thus, ‘work’ was utilised as a gender differentiator to assign wages based not on manual activities but on who was performing them. Women labourers became more visible and thus created the image of the West Indian black woman as ‘worker’, which continues to this day. The distinction between work and domestic practices existed in the fact that while black women had no choice but to engage in work, white women and other “upwardly mobile ‘respectable’ women of other races” attended schools and other agents of socialisation to become “good wives and good mothers” (Senior 1991, 108), thereby giving the impression that such activities were not ‘work’. This racial and gendered formation of the concept work changes based on the socio-political and economic environment.

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These gendered ideologies present social reproduction as a range of activities and kinds of labour such as socialisation of children, cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, subsistence agriculture, sexual labour, care work, and community work (Cummins 2014). It often makes those in charge of it feel invisible, as it is associated with care work and tied to the sexual division of labour, which is presented as natural for women. Thus, the construction of domestic chores as ‘non-work’ and as ‘care duties’ is used as a tool of subordination given that work connotes a value that is recognised by society and primarily associated with men. Framing work in this way as a gendered demarcation of value and visibility leaves women susceptible to many forms of discrimination as they become invisible and devalued. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and exacerbated these gendered inequalities. Many scholars advocated for the recognition of social reproduction as work (Andaiye 1994; Mondesire & Dunn 1995; Trotz & Peake 2001; Horwitz 2003). Liberal and socialist feminists documented the occupational segregation, wage inequality, and barriers faced by women, while other scholars compared the social reproduction with formal employment to depict their similarity and even greater intensity (as they claim that household management is a 24-hour activity). Still others quantified the activities by estimating the cost of paid labour to do all the tasks of a housewife. However, as Denis (2003, 267) notes, “in so doing they seem to be reinforcing and legitimizing the higher value accorded to the monetarized public sphere”. While Socialist feminism offers insight outside of the historical and biological theorising into how women are prisoners of their bodies, what is critical is its exposure of how women’s labour subsidises capitalist production in industrialised societies. Definitions of work tend to refer to ‘productive work’, that is, activities that contribute directly to the national GDP of a country. The tools and mechanism to capture this contribution are inadequate as they are limited by flawed ideologies that exclude the pivotal activities and workers in the system. Women’s unwaged work is seen as work taken for granted, not paid for, and not accounted for in the GDP, yet it is the very basis of the economy. As women engage in paid work, there is a disregard of their care responsibilities by employers who continue to operate with the belief that the ideal worker is a man. Acker speaks to the gendered organisation structure as one which is based on the able-bodied man, noting that “organizational logic has material form in written work rules, labour contracts … [and] system evaluations” (1990, 147).

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To demonstrate this, I will assess the policy of some employers in relation to children during the pandemic. Some employers responded to the issue by ignoring the childcare responsibilities of employees and seeking instead to focus on the healthcare directives such as social distancing and limiting children to possible exposure, or merely on ensuring staff productivity. This response heightened gendered inequalities at a time when families, governments, and institutions were inundated with economic, health, and other challenges. Navigating paid and unpaid work at a time when physical spaces for these activities were merged, further espoused the precarity of ‘work’. One initiative implemented by some employers was the ‘no child at work policy’. For example, as schools moved to the online platform and day care centres closed as a result of the increasing cases of COVID-19 in Barbados, staff of one tertiary-level institution were issued with clear instructions that prohibited children from being at the physical buildings. Senior management noted that this was especially for the safety of children. This policy mostly affected mothers, as gendered expectations position women as the primary caregivers. The unequal gendered implications of this ‘no child at work policy’ are glaring, as the additional childcare requirements during the pandemic disproportionately affected women. The absence of a gender-just approach to the institution’s navigation of the pandemic suggests a reinforcement of gendered inequalities in the workplace. While the institution argued that this was to protect the children as well as the staff, what this ‘no child at work policy’ did was remove one of the key coping strategies employed by mothers who had no other childcare options (all of this even as physical distancing and rotations in the workplace meant that very few employees were in the same office at the same time) but needed to be in the physical workspace—take the child to work. The absence of a clear policy on assistance and accommodation for parents who needed to be physically at work on some days reinforced the nonchalant taken-for-grantedness of these unpaid childcare responsibilities primarily done by women. This ‘no child at work’ initiative demonstrates Elson’s (1991) argument that policymakers often exploit what is labelled as women’s resilience or the ability to survive by not accounting for them in their policies. Morley (2013) argues that women involved in academia constantly have to navigate the professional and the personal lives as there is an assumption that academia is a ‘carefree zone’, and academics have no commitments other than to their profession. It is important to note that academia does not only include academics but also

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administrative and support staff. In fact, over two decades ago, in speaking about one regional tertiary institution, Hamilton (1999, 272) concluded that it fails to demonstrate any concern for working mothers based on the requirement/expectation to be constantly available for meetings at any hour. Hamilton’s argument supported the belief of the ideal worker as man, whose familial responsibility was primarily financial rather than care work. This magnified inequality during the pandemic reminds us that “Caribbean women continue to raise future generations of workers, taxpayers, and citizens, even as the basic supporting services are being cut” (Barriteau 1996, 151). In the following sections I will develop my arguments further through an exploration of the effects of state strategies implemented to curb the spread of the coronavirus. I will focus primarily on the state’s closure of day care centres and the introduction of online schooling. I argue that while the state recognised the additional burden of this on caregivers, no support was issued but rather there was a reliance on women’s unpaid care work. The trope of the ‘strong black woman’ as she sacrifices to cover state nonfeasance and assimilate their responsibility is demonstrated using one woman’s narrative.

The State’s Reliance on Unpaid Care Work The closure of schools and the move to online teaching for children meant that parents (primarily mothers according to UN Women 2020) who were already struggling with work from home initiatives now had to also supervise their children’s online education. Mothers of children in early childhood and primary education were more directly involved in their schooling. Still, for those mothers who were expected to go to their workplaces, there was an additional burden to arrange safe childcare services that also ensured their child(ren)’s participation in online school. This was also done in corroboration with the mothers’ struggle for electronic devices to facilitate online education, the worry about possible job loss, contracting the virus, making ends meet, and meeting the economic needs of the family. The economic inequality became apparent and complicated the experiences of these mothers. The Barbados Today newspaper in its April 8, 2020, article, titled ‘Women in need of welfare services left out’, reported that for mothers who were interviewed about their challenges during the pandemic, food was the main need. In fact, the director of the National Organization of Women (NOW) noted that the organisation received

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many calls from women seeking help in meeting basic needs. The director reported, “[A]s a result of heavy job losses, particularly in the hospitality industry, NOW’s pantry is now almost bare after assisting affected families in recent weeks” (Henry 2020). In response to many of these challenges, the government initiated the Adopt Our Families programme, which began in April 2020 as a way to support families that were hardest hit by the pandemic. With contributions from private sources and government, the programme sought to provide vulnerable families with a monthly transfer of BDS $600 (US $300). This financial support to families also meant the circulation of money within the economy through spending. Access to this support excluded not only other vulnerable groups (elderly, pensioners, sexual minorities), but also confined those who could access it to poverty conditions as BDS $600 was below the daily living cost in Barbados, and the stipulation was that this could not be supplemented by other income. There were certain requirements for recipients such as self-­identification as being in need, being an existing recipient of welfare, living in a low-­ income household and households with no essential workers, households with no income at all, which were further tiered (Bobb and Worrell 2022). The government also distributed food hampers within targeted communities, and increased welfare payments by 40 per cent. Nonetheless, while these initiatives offered temporary relief/assistance for some, policy design and implementation have not paid attention to who is located where within the economy, and this meant that the programmes were not as effective as they had the potential to be (Bobb and Worrell 2022). Gromada, Richardson and Rwes (2020, 1) note that “the … lack of childcare is likely to be one of the worst affected services available to families during the pandemic based on governments prioritizing economic recovery and public health management over private issues like childcare and the overburdening of women”. Even as the economic sphere gradually reopened, this unpaid care work, primarily done by women, formed the foundation of the economy. In response to questions about childcare amidst the opening of the economy, Prime Minister Mottley stated in a press conference following a meeting of the Social Partnership: We are asking truthfully the extended family to play a role; this is Mia talking, this is not the Prime Minister talking. If you have family, help out one another, that is what family is for. … It may well be that you can’t go by your

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parents because they are at risk but you have a cousin, a nephew, a niece, somebody, because that is the Bajan way so let’s do it. (Bennett 2020)

In the narrative above there was no recognition of the changing family relations which emerged as a result of COVID-19. The elderly were more at risk of contracting the virus and were encouraged to remain in a bubble. This meant grandparents who did not reside in the same household as grandchildren were unable to safely offer support. In addition, the socialising of persons from different households without observing the protocols was not recommended. These informal arrangements (care by grandparents or other family members) were being discouraged as a preventative measure to minimise the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The prime minister’s comment reflects an expectation of mothers to continue paid and unpaid work simultaneously and within the same physical space. Here, the prime minister was drawing on women’s unpaid care work that sustained families and, more glaringly, the economy. This statement reinforced the sexual division of labour which left childcare as the unequal and disproportionate responsibility of largely women. It is clear that state policies were economically driven and did not account for the social reproduction essential to the economy (Diallo et  al. 2020), but rather narrowly focused on the economy as a site of production and market-­ based activities. State therefore absolved any responsibility for social reproduction as it focuses on economic recovery and public health management (Gromada et  al. 2020, 1). This exacerbates the burden of care for mothers. Nadie, a mother, wife, and student, shared her experience at university.2 She was excited to learn that she was not alone and felt empowered by the course to make a difference. As we sat in class, week after week, discussing the operation of gender in everyday lives, Nadie highlighted the unequal relations of gender but also used the new knowledge to navigate the expectations both she and her family had of her, noting, “doing this gender studies course has helped me find my footing and while I’m still struggling a bit, I’m also overcoming”. Her story, so deep and passionate, was also shared at a regional webinar as a tool to bring public awareness to the effects of the pandemic on mothers. She shared:

2  I no longer teach Nadie but I felt her story should be documented. I sought consent to use her story in my chapter. She gladly agreed.

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As a working mother who was already shouldering the majority of my family caregiving responsibilities, I felt the full impact of the changes the arrival of COVID-19 brought. At first, it was a much needed six weeks paid vacation with the notion that things will be back to normal after this period. Of course, this was not the case as the lockdown was extended and I did what was expected of me, that is to stay at home with the kids, and while at first this arrangement worked well, it began to drain my physical strength and overwhelm my mental capacity.

The above narrative demonstrates that while Nadie recognised the burden of care work, noting she was “already shouldering the majority of my family caregiving responsibilities”, the additional burden introduced by the pandemic solidified the normalisation of this unpaid care work (with the notion that things will be back to normal after this period). The naturalisation and devaluation of motherhood espoused in the sexual division of labour discourse undergirds the normalisation and taken-for-grantedness of unpaid care work. It idealises the good mother as one who is invisible but whose work produces the ideal citizen and regenerates the labour force. As such, good mothers are expected to put their children first even if this requires them to make sacrifices. The COVID-19 pandemic created many circumstances requiring mothers to sacrifice themselves. Nadie notes that “with the disruptions to schools, and afterschool programs and my time being divided between the three kids assisting with the various challenges they were experiencing, I chose to defer the semester to January 2020 instead”. Nadie’s description of this sacrifice as a choice draws on the ‘good mother as sacrificial’ discourse, but it also does not capture the circumstances and negotiation process. Having two of three children of early primary school age meant that her engagement in their schooling was hands-on and direct, thus time-consuming as well as mentally and physically taxing. Nadie had to re-explain, clarify concepts, ensure they were correctly typed, and assist the children in completing experiments and craft activities. These school-time activities were now done at home, in addition to the homework assigned for outside school hours. This lengthened Nadie’s day and increased her care work. Even as Nadie forfeited her studies for the sake of her children, she still did not acknowledge the value of this sacrifice, as she felt it was the expected thing to do in putting her children first. In fact, the conceptualisation of work as an economic activity was reflected in the high

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commendation of her husband, as she notes, “My husband continued working, and longer hours because all the bills were on his shoulders. … My husband at the end of a working day was always tired and only eat, bathe and watched the television until he fell asleep. … I continued doing the best I can, each day I pray, plan and manage the challenges of the day while trying not to stress my husband out.” The comparison of paid work as important and to be commended even as her care work was so demanding and time-consuming that she had to defer her studies is critical to note. This practice of excusing men from other responsibilities since they engage in paid work can be equated to self-sabotage. It demonstrates how the sexual division of labour ideology continues to inform beliefs and practices of men and women that position women as inferior and subordinated to gender roles, valuing paid work more than care work.

The Emotional Labour of Care Work In this section I will demonstrate the complexity of care work as physical, emotional, and mental, and highlight how care work is ascribed to women. To do this, I use Nadie’s narrative of her experience during the pandemic. Trotz and Peake (2001) note that domestic work refers to attending to the physical household and those who reside within it, while caring work is a subset of domestic work which involves the daily provision of physical and emotional care which requires labour. The subordination of care and domestic work and the invisibility of those performing this work are enacted by associating such practices with the domestic sphere. The intense effort involved in care practices is often unacknowledged, de-­ legitimised, and/or de-emphasised. Central to care work is the emotional labour, which often remains unseen. For example, Nadie explains her typical routine: When I began studies at the University I was not as prepared or focused and felt like quitting many days but I stuck it out. My laptop is shared with my son which means sometimes I’m late for class or submitting assignment because I feel obligated to let my son or daughters use the laptop to complete their work first. The workload is heavy and managing while assisting the kids with their schoolwork and working part time is strenuous on my mind and body but I’m coping. I am sleepy most days because I use the nights after everyone is asleep to complete assignment, listen to lecture recordings, make notes or revise.

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There is a negotiation3 that is pivotal to her mothering in which she, too, opaques her struggle, noting, “but I’m coping”, even as she recognises she is sacrificing her studies, and the navigation of activities are “strenuous on [her] mind and body”. Nadie’s negotiation is also affected by her resources (or lack of), for example, enough devices for her children. This emotional labour involves mental planning, organising, and problem-­solving. The absorption of family worries, concerns, problems, encouragement, positive outlook, and stabilising emotions of all family members encompass this emotional labour. Nadie illustrates this invisibility when she notes: It looked to him [her husband] like I had everything under control so he never thought to ask how I was managing and if we had a conversation I had to reach out. That is until my dad died a few months after his (dad’s) mother. What made matters worse is the fact that I was dealing with some health challenges with my reproductive organs and the shock of my dad’s death escalated the issues. I felt lonely most days and exhausted from dealing with the kids and the constant stab of pain I was experiencing in my body and the loss of my dad. At the end of the day I collapsed unto my bed crying myself to sleep because something wasn’t right but I didn’t know how to fix it. Waking up each morning but can’t seem to move from the bed. I felt that death was better than seeing another day and I shared this with my husband who suggested I was overreacting.

Barriteau (2003) argues that Caribbean women are often seen as ‘able to manage’ and overcomers, which opaques their struggle. Nadie’s experience demonstrates how this ability is also seen as being “in control”, which makes invisible the myriad of feelings and planning. In her case, emotions became burdened by feelings of grief and loss as a result of two close deaths in her family. Yet, since she appeared “in control”, meaning that she continued to care for everyone and everything in her household, this emotional turmoil she tried to explain to her husband was ignored and perceived by him as “overreacting”. It appears that the husband is tapping into the stereotypical belief of women as emotional beings and the naturalisation of care work to cloud the reality of her experience, but also absolve himself of any involvement in the care work. There is an invisibility 3  Negotiation looks at the interplay between norms and circumstances to produce experience. It involves the conflict or points of divergence between mothers and others (family, state, employment, household practices)

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and disregard embedded in naturalisation. It is taken without seeing and detailing the process/activity. Thus, this naturalisation enabled Nadie’s husband to completely overlook this care work to the point where “he never thought to ask how [she] was managing”. This unequal relation of gender rests power with the man. Her crying and outbursts, as well as the physical manifestation of emotional over burden (“can’t seem to move from bed”) and health challenges, did not pause this emotional labour nor centre it as a concern to be addressed within the family. Rather, she “pushed on”, taking care of the needs of her family. This physical and emotional effect is visible in Nadie’s statement, “I felt that death was better than seeing another day”. Her statement materialises the severity and intensity of having the sole responsibility for unpaid care work and the burden on her mental wellbeing. The powerful norms about motherhood secure its primacy and intensity. Moreover, it demonstrates how powerless she felt, but also highlighted the constraining optionless experience of a mother who was burdened with multiple forms of care work (care for children, husband, elderly parents, and self) that conflicted for time and energy. It was only when the emotional needs of her child involved her (Nadie’s) emotional wellbeing, that Nadie decided to act: He [her husband] told me I can get it done so I pushed on until one day I overheard my seven-year-old daughter saying to her teacher that her mom was not well, she explained that I was always sleeping, crying or shouting at them and that I always look sad and may need to go to the doctor and stay there until I’m better. I was shocked to hear this coming from my daughter but it prompted me to act because what was happening to me was affecting the kids.

This experience demonstrates how unpaid domestic work is dense, involving care and emotional labour. It also highlights how narratives of the ‘good mother’ as sacrificing self, obscures the emotional and mental labour invested in families, a social reproductive labour that is devalued. It is clear how this narrative of the ‘good mother’ as sacrificing self for her children simultaneously disempowers mothers (keep going despite emotions) and empowers (must be best self for the sake of child). This leads to Nadie seeking the mental help that she needed. For Nadie, the treatment of her emotional distress was more than physical, as she recalls, “Upon visiting the doctor, I was given some medication which in my opinion pushed me further into the dark hole, made me sleepy and changed the mood swings for the worst so I discontinued using them”. The invisibility

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and silencing of her emotional labour during a pandemic that kept her also locked into her home space was literally making her sick. To address the issue, Nadie needed to voice her emotions to someone who listened, as she recalled: I instead reached out to a counsellor, who was a member of my church and she began working with me immediately. I didn’t realise how depressed and stressed out I was until I began those weekly sessions with the counsellor. I cried the entire two hours of our first session. … I had someone to talk with when things began to overwhelm me and I don’t feel as though I’m weak or a failure if I share my short comings with her.

Voicing breaks the silence that keeps mothers constrained and subordinate. Rowley (2002) argues that voicing is a “political and agentive process” that refers to “the varying, articulated levels of consciousness and alienation, action and inaction which categories of Caribbean women experience” (24-25). Thus, the technique of voicing allows women to “reflect on their lived experiences from their own perspectives” but within a thematic and narrative analysis that captures discourses and intersections (Rowley 2002, 25). Capturing the strategies used by mothers highlights the gendered norms that enforce them and reflect the image of Caribbean mothers as strong black women. This silencing regulates maternal behaviours. Nadie wanted to be heard, that is, she wanted the denaturalisation of motherhood. In other words, she wanted someone to see and acknowledge what her daily life entailed and understand the intensity and heaviness of it all. This emotional labour also contained elements of inadequacy which emerged from her internalisation of the discourse on ‘good mother’. For Nadie, the challenge of “managing” equated to “failure” or “weakness”, both negative connotations. Yet, it was her care work which enabled her husband to contribute to the economy and to provide financially for the household by going to work daily and ensured her children could participate in online school to become future labourers. The gendered norms that govern behaviours and attitudes about mothering require a persistent and systemic awareness to address. These norms exert a pressure of performance that coerces mothers to construct their mothering within the expectation of motherhood even during a pandemic. This pressure acts as a disciplinary power that contributes to emotional unwellness. These unequal relations of gender enable state’s neglect of their social responsibility and exploitation of women’s work in its discursive contours.

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Conclusion The COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible to ignore the unequal relations of gender that structure our society. It also highlighted that the devaluing and disregard of women’s work (especially unpaid care work) is deliberate as societies relied heavily on this work for the operation of economies. The pandemic aroused an interest and investigation into women’s experiences of the unrealistic social expectations during the pandemic. I delve into these unrealistic social expectations by analysing the experience of Nadie, a university student, wife, and mother of three school-aged children. Her experience illustrates how the naturalisation of care work as women’s work has made it invisible and excuses the state’s meaningful support. Nadie’s beliefs about being a ‘good mother’ were already difficult pre-COVID-19; the additional burden left her physically and emotionally unwell and in need of a counsellor. What is interesting is the extent to which these health challenges were disregarded by her husband as ‘overreacting’ because she appeared to be ‘managing’ the affairs of the home well (i.e., getting things done). The material and embodied effects of these gendered ideologies are glaring. In this chapter, I argue that state strategies invoked flawed gendered ideologies as they were premised on women’s unpaid care work. State policies did not account for the social reproduction essential to the economy, but rather narrowly focused on the economy as a site of production and market-based activities. Thus, during a global pandemic that has disrupted the ‘norm’ as we navigate lockdowns, curfews, remote work, and online work and school, Caribbean women’s unpaid care work continues to be instrumentalised, exploited, and disregarded. It is the opportune time for societies to confront the egregious manifestations of the gendered organisation of labour and care.

References Acker, Joan. 1990. Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations. Gender and Society 4 (2): 139–158. Barriteau, Eudine. 1995. Socialist Feminist Theory and Caribbean Women: Transcending Dualisms. Social and Economic Studies 44 (2/3): 25–63. ———. 1996. Structural Adjustment Policies in the Caribbean: A Feminist Perspective. NWSA Journal, Global Perspectives 8 (1): 142–156. Beckles, H. 1998. Historicizing Slavery in West Indian Feminisms. Journal Review 59: 34–56. ———. 1999. Centering Woman: Gender Discourses in Caribbean Slave Society. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers.

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Bennett, Randy. 2020. “‘No child care services yet’—PM.” Barbados Today, May 15, 2020. https://barbadostoday.bb/2020/05/15/no-­child-­care-services-­ yet-­pm/ Bobb, Daniele and Worrell, Leigh-Ann. 2022. “Barbados’ Social Policies in times of COVID-19: Analysis of the ‘Adopt Our Families’ Programme and the Increase of Minimum Wage.” DAWN Discussion Papers No. 43. DAWN. Suva (Fiji). Bush, Barbara. 1990. Slave Women in Caribbean Society 1650-1838. Kingston, Jamaica: Heinemann Publishers (Caribbean) Ltd. Denis, Ann. 2003. Theorizing the Gendered Analysis of Work in the Commonwealth Caribbean. In Confronting Power, Theorizing Gender: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in the Caribbean, ed. Eudine Barriteau, 262–282. Kingston, Jamaica: UWI Press. Diallo, Bobo, Seemin Qayum, and Silke Staab. 2020. COVID-19 and the care economy: Immediate action and structural transformation for a gender-­responsive recovery. Policy Brief, New York: UN Women. Elson, Diane. 1991. The Male Bias in the Development Process. New  York: Manchester University Press. Gromada, Anna, Dominic Richardson, and Gwyther Rwes. 2020. Childcare in a Global Crisis: The Impact of COVID-19 on Work and Family Life. Policy Brief. Florence: UNICEF. Hamilton, Marlene. 1999. Women and Higher Education in the Caribbean: UWI, A Progressive Institution for Women? Caribbean Review of Gender Studies 1: 245–286. Henry, Anesta. 2020. Women in Need of Welfare Services ‘left out’. Barbados Today, April 8, 2020. https://barbadostoday.bb/2020/04/08/ women-­in-­need-­of-­welfare-­services-­left-­out/ Mathurin Mair, Lucille. 2006. In A Historical Study of Women in Jamaica 1655-1844, ed. Hilary McD Beckles and Verene A.  Shepherd. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. Morley, Louise. 2013. Women and Higher Education Leadership: Absences and Aspirations. London: Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. Rowley, Michelle. 2002. Reconceptualising Voice: The Role of Matrifocality in Shaping Theories and Caribbean Voices. In Gendered Realities: Essays in Caribbean Feminist Thought, ed. Patricia Mohammed, 22–43. Barbados: University of the West Indies Press. Senior, Olive. 1991. Working Miracles: Women’s Lives in the English-Speaking Caribbean. Barbados: Institute of Social and Economic Research (Eastern Caribbean). Shepherd, Verene. 1999. Women in Caribbean History: The British Colonised Territories. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers.

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Spillers, Hortense. 1987. Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book. Diacritics Culture and Countermemory: The “American” Connection 17 (2): 64–81. UN Women. 2020. “Unpaid care and domestic work: we’re not all in the same boat.” https://data.unwomen.org/features/unpaid-­care-­and-­domestic-­work-­were-­ not-­all-­same-­boat.

CHAPTER 4

Revisiting Democracy in the Anglophone Caribbean in the Context of COVID-19 and Beyond Sandra Ochieng’-Springer

Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be one of the biggest and most unexpected challenges that the governments of Caribbean countries have had to face in many years. The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in the Caribbean in early March 2020. As the virus rapidly spread across the region, governments had to make certain decisions and implement emergency measures to facilitate rapid responses. They introduced a wide array of legal measures under great pressure, with many declaring states of emergency. The measures taken to tackle the pandemic have affected the functioning of society and people’s normal way of life as they have been restrictive impacting on traditional freedoms. They have affected social life and democratic processes as well. S. Ochieng’-Springer (*) Department of Government, Sociology, Social Work and Psychology, The University of the West Indies, Bridgetown, Barbados e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Roberts et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30889-5_4

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According to the Burckhardt et  al. (2022), we cannot palliate the effects of the pandemic on democracy and governance in all major world regions. This is because governments’ responses to the containment of the virus have deepened mistrust in governance and democracy. The Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) also corroborates this and states that: Authoritarianism is deepening in non-democratic regimes (hybrid and authoritarian regimes). The year 2020 was the worst on record, in terms of the number of countries affected by deepening autocratization. The pandemic has thus had a particularly damaging effect on non-democratic countries, further closing their already reduced civic space. … Democratically elected governments, including established democracies, are increasingly adopting authoritarian tactics. (2021)

This moment allows us an inflection point in relation to discussions on democracy in general. For the Anglophone Caribbean, this is an important moment as well because while most countries in the region are described as stable liberal democracies (Domínguez 1993; Payne 1993a; Sutton 1999), over time, there have been questions in relation to substantive issues that were also glaring during the pandemic. This chapter refers to such literature and also analyses governments responses to COVID-19 among this democratic group of states. The study contributes to these debates in this area by focusing on government measures while seeking to understand authoritarian tendencies during the pandemic and juxtaposing them to similar criticisms prior to the pandemic period. It keeps this important conversation about the quality of democracy in the Anglophone Caribbean open. This chapter therefore aims to evaluate the reality of democratic resilience and the new demands based on disruptions that were borne out during the pandemic. The study is qualitative in nature and will rely on data drawn from academic sources. These academic sources will include primary documents, books, and journal articles. Given the nature of the topic, the study also utilises secondary data via targeted newspaper articles to consult on pandemic-­ related issues. Content analysis of these newspaper articles proved useful for analysis of historical material and data, especially during the pandemic period. Web portals of newspaper articles were useful as they covered news since the outbreak of COVID-19. The next section will analyse democracy in the Anglophone Caribbean.

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Democracy in the Anglophone Caribbean: Setting a Framework for Analysis The Anglophone Caribbean has enjoyed a reputation of being one of the most democratic spaces in the world. The conversations on democracy are captured in the works of different authors, many of whom define it in formal terms while taking into account its limitations and delving into substantive issues (Edie 1994; Munroe 1996; Haynes 2001; Hinds 2008; Grenade 2012). Democracy refers to a system of government in which there is meaningful and extensive political competition for positions of government power, at regular intervals, among individuals and organised groups, especially political parties. This contention for power usually takes place without the use of force. Munroe (1996) adds to this by distinguishing several factors as key for assessing the value of democracy: quality of political participation, quality of political contestation or competition, level of development and quality of civil society, the degree of corruption in the public and private sectors, the quality of socioeconomic outcomes from state policy, and the attitude to government. In Edie’s (1994) view, fundamental characteristics in a democracy include a high degree of popular participation in the selection of leaders and policies, through free and fair elections; presence of freedoms of speech, association, petition, and religion; as well as respect for the rule of law and an independent judiciary. Moreover, democracy should also extend beyond these values to include social justice. This work recognises the resilience of formal democracy in the region and goes deeper and is concerned not only with the well-known institutional features of the democratic political systems, but also with the way in which democracy has been operationalised, especially during the pandemic period. Democracy in the region has often been idealised by many observers; however, there are problematic aspects that warrant in-depth analysis. There is no doubt that there is considerable political freedom throughout the region (with certain exceptions), rights are guaranteed, the rule of law prevails (for the most part), elections are held at regular intervals, and the political systems are stable to the extent that democracy has functioned in a procedural sense. This is evidenced by a strong commitment to formal requirements of democracy, including the holding of regular elections, political stability, a general lack of politically motivated election violence, general adherence to the law, and stable institutions. This has been attributed to a tacit

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acceptance of institutions inherited from colonialism in the Caribbean region. Sutton (2007, 202) describes this as “Institutional fidelity” and attributes this distinctive characteristic of Caribbean politics as one that contributes significantly to the democratic legacy. This, in addition to prolonged socialisation as deemed by Payne (1993a), ensured sustained exposure to Westminster traditions and beliefs that were maintained in the post-­independence period. Ryan (2009) concurs with this view and affirms that: In terms of political beliefs systems, most of the critical elites of the region hold fast to the view that notwithstanding its imperfections, the majoritarian British political model is superior to all others. With few exceptions, they firmly reject both the presidential system which exists in the United States and Latin America and the consensual model which is the norm in most of Europe and which uses various forms of proportional representation. They also have not been attracted to the one-party models which were once the norm in most of Africa. Indeed brainwashing about the superiority of the British system was thorough. (304)

This socialisation, the political values, and predispositions were buttressed by the economic system which was obtained in the years just prior to independence and which was carried over into the post-independence period. The system was patterned on the Fabian welfare state model inherited from the British Labour Party government in the post-World War II era. That system involved, inter alia, a close link between the trade union movement and the Labour Party. In most Caribbean countries except Trinidad and Tobago, the leaders of the leading trade union movements became the political leaders of parties which led their countries to independence. The newly independent states thus became a vast dispensary of patronage in terms of jobs, houses, scholarships, and all that the masses believed were denied to them during the colonial period (Ibid.). While trade unions would have dominated electoral politics in the immediate post-colonial period, this is not the case anymore. There are linkages, though not as strong as they were before, but the systems remain collaborative. This ties into the development of Caribbean politics as described by Macdonald (1986) as one that has a preponderance of open political systems where the norm is democratic in the political realm and by Bishop et al. (2019) as stable party systems which provide legitimacy

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and continuity in executive decision-making, with labour organisation underpinning party competition. Anglophone Caribbean countries arguably have the most stable two-­ party systems in the world, with the same two parties contesting and winning elections repeatedly. Despite their relative youth, these systems are not plagued by the widespread volatility and instability that have plagued other countries in the developing world. Indeed, it has been contended that Caribbean two-party systems are generally even more stable than those of ‘advanced’ democracies where third parties have increasingly been able to gain significant parliamentary representation (Payne 1993b; Sutton 1999; Barrow-Giles and Joseph 2006; Bishop et al. 2020). Despite this track record and seeming confidence, there have been questions and challenges regarding related substantive issues. There has been a history since independence of demanding social and political equity. These have been done through peaceful means with some exceptions including the revolution in Grenada in 1979, the coup attempt in Dominica in 1980, the destabilisation of government in St. Lucia from 1983 to 1986, and the failed coup attempt in Trinidad in 1990. Courtney Blackman, former governor of the Central Bank in Barbados, suggested that, in addition to size, the Caribbean’s history of slavery becomes a major influence on the kind of political systems that currently prevail in the Caribbean. He states that: The small size of the Caribbean state provides a fertile soil for the seeds of authoritarianism which are planted in our colonial past. These were evidenced overtly via the repressive government of Eric Gairy in Grenada after the 1967 victory and the politics of electoral coercion, fraud and opposition repression of the Burnham administration in Guyana in 1980. These two regimes were unrepresentative of the general political life of the region and most governments have come and gone in a recognisably democratic process. (in Peters 1992, 5)

Although these might be extreme examples, sitting Caribbean Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves has made similar declarations of prime ministerial powers in Commonwealth Caribbean constitutions. He asserts that: The powers of the Prime Minister are awesome in the political system of a small nation-state. Whether these powers are exercised capriciously or not, through authoritative conduct or authoritarian means, sensitively or not, depend not only on the extent, in practical terms, of the democratic ethos in

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the political culture but also on the character, disposition, conduct and vision of the Prime Minister himself. (in Singh 2002)

In the recent past, there has been no Caribbean leader who has overtly extremely derogated democratic principles. They have managed the reputations fairly well. Gonsalves was echoing the sentiments of former Barbadian prime ministers. While in opposition, Erskine Sandiford had argued that the notion of the “primus inter pares” (first among equals) had long given way to ‘prime ministerial’ as opposed to ‘cabinet government.’ He further suggested that there was a real danger that, if left unchecked, such power could get out of hand (in Cox 2011). Former Barbados Prime Minister Tom Adams also made the salient observation that Caribbean constitutions were too generous to prime ministers by allowing them to dissolve Parliament if they lost a vote of confidence. He suggested that such power might not have been in the best interest of a small country (Ibid.). These observations remain particularly relevant to all constitutions of the Anglophone Caribbean and to debates on democracy. While the Caribbean has been lauded as a democratic space, others continue to critique certain inherently anti-democratic elements of the system. Munroe (1996) adds to the discourse and contends that the system places excessive power in the hands of the executive, especially in the hands of the prime minister. This leads to “over concentration of power, legislatures that are ineffective, [and] electorates that have little institutional means of influencing policy between elections” (20). Hamel-Smith maintains that separation of power does not find expression in the Westminster model of government. Cabinet is drawn from the legislature, and the prime minister, who is head of the executive, is the member of legislature who commands the support of the majority in the legislature. The prime minister, under the Westminster model, is vested with such vast powers of political patronage—relating to both the legislative and executive functions of the government—that he/she may be legitimately viewed as the organ of government in both of these areas, so that the Westminster system may be considered a system of prime ministerial government or even of prime ministerial dictatorship (in Sebastien 1985). According to Duncan, a political agenda to strengthen democracy is necessary, and this could be done by including in the constitution, means to enlarge opportunities for wider and more intense participation (in Edie 1994). Although he was writing in the early 1990s in relation to Barbados,

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his sentiments are still valid in all Caribbean territories. To Duncan, the ‘democratic’ constitution and ‘democratic’ practice of local political party organisation are key to the democratic process. What obtains when a party is in power is that all defer to the parliamentary party, its cabinet members, and especially the prime minister. In theory, the democratic process works at the party level, but in practice the party leader or a handful of people dominate the processes. For him, none of this adds up to democratic functioning. He ties this to apathy by the citizenry and maintains that this apathy is due to valid reasons including poor communication, lack of participation channels, ad-hocism, lack of accountability, political corruption, and patronage. The party is the essential building block of democracy and should create in itself an image of what it wants the wider society to be, so that it can become a more effective instrument for change (Ibid.). This is not the case in Caribbean states. Given the above, generally, Caribbean citizens enjoy political rights and civil liberties, state institutions function fairly well, and there are regular constitutional transfers of power through multi-party elections. However, Grenade (2012) is right in her assertion that despite these trappings of formal democracy, there are grave deficiencies that undermine effective governance in the Caribbean. These include excessive prime ministerial powers, an electoral system that is prone to distortions, an alienated citizenry, among other issues. These deficiencies have been exacerbated by government decision-making during the pandemic period. It is against this background that this study seeks to evaluate the application of democracy in the region during the COVID-19 period.

Governance During the COVID-19 Crisis The COVID-19 crisis was unprecedented and required unconventional responses. Some of the measures included the enactment of emergency powers, imposition of restrictions on internal movement with those breaking curfew liable for hefty fines in several Caribbean countries, social-­ distancing measures to reduce personal contact between persons, limits on gatherings, mandatory vaccination roll-out campaigns in some territories, as well as testing and tracing strategies. The protection of public health was considered a priority, and these containment measures were put in place to limit the spread of the virus and support healthcare systems to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. These decisions and public health interventions were justified earlier in the pandemic when governments

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needed to act promptly and decisively, but they have included infringements of rights and overreach by administrations that cannot be ignored. The intensity of the measures implemented varied across different countries and over time. Some jurisdictions implemented stricter measures than others. In some spaces, the spread of COVID-19 was contained quickly, and governments moved to reopen their economies, with precautions. Some governments, such as Belize, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname, eased measures, but shortly had a resurgence of infections, which led to renewed mandatory lockdowns. Most Anglophone Caribbean states implemented mandatory lockdowns between March 2020 and 2021. Figure 4.1 depicts the number of lockdowns by these states. The mandatory vaccine decisions elicited certain responses from different segments of the populations. There was vaccine hesitancy as some saw the mandatory measures as government overreach involving serious issues around consent and human rights. There were also questions in relation to emergency powers, which are potentially susceptible to abuse. Gonsalves’ quotation is instructive in this instance because emergency powers augment the powers of prime ministers significantly, and in a system that depends on “the democratic ethos in the political culture and … the character, disposition, conduct and vision of the Prime Minister” (OAS Democratic Forum Series 2002), it is evident why there would be

Fig. 4.1  Number of lockdowns per country. (Source: Caricom Today)

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concerns. The pandemic urged legislators to strive to find a balance between public health, on the one side, and a number of rights and personal freedoms, on the other side. Given the peculiarity of the present period, analysis with examples will be made of governance processes in different Caribbean territories. In the case of Barbados, the Emergency Management Act was amended to allow the prime minister certain powers during the pandemic and shift decision-making power from cabinet to the prime minister. This was contested by the opposition leader, Bishop Joseph Atherley, who indicated that he did not see the need for the devolution of power from cabinet to the PM and that the old legislation, even though it did not speak directly to pandemics, would have sufficed. This view was echoed by opposition Senator Caswell Franklyn, who stated that “I do not see the need for the legislation since the Emergency Powers Act—originally passed at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939—and the Health Services Regulations that go back to 1969—both have provision for Government to introduce urgent measures in the best interest of the nation” (Henry 2020). Yearwood and Yearwood (2021) also attest to this and assert that: A look at the Covid Directives would show that they are issued by a Prime Minister and pursuant to the Covid Order. … It means that Cabinet can hand over its power to a Prime Minister to act singularly under the Emergency Management (Amendment) Act (2020). It does not seem as if this power was in the previous version of the Emergency Management Act (2007). … However, when the Cabinet issues an Order, let us ask a question, who chairs the Cabinet? Under section 70 of the Constitution, a Prime Minister is chair of the Cabinet. In effect, whether the power of the Cabinet is “delegated” to a Prime Minister as in the Emergency Management (Amendment) Act (2020) or remains exclusively with the Cabinet as in the previous Emergency Management Act, a Prime Minister is still in charge. It also means that a Prime Minister has to take all responsibility for the outcomes of the Public Emergency as a Prime Minister has singular power in managing the Public Emergency.

It is these immense prime ministerial powers and the ability to amplify them that have been subject of debate in relation to democracy in the region over time. And in spaces where cabinet is small, meets often and is not a far-fetched entity, there are doubts whether it is really necessary. There have also been concerns expressed in relation to the multiple extensions of the state of emergency. Most recently, on April 20, 2022, the

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Barbados parliament agreed to extend the public health emergency in accordance with the Emergency Management Act, extending the state of emergency until September 22, 2022. This is being undertaken even as government continues to relax certain other measures as it manages the pandemic, which is somewhat contradictory. It also has implications for governance as it extends the circumstances under which the country is governed and maintains the enhanced prime ministerial power. Moreover, frustrations were also expressed with the directives in relation to curfew fines. In Barbados, the Attorney General Dale Marshall declared that “ there will be a fine of $50,000, or one year in prison, or both, for anyone found guilty of breaking the curfew (Austin 2020). His statement followed a strong message from Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, “The Government of Barbados is not playing. Law enforcement shall be instructed to apply and enforce the law fairly, transparently, and without fear. All persons not falling within the stated ambit of essential services, and not having good reason for being on the road after 8:00 p.m. and before 6:00 a.m., shall be dealt with in accordance with the spirit and the intent of the law” (Ibid.). Such stiff penalties and pronouncements speak to the earlier mentioned measures that are taken in consideration of the trade-offs between public health and fundamental democratic principles. Such measures had been hefting the patience of the public who have expressed their discontent. The Trinidad and Tobago government implemented an indefinite state of emergency (SOE) on May 17, 2021, along with other tight restrictions including a nightly curfew to curb the spread of COVID-19. The state of emergency empowered police officers and members of the military to arrest individuals without a warrant, if they consider the individual as putting public health at risk (Crisis 24 2021). With the declaration of an emergency, the powers of the executive are expanded until it ends, and, in this case, there was an indefinite SOE. In relation to this, the opposition leader, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, accused the ruling party of stifling citizen’s rights. She stated, “The opposition is extremely concerned over the state of our democracy under the PNM [People’s National Movement] … even as we face the impacts of the ongoing pandemic, Trinidad and Tobago is facing a direct threat from a Government intent on trampling citizen’s rights and freedoms, using the health crisis as a cover” (Loop News 2021a). Her claims were also directly related to the government’s push of the Revenue Authority Bill by removing the special majority clause and implementing a simple majority provision that would not require

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opposition support. She deemed this move to be unconstitutional and sinister, especially because this bill has failed several times before because it required a three-fifths special majority and therefore opposition support (Ramdass 2021). The emergency period was used to push this legislation, bypassing the oversight role of parliament. The suspension of normal rules of government means that the authority and the check and balance role that is usually reserved for legislatures are rolled back under SOEs. In Dominica, a state of emergency was announced on Wednesday, April 1, 2020, and extended to June 30, giving the government extraordinary measures to halt the further spread of the virus. The measures included a nightly curfew and a total lockdown on weekends between certain periods (Crisis 24 2020). In August 2021, the government of Dominica also announced a series of new measures aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, including a curfew and increased fines for persons not adhering to the Public Health Act. Prime Minister Skerrit strongly stated that “We will be accepting no nonsense in the country over the next seven days and beyond … the penalty for people who fail to comply with this order has been increased to EC$5,000” (CARICOM Today 2021). In Antigua and Barbuda, a decision was made by cabinet in September 2021 that all unvaccinated government workers, including those in the public service, statutory corporations, and companies in which the government owns majority shares, were required to remain at home until proof of vaccination is provided. Prime Minister Gaston Browne stated, “These mandates are designed to protect the entire population … I believe that, on the basis that these mandates are respected, Antigua and Barbuda will be well on its way to achieve herd immunity before the end of the year. … The mandates will not stop at what we agreed to [in Cabinet], because if we do not achieve herd immunity in the next few months, then additional mandates will be introduced” (Connolly 2021). A deadline of December 31, 2021, was set to achieve the feat. A directive was also given that salaries and wages of unvaccinated government employees would cease from October 1, 2021, until they comply with vaccination requirements. These directives were questioned by the Antigua and Barbuda’s opposition United Progressive Party (UPP). The party’s spokesman on legal matters, Leon Symister, called on citizens to resist such an undemocratic move by the administration. The UPP spokesman contended that mandating residents to take the vaccine would be in contravention of the

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International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Antigua and Barbuda acceded to in July 2019 (Radio Jamaica News 2021). In Jamaica, lawmakers in the lower house enacted penalties and other provisions under the Disaster Risk Management Act (2021), which imposed fines for those who refused to wear masks in public or broke curfew orders. Forty offences were now prescribed in the law, with 10 levels of fixed penalties ranging from $3000 to $500,000. Failing to wear a mask in public, not keeping the six-feet physical distancing rule, or breaching the protocols governing public transportation would attract a $5000 fine. Under the proposed provisions, people caught outside their homes during a curfew could face a fine of $10,000, while a $20,000 penalty was attached to the offence of operating a gym or small outdoor activity outside of specified hours. Jamaican residents who disobeyed the quarantine orders on returning to the island from overseas were liable for a fine of $25,000, while non-Jamaican residents and tourists who refused to confine themselves to the Resilient Corridors were liable to face a fine of $30,000. Furthermore, the penalty for holding funerals, burials, weddings, or worship services in breach of the orders, as well as operating a bar outside of the allowed hours, was $100,000 (Saunders 2021). There are those who have expressed strong reservations about the executive authority being given to determine criminal offences under the law, without first seeking parliamentary approval or allowing for parliamentary oversight. Such persons include Jamaica’s opposition leader Bruce Golding who stated: As a lawmaker I’m thinking about the possibilities that may come down the line. It allows a prime minister to determine that [a particular] conduct is a criminal offence. That, to me, is bad law. Where [a] disaster is declared by the prime minister or by the ODPEM (Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management), it is then open season as to what measures ought to be put in place to respond to that crisis. Previously, those measures were not enforced by criminal sanctions; now they will be. (Ibid.)

Actions such as these have led to criticisms of governance processes and discussion that governments are ruling by decree with few checks on their powers. Opposition leader in Barbados Joseph Atherley expressed similar sentiment and stated, “I want to be very clear that I am not supporting the measure before us … from my appreciation of political history, there have

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been many instances and some ongoing right now where government would have used the power of numbers and the cover of the state of emergency to engage in policy positions and other positions which other people would not have given consent or approval” (King 2020). The situation in Barbados is very peculiar since the incumbent administration won all seats of the lower house in the last election, and subsequently one member crossed the floor to form a one-man opposition in parliament’s lower house. The administration, therefore, enjoys tremendous support in Parliament, the highest law-making body, and legislatively this means that inordinate powers have been placed in the hands of cabinet who have devolved decision-making powers under the amended Emergency Management Act to the prime minister. Opposition to such extreme measures did not emanate only from the corridors of parliament, as citizens took matters into their own hands and took to the streets. The increasingly strained relationship between governments and citizens in several Caribbean countries due to extended state of emergency directives, lockdowns, and other restrictive measures, as well as what was deemed to be heavy-handedness by these government, brought out demonstrators. They openly protested mandatory vaccinations, political repression, and economic hardship caused by the pandemic. This was evidenced in St. Vincent and the Grenadines where Prime Minister Gonsalves suffered a concussion and had to be hospitalised after being injured at such a protest (BBC News 2021). The prime minister was on his way to parliament to amend emergency health laws when he was hit by a rock thrown by a protestor. There were claims of harassment and intimidation by the main opposition party, the New Democratic Party (NDP). They stated that the police raided the homes of several opposition supporters and other activists, following the assault on the prime minister. Opposition leader, Godwin Friday, regarded these activities as worrying and asserted that this was “a very serious moment in our country” (The Gleaner 2021). In Barbados, over 2000 persons marched through the city chanting ‘no vaccines’ as they participated in a protest which was organised by the Barbados Concerned Citizens Against Mandated and Coerced COVID-19 Vaccination (Henry 2021). In Trinidad and Tobago, the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) called the Keith Rowley government a dictatorship for making the COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for public workers. JTUM’s President Ancel Roget declared that “This country is under a very disrespectful, high-handed dictatorship and we will be

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communicating to the dictator that let good sense prevail because if that did not occur, other things will happen, and of course, within the ambit of the law” (Loop News 2021b). Police arrested several protestors in Jamaica who were marching against mandatory vaccinations in September 2021 (Caribbean News Now 2021). In Antigua, protests with people railing against government’s decision to vaccinate frontline workers were broken up when police fired tear gas canisters at the protestors (Wilkinson 2021). The ability to voice dissent is vital for a functioning democracy. Such movements have been linked to social, economic, and political demands in the region for decades. Protests have been peaceful for the most part in the post-independence period in the Anglophone Caribbean. There is a history of mobilisation, although the longevity of such organisations is questionable. The pandemic provided peculiar circumstances due to restrictions as a result of government legislation. On the one hand they serve a legitimate purpose by ensuring the safety and well-being of communities, but on the other hand they limit political expression and infringe on certain rights. It is the responsibility of governments to accommodate, where possible, and to avoid responding with heavy-handed tactics as was done in some territories, as this further inflames public anger and calls into question the legality of the restrictions. Another important issue is related to electoral democracy. Elections are considered a pillar of any democracy and have been consistently held in the region. Barrow-Giles asserts that “with few exceptions, elections [in the region] are held under conditions that are generally free from harassment and intimidation. … Indeed, only in a few instances have the results of general elections been openly questioned and recourse to the law courts taken” (2011). COVID-19, however, posed certain challenges including but not limited to reduced citizen engagement and public deliberation due to restrictions, disenfranchisement of quarantined voters, and safety and mobility barriers. Countries adopted their own approaches to hold safe elections under state of emergency conditions. There were also questions in relation to the immense powers of the prime ministers under state of emergency conditions and the advantages that they have in relation to elections over opposition parties. Prime ministers can place limits and restrictions on social and political activity but also have the ability to schedule the elections. In some instances, the opposition was caught on the back foot and disadvantaged. The Westminster system already confers an unfair advantage on the incumbent government as far as the timing of elections is concerned.

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The voter turnout for the elections held during the pandemic has been worryingly low in some territories. According to the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Jamaica and Barbados recorded the lowest turnouts, at 37.85% and 41.73%, respectively (2022a, b). Political analyst Peter Wickham attributes this decline in voter participation to COVID-19 but goes on to mention that numbers have been on the decline in Caribbean countries since the late 1980s (The Gleaner 2020). These countries have either recorded small, yet steady, declines over the past five general elections or have maintained turnout in the low to mid-50 per cent range. The low voter turnout can be considered in light of gradual apathy as well as the repercussions of COVID-19 in terms of risk to health, individuals’ trust in institutions, and their voting intentions and electoral participation.

Conclusion There is no doubt that the democratic tradition has proven to be resilient in the Caribbean, albeit in a formal procedural sense. It is the substantive but important matters that add value to the quality of democracy that have to be grappled with and were called to question during the pandemic. The pandemic period compelled governments to operate under exceptional circumstances and implement extraordinary measures in attempts to tackle the immediate threat to public health and limit the spread of the virus. Concerns of democratic practice and cross-cutting principles in relation to inclusion, checks and balances, respect of human rights, and the rule of law have to be considered. Issues related to these principles were borne out in the activities of the core institutions of democracy such as the executive, the legislature, as well as the electoral system, as discussed in the work. Opposition to what was deemed as executive excesses and rolling back of legislative authority are critical to the continued debates on democracy in the region. The issues were peculiar to the pandemic but grounded in practical matters that have been part of the conversation for decades. While extraordinary measures might have been considered legitimate under the circumstances of a pandemic, these measures should be used in a proportionate manner and should be aligned to law and democratic principles. Delivering democratic governance while responding to an unprecedented public health emergency calls for leadership, flexibility, and innovation.

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There is a heightened awareness of the restrictive policies that impacted on fundamental rights during the pandemic by the regional publics. Decision-makers are also aware of questions regarding proportionality of measures taken during the pandemic period and other related questions of legitimacy and accountability, and the need to uphold these once the pandemic is over. As we slowly transition to ‘normal times,’ the degree to which democratic principles are protected and respected will be enhanced. The period provides an inflection point for recurring democratic governance discussions and an opportunity to strengthen democratic practice in the region by building safeguards to restrict abuse of power and make it more inclusive, transparent, and participatory in the future. Otherwise, according to Gonsalves, we will continue to depend on “the character, disposition, conduct and vision of the Prime Minister” to maintain democracy and remain potentially prone to abuse of power buttressed by citizen apathy.

References Austin, Sharon. 2020. Heavy Fine for Anyone Breaking Curfew. Barbados Government Information Service, March 27. https://gisbarbados.gov.bb/ blog/heavy-­fine-­for-­anyone-­breaking-­curfew/. Barrow-Giles, Cynthia. 2011. Democracy at Work: A Comparative Study of the Caribbean State. The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs 100 (414): 285–302. Barrow-Giles, Cynthia, and Tennyson S.D. Joseph. 2006. General Elections and Voting in the English-Speaking Caribbean 1992–2005. Kingston: Ian Randle. BBC News. 2021. St Vincent and the Grenadines Leader Hit During Anti-Vaccine Mandate Protest. BBC News, August 6. https://www.bbc.com/news/ world-­latin-­america-­58110684. Bishop, Matthew, Jack Corbett, and Wouter Veenendaal. 2019. How Trade Unions Explain the Development of Two-Party Systems in the Caribbean But Not the Pacific. https://dpa.bellschool.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/publications/attachments/2019-­12/dpa_in_brief_corbett_et_al_201926.pdf. ———. 2020. Labor Movements and Party System Development: Why Does the Caribbean have Stable Two-Party Systems, but the Pacific Does Not? World Development 126. Burckhardt, Kelci, Timothy D. Sisk, Caroline A. Hartzell, Anna Jarstad, Massimo Tommasoli, and Necla Tschirgi. 2022. COVID-19’s Effects on Democracy and Governance Globally: Confronting the ‘Virus of Hate’. https://drive.google. com/file/d/1FtJe99tNaxkw3vcg3Fs30u3DM_EONasX/view.

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Caribbean News Now. 2021. Protesters Against COVID-19 Vaccine Arrested in Jamaica. Caribbean News Now, September 23. https://thecaribbeannewsnow. com/protesters-­against-­covid-­19-­vaccine-­arrested-­in-­jamaica/. CARICOM Today. 2021. New COVID-19 Measures Implemented in Dominica. CARICOM Today, August 6. https://today.caricom.org/2021/08/03/ new-­covid-­19-­measures-­implemented-­in-­dominica/. Connolly, Norma. 2021. Antigua and Barbuda Mandates Vaccines for Gov’t Employees. Cayman Compass, September 20. https://www.caymancompass.com/2021/09/20/antigua-­a nd-­b arbuda-­m andates-­v accinesfor-­govt-­employees/. Cox, David Anthony. 2011. Excessive Prime Ministerial Power. The Star, February 21. https://stluciastar.com/excessive-­prime-­ministerial-­power/. Crisis 24. 2020. Dominica: Restrictive COVID-19 measures remain in place as of April 13. Crisis 24, April 13. https://crisis24.garda.com/alerts/2020/04/ dominica-­restrictive-­covid-­19-­measures-­remain-­in-­place-­as-­of-­april-­13. ———. 2021. Trinidad and Tobago: Curfew, Tightened Restrictions Imposed as of May 17 to Curb the Spread of COVID-19 /Update 23. Crisis 24, May 7. https://crisis24.garda.com/alerts/2021/05/trinidad-­and-­tobago-­curfewtightened-­r estrictions-­i mposed-­a s-­o f-­m ay-­1 7-­t o-­c urb-­t he-­s pread-­o f-­ covid-­19-­update-­23. Domínguez, Jorge. 1993. The Caribbean Question: Why Has Liberal Democracy (Surprisingly) Flourished? In Democracy in the Caribbean: Political, Economic and Social Perspectives, ed. Jorge Domínguez, Robert Pastor, and Delisle Worrell, 1–25. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Edie, Carlene. 1994. Democracy in the Caribbean: Myths and Realities. London: Praeger Publishers. Grenade, Wendy. 2012. Governance in the Caribbean: Challenges and Prospects. Commonwealth Governance Handbook. https://www.commonwealthgovern a n c e . o r g / w p -­c o n t e n t / u p l o a d s / 2 0 1 2 / 1 0 / G o v e r n a n c e -­i n -­t h e -­ Caribbean.pdf. Haynes, Jeff. 2001. The Third World and the Third Wave of Democracy. In Democracy and Political Change in the Third World, ed. Jeff Haynes, 1–20. New York: Routledge. Henry, Anesta. 2020. Government is Reinventing the Wheel by its Amendments to the Emergency Management Act. Barbados Today, March 28. https://www. facebook.com/BarbadosToday/photos/government-­i s-­r einventing-­t he-­ w h e e l -­b y -­i t s -­a m e n d m e n t s -­t o -­t h e -­e m e r g e n c y -­m a n a g e men/10157451837538191/. ———. 2021. Hundreds March Against Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccine in Barbados. Barbados Today, August 7. https://barbadostoday. bb/2021/08/07/hundreds-­m arch-­a gainst-­m andatory-­c ovid-­1 9-­v accine-­ in-­barbados/.

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Hinds, David. 2008. Beyond Formal Democracy: The Discourse on Democracy and Governance in the Anglophone Caribbean. Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 46 (3): 388–406. Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. 2021. The Global State of Democracy 2021: Building Resilience in a Pandemic Era. https://idea.int/ gsod/sites/default/files/2021-­1 1/global-­s tate-­o f-­d emocracy-­2 021-­ summary.pdf. ———. 2022a. Barbados. https://www.idea.int/data-­tools/country-­view/58/40. ———. 2022b. Jamaica. https://www.idea.int/data-­tools/country-­view/153/40. King, Katrina. 2020. Gov’t Warned Against Using COVID-19 State of Emergency to Cover Up. Loop News, April 24. https://barbados.loopnews.com/content/ atherley-­supports-­extended-­public-­health-­emergency-­warns-­govt. Loop News. 2021a. Opposition Leader Claims Democracy Under Threat in T & T. Loop News, September 15. https://tt.loopnews.com/content/ opposition-­leader-­claims-­democracy-­under-­threat-­tt. ———. 2021b. Push Back: Unions to Protest Mandatory Vaccination Outside White Hall. Loop News. December 20. https://tt.loopnews.com/content/ push-­back-­unions-­protest-­mandatory-­vaccination-­outside-­white-­hall. MacDonald, Scott B. 1986. Trinidad and Tobago Democracy in the Caribbean. New York: Praeger. Munroe, Trevor. 1996. Caribbean Democracy: Decay or Renewal. CARICOM Perspective 66: 16–21. OAS Democratic Forum Series. 2002. Constitutional Reform in the Caribbean. http://www.oas.org/sap/publications/2002/constitutional_reform_caribbean/doc/pbl_constitutional_reform_02_eng.pdf. Payne, Anthony. 1993a. Westminster Adapted: The Political Order of the Commonwealth Caribbean. In Democracy in the Caribbean, ed. Jorge I. Domínguez, Robert A. Pastor, and DeLisle Worrell, 57–73. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Payne, Douglas. 1993b. Caribbean Democracy. Freedom Review 10 (3): 1–19. Peters, Donald. 1992. The Democratic System in the Eastern Caribbean. New York: Greenwood Press. Radio Jamaica News. 2021. Antigua and Barbuda’s Opposition Party Against Any Attempt to Make COVID Vaccines Mandatory. Radio Jamaica News, May 21. http://radiojamaicanewsonline.com/local/antigua-­and-­barbudas-­opposition-­ party-­against-­any-­attempt-­to-­make-­covid-­vaccines-­mandatory. Ramdass, Anna. 2021. West: State Needs Money …Forced to Borrow for ‘Shrinking Coffers.’ Daily Express, September 13. https://trinidadexpress. com/news/local/west-­state-­needs-­money/article_25c598b6-­1432-­11ec-­ ae54-­efbb76af0129.html. Ryan, Selwyn. 2009. Eric Williams: The Myth and the Man. Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press.

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Saunders, Alphea. 2021. House Gives Nod to Fines for COVID Safety Breaches. Jamaica Observer, March 24. https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/ house-­gives-­nod-­to-­fines-­for-­covid-­safety-­breaches/. Sebastien, Raphael. 1985. Forging a New Democracy Beyond the Post-Colonial Era. Freeport: HEM Printers. Singh, Rickey. 2002. Strange Politics in St. Vincent: PM Gonsalves on Shaky Ground. Guyana Chronicle, December 1. http://www.landofsixpeoples.com/ news022/nc2120112.htm. Sutton, Paul. 1999. Democracy in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Democratization 6 (1): 67–86. ———. 2007. Democracy and Good Governance in Small States. In Commonwealth Small States: Issues and Prospects, ed. Eliawony Kisanga and Sarah Danchie, 199–217. London: Commonwealth Secretariat. The Gleaner. 2020. People are Searching for New Political Hope—Analysts Say Voter Apathy Is Right Across the Caribbean. The Gleaner, September 27. https://jamaica-­gleaner.com/article/news/20200927/people-­are-­searching-­ new-­political-­hope-­analysts-­say-­voter-­apathy-­right-­across. ———. 2021. St Vincent Opposition Condemns Police Raid on Homes of Supporters. The Gleaner, August 8. https://jamaica-­gleaner.com/article/ caribbean/20210808/st-­vincent-­opposition-­condemns-­police-­raid-­homes-­ supporters. Wilkinson, Bert. 2021. Governments Get Pushback for Vaccine Mandates. Amsterdam News, August 12. https://amsterdamnews.com/news/ 2021/08/12/governments-­get-­pushback-­vaccine-­mandates/. Yearwood, Ronnie, and Rico Yearwood. 2021. Laws, Democracy and PM Power. Barbados Today, April 22. https://barbadostoday.bb/2021/04/22/ btcolumn-­laws-­democracy-­and-­pm-­power/.

CHAPTER 5

Elite Authoritarianism Versus Individual Liberty: The Politics of COVID-19 Management in Barbados Tennyson S. D. Joseph and Sonjé Greenidge

Introduction In an influential and authoritative paper, Jorge Domínguez (1993) offered a positive and affirmative assertion of Caribbean democracy, suggesting that despite being categorised amongst the world’s ‘developing countries’, the Caribbean has been able to sustain an impressive record of democratic political practice. Titled, “The Caribbean question: Why has liberal democracy (surprisingly) flourished?”, the article offers an uncritical reading of the Caribbean’s adherence to democratic norms, measured in terms of the holding of periodic elections, the presence of multi-party electoral

T. S. D. Joseph (*) Department of Political Science, North Carolina Central University, Durham, NC, USA e-mail: [email protected] S. Greenidge Information Officer, Road Town, British Virgin Islands © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Roberts et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30889-5_5

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competition, and the peaceful transition of governments. Among the many factors Domínguez identifies for the ‘surprising flourishing’ of Caribbean democracy include (1993, 3) the presence of a “state-society” bargain in which the social welfarist role of Caribbean states featured prominently, and the relatively strong performance on human development (Domínguez 1993, 12; see also Domínguez 1988). However, despite Domínguez’s positive reading of the Caribbean democratic environment, his ideological objective of spotlighting the Caribbean as a counter to socialist models of economic and political practice in Latin America rendered him incapable of offering a more critical perspective on the limits of Caribbean democracy. In particular, Domínguez failed to highlight how historical, socio-cultural, and socio-economic realities continue to frustrate democratic development towards greater levels of economic and political inclusion and participation of the majority. A critical gap in Caribbean democracy has been its failure to develop cultural practices consistent with respect for individual rights and liberties, as distinct from the formal practices of electoral competition and majority rule. There is, however, much evidence to suggest that in the twenty-first century, these previously underdeveloped aspects of Caribbean democracy have been impacting more heavily on Caribbean politics and influencing the future contours of democratic development. It is in this context of greater demands for individual liberty and economic inclusion and equality that the COVID-19 pandemic can be seen as impacting on Caribbean political life. The management of the COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed previously unforeseen democratic tensions in the Caribbean. These tensions revolve around the threat to individual liberty posed by public interventions to curb the spread of the virus, interlaced with the economic imperatives for profit-making by the private sector and economic growth on the part of governments. While this tension between individual liberty and public safety is a global phenomenon, the specific historical evolution of Caribbean democracy out of the traditions of slavery, colonialism, and the economic and social domination of propertied elites over the mass of the population has further problematised the issue. In the Caribbean context, the management of the COVID-19 pandemic transcends questions of public health, but has been informed by elite authoritarian impulses of labour control and profit maximisation in largely tourism-dependent economies at the expense of emergent liberal-­ democratic notions of individual rights and liberty.

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This reality has been exacerbated by the fact that the historical trajectory of Caribbean democracy has emphasised majoritarian rule in the Lockean electoral sense of ‘government by the consent of the governed,’ while discourses pertinent to individual rights and personal liberty, as advanced by John Stuart Mill, remained relatively underdeveloped. This is evidenced in recent debates on issues such as cannabis legalisation, abortion rights, the decriminalisation of buggery, same-sex marriage, the protection of school children from the imposition of culturally dominant religious perspectives, the secularisation of the curriculum, and related issues. These struggles have unleashed strong pockets of mainstream resistance, and this indicates that even outside of the COVID-19 pandemic, Caribbean democracy has generally existed in the minimalist sense of adherence to electoral and constitutional legal requirements, rather than in an organic cultural sense or ‘substantive’ sense of respect for individual liberty, equality, human dignity, and norms of collective participation and decision-making. In addition to this context of limited and minimalist adherence to ‘substantive’—as distinct from ‘formal’—democracy, the challenges to Caribbean democracy during the COVID-19 pandemic have been further exacerbated by the historical context of economic inequality and racially based ownership and wealth distribution patterns inherited from the colonial era, and these tensions have been heightened by the region’s heavy dependence on tourism, a sector most directly impacted by the pandemic.

Aims of the Chapter This chapter, therefore, studies the politics of COVID-19 pandemic management in Barbados as a contribution to Caribbean democracy studies. One of its central assumptions is that Barbados’ COVID-19 response has been mediated primarily through elite authoritarian impulses of labour management, profit maximisation, and economic survival. It probes the nuances between private sector elite economic aspirations, labour management, the implementation of public health protocols, and their implications for individual rights. The chapter examines the internal tensions in the Caribbean democratic development, arising from, on the one hand, growing demands for the recognition and enlargement of individual liberty and, on the other, the traditional emphasis on state majoritarian policy-­making imperatives, intertwined with the state’s role as a promotor of dominant economic interests.

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In exploring these questions, the chapter will first advance the argument that notions of individual liberty remain a historical and contemporary weakness in the development of Caribbean democracy. Secondly, the chapter will present the empirical account of the tensions, as they have unfolded, between the conflicting objectives of protecting the public health, protecting elite economic interests, and protecting individual liberty, in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic in Barbados. In doing so, the chapter will rely on the public interventions of private sector representatives, government officials, trade unionists, and anti-­mandate activists from which to draw conclusions about the tensions between elite economic interests and the democratic aspiration towards the sovereignty of the person. Newspaper articles and official documents are used as sources from which to draw the specific responses of key groups, showing their stances on issues such as mandatory vaccinations and how they address the balance between lives and livelihoods. A central task is to identify the ways in which government and private sector officials respond to demands for individual choice, and how the authoritarian political culture shapes their degree of acknowledgement of the legitimacy of demands for the individual choice in vaccination stances. The chapter concludes by identifying possible future directions in democratic development arising from lessons gleaned from the politics of COVID-19 management in Barbados.

Historical Authoritarianism and the Diminution of Individual Liberty A cursory tracing of the historical and social evolution of Caribbean governance strongly suggests the consolidation of a political culture with a presumption towards authoritarianism and the emergence of a postcolonial democratic enterprise marked by underdeveloped democratic principles that promoted exclusionary politics. The state in the Caribbean was born in the context of the establishment of European imperialist and mercantilist extractive systems, based on enforced labour from quickly diminished indigenous populations and coerced and enslaved African labour for the enrichment of European entrepreneurs and states. In the view of Beckles (2021, xi), “the modern Caribbean economy was invented, and managed by European states for one purpose: to achieve maximum wealth

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extraction to fuel and sustain their national financial, commercial and industrial transformation”. He adds further that: this primary objective led to the invention and deployment of techniques and tools of labour exploitation, some of them long purged from European legal and business practices [inclusive of] “the displacement and enslavement of conquered natives, chattel enslavement, of imported ‘others’, the use of uninhibited violence as the main method of labour control and management, and the legal definition of racially defined ‘others’ as non-human property and real estate. (Ibid., xii)

Its origins under conditions of coerced labour for European enrichment have shaped the future direction of Caribbean governance and have created a framework for authoritarian systems to organise power to systematically marginalise non-conformist and anti-systemic individuals and groups. In the context of the English-speaking Caribbean, the earliest models of government, the Old Representative System and Crown Colony Government (Emmanuel 1978; Millette 1971), bequeathed bureaucratic systems of governance with repressive mechanisms and inadequate participatory democratic functions, and essentially ensured control by the local European elite, aided by bureaucratic state-managers, of the economic, social, and political life of the Caribbean. These features of the system were perpetuated well into the mid-1930s, when mass uprisings against social and economic conditions gave rise to the organised resistance to British colonial rule (Lewis 1977), and, following the report of a British Royal Commission (the Moyne Commission) (UK Government 1945), opened the door to the legal recognition of trade unions, universal adult suffrage, the formation of political parties, and the widening of representative government between 1944 and 1962. These developments created a platform for formal independence between 1962 and 1983, through the gradual increase of various levels of local responsibility by constitutional changes which placed decision-making power in local, as distinct from British hands (Joseph 2011, 28–29). These developments were democratic only insofar as they conformed to Lockean notions of majoritarian rule, government by the consent of the governed, and the right to self-determination. They were, however, lacking in terms of allowing space for expressions of individual liberty, the sovereignty of

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the person, the sanctity of self, and the possibilities for economic democratisation, participation, and ownership by the majority population. These negative features were consolidated and formalised in the Westminster model of government, which replaced the older colonial forms of government. In addition to safeguarding the financial interests of the traditional elites, a key feature of the political culture of the practice of Westminster politics system is the role of powerful actors in countering the multiplicity of minority perspectives and in promoting conformity to majoritarian norms by imposing restrictions on alternative modes of living and enforcing informal and formal penalties on non-conformists. Embedded within the Westminster system of government is a fusion of the branches of government, extensive powers of the executive reinforced by the absence of term limits, collective responsibility, and a government heavily weighted in favour of the political party with the majority support in the Lower House, at the centre of which is a prime minister with extensive decision-making power. While in theory these features create a prime minister who can act as a champion for popular and majoritarian wishes, the socio-economic historical context in which the Caribbean state evolved has instead resulted, more commonly, in entrenching the dominant notions of authoritarianism and protecting the interests of the traditional elite (Danns 1982). These institutional and cultural practices which facilitate authoritarianism have correspondingly facilitated a political culture which has been relatively lethargic in embracing individual liberties, while remaining comparatively robust in other areas like circumventing coup d’états, ensuring peaceful transitions of successive government, and ensuring adherence to the rule of law. However, authoritarian aspirations have threatened the security of individual liberties and the state’s unchecked ability to influence and regulate dimensions of political power, reinforce public mistrust, and undermine the public’s sense of civic power, political ownership, and influence. It is these historical tensions between authoritarianism and individual liberty aspirations that provide the contextual frame through which the democratic debates around COVID-19 management can be understood. The pandemic has not only posed unprecedented challenges to Caribbean economies, but it has also exposed deep deficiencies in Caribbean democratic governance, which seems to corroborate C.Y. Thomas’s observation that “the authoritarian state appears at a particular moment as a specific response to a configuration of historical and structural forces” which are

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“related not only to local ‘internal’ conditions but also to global economic and political developments” (in Ahmad 1986, 1; see also Thomas 1984). From a public health perspective, the exigencies of this global crisis in the form of mandates were merited. This is supported by a claim supported by the Human Rights Watch, which proposes that “international human rights law guarantees everyone the right to the highest attainable standard of health and obligates governments to take steps to prevent threats to public health and to provide medical care to those who need it” and which legitimises “mandates and curfews in the context of serious public health threats and public emergencies threatening the life of the nation” and which “are based on scientific evidence and neither arbitrary nor discriminatory in application, of limited duration, respectful of human dignity, subject to review, and proportionate to achieve the objective” (Human Rights Watch 2020). However, the implementation of these stipulations has been problematic based on their politicised, restrictive, urgent, and an all-pervasive nature, particularly in a region with the Caribbean’s specific history. ‘States of emergency’ have always been a feature of the suppression of legitimate popular political aspirations, and the Caribbean masses have historically been denied fundamental individual rights in political situations fraught with tension, in efforts to maintain constitutional order. It is for these reasons that Caribbean governments have been criticised for utilising the ‘state of emergency’ power as a tool of oppression through enforcing disproportionate restrictions, in violation of the constitution. An example of the suspicion of Caribbean people of governments’ use of the ‘state of emergency’ during the COVID-19 pandemic can be seen in a criticism levelled at the government of Barbados by an Opposition Senator and leading trade unionist, Casswell Franklyn: In order to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Barbados decided that it would institute a state of emergency. Rather than use the existing provisions, Government sidestepped the Constitution and the 1939 Emergency Powers Act and amended the Emergency Management Act to provide for a public health emergency. They claimed that the existing Laws of Barbados did not provide for such. Notwithstanding Government’s claim, I contend that there are ample laws to institute any such emergency. (Franklyn 2021)

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Franklyn also compared the prime minister of Barbados to a dictator and warned that “if you allow the government to break the law in an emergency, they will create emergencies to break the law” (Franklyn 2021). His critiques and similar ones require an exploration of the extent to which the preservation of public health at the expense of individual liberties is justifiable, especially in a political configuration where the population is susceptible to authoritarian rule. Similarly, St. Lucian human rights advocate Felicia Dujon cautioned the government of St. Lucia against impeding the fundamental rights of the St. Lucian people. While she supported measures to contain COVID-19, she argued that the Bill proposed was punitive. She stated, “one would understand the need to take every precaution during this global pandemic, however, the intention has shown that citizens will be treated as common criminals” (Gaillard 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic, therefore, represents a clear episodic moment when the historical authoritarian traditions clashed against the emerging demands for individual freedom and protection of minority rights which were emerging in the Caribbean in the early twenty-first century. An examination of the politics of COVID-19 management in Barbados will offer further insights into the new direction in Caribbean democracy and the unfolding of the tensions between authoritarianism and individual liberty aspirations.

The Politics of COVID-19 Management in Barbados When the actual politics of COVID-19 management in Barbados is examined, the picture which emerges is that of a government ideologically opposed to mandatory vaccination but beleaguered by the demands from private sector interests into enforcing mandatory vaccination in the face of economic loss. For example, under pressure from the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA), which had been insisting that the Mia Mottley administration “immediately introduce mandatory COVID-19 vaccination for all employees across the industry or witness the collapse of a sector that brings in 40 per cent of the island’s precious foreign exchange” (Emmanuel Joseph 2021a), the prime minister felt obligated to issue a public statement expressing commitment to principles of individual liberty. A report from the Barbados Government Information Service, outlining the position of the prime minister, is worth quoting at length since it reveals the many tensions which she was seeking to navigate:

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I personally do not like the notion of mandatory vaccines; I don’t. And we had said that we would work as hard as possible to get as many Barbadians… sensitised and I said that I would be the chief one out there trying to do[so], even though I’m not supporting mandatory vaccines…. We are reaching a point where we have to sit with the private sector, public sector and the labour movement to determine how best to use the combined approach of vaccinations and testing to ensure that those who have been vaccinated are not unfortunately restricted or removed from being able to pursue their living, and at the same time, those who are not vaccinated are not excluded from participation in a society across an island that is only 166 square miles. (Gill 2021)

Framing the issue in the context of the need to unite the country, Mottley warned that “divisions would not end with the COVID-19 pandemic, but would endure for generations”. In contrast to the demands for mandatory vaccination, Mottley insisted that her preferred approach would be based on an appeal to the cultural capital of historic civic mindedness of the Barbadian public. In this regard, the main role of the state would be to make vaccines and testing widely available to the public, and then rely on the collective civic mindedness and rational choice of the public as key determinants of the policy: Go and look at the dashboard and you will see over 130,000 Barbadians have already had a dose. So against that backdrop the conversation about mandatory, with the kind of acid and division that has taken place in other countries, is not relevant in our own country, and that’s why I say I am so proud, believe you me, to lead a country where the level of social capital and trust is such that we can have the conversations, and people can respond in their best interests. (Gill 2021)

Claiming to be on the side of individual liberty, choice, and responsibility, Mottley insisted that: I’m always going to protect people’s rights and freedoms, but at the same time I am going to profess that where there is responsibility you have to stand up to the responsibility, and the reality is that the responsibility for you not to infect somebody else is as strong as our responsibility not to put something in your body and once we understand that then we can move this country forward, particularly given the fact that this has been a very, very difficult time over the past 20 months. (Loop News Trinidad 2021)

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These declarations, however, cannot be described as a “settled” position, nor indeed as the government’s ideal. The confluence of events suggests that Mottley was speaking not out of any privileging of individual freedom over elite economic interests, but as a response to pressures from the political environment. Significantly, her reference to the “acid and division” of other countries was an acknowledgement of a major moment of civil disobedience in neighbouring St. Vincent and the Grenadines on August 5, 2021, which resulted in a severe head injury to Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, who was hit by a projectile as he attempted to walk through the crowd of protestors to enter the precincts of parliament to formally complete the legislative process of instituting the mandatory vaccination laws for frontline workers in the public service (BBC August 6, 2021). These Vincentian protests had roughly coincided with similar actions in Barbados following signals that the Barbados private sector had been forcefully pushing the government towards a policy of mandatory vaccinations. On Friday, October 8, 2021, the BHTA held a press conference in which they openly declared their growing impatience with the government’s hesitancy on vaccine mandates. Arguing that “unless immediate action is taken, there will be a collapse of the tourism sector that employs directly 16,000 persons and many thousands more in supporting services,” the BHTA urged the government to support its call that “all employees within the sector be required to take a COVID-19 vaccine by December 1”, since this “would ensure that the country was ready and well-equipped for the official start of the 2021 winter tourist season” (E. Joseph 2021a). Using strong language, the BHTA claimed that the delayed response by the government to the concerns of tourism interests “reeks of a dismissive attitude towards an industry that is a “significant contributor to the economic and social fabric of the island”. The hoteliers insisted that the existing policy response of the government had failed to significantly increase the number of persons taking vaccines,” and that their “accommodation members are informing that they are experiencing increasing cancellations as a direct result of the low vaccination rate in Barbados and the tourism sector as well, due to the nine pm curfew and a number of other protocols, which are in place, largely for the protection of those persons who have not been vaccinated” (E. Joseph 2021a). In short, the hoteliers were insisting on more authoritarian responses as a remedy to their economic losses and were not hesitant in rejecting

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notions of individual freedom when their livelihoods appeared to be threatened. They claimed that a policy of mandatory vaccination was not alien to labour relations in the hotel sector since “The BHTA and the Barbados Workers’ Union have previously agreed that housekeeping employees whose jobs require handling of guests’ linens and cleaning of guests’ rooms and public areas shall be vaccinated against Hepatitis B virus and Tetanus as per the established medical protocols for this vaccination.” To settle their argument that claimed that “the COVID-19 disease is significantly more contagious and dangerous than the Hepatitis B virus” (Ibid.). While existing industrial agreements on certain occupation-specific vaccines did not equate to a policy of universally applied mandatory vaccinations, what was clear was the hostility of the hoteliers to the idea that individuals’ rights not to be injected should stand in the way of their profits. The views of the hotel sector were echoed by the head of the Private Sector Association, Ellis Clarke, who pushed the government towards more stringent measures, despite paying reluctant acquiescence to government’s no-mandate policy: I have agreed with the Prime Minister as the head of the Private Sector and she as the head of the Social Partnership that we would not mandate enforcement or encourage our people to enforce, but there is going to come a time when this country has to make a decision…because if we don’t achieve the targets that we have to achieve as a country, what is the next step? It is time that people understand the seriousness of the situation and the danger to society and themselves by not being vaccinated… If hard ears don’t hear, hard ears is going to feel. (Smith 2021)

Not only was the reference to being ‘hard ears’ paternalistic in the extreme since this was language typically reserved by parents for scolding disobedient children, but what angered the pubic was the private sector’s forthrightness in seeking to announce policy ahead of the government. However, not only did private sector interests attempt to lobby the government to implement mandatory vaccinations, but much to the displeasure of the trade union movement and other anti-mandate groupings, they began to unilaterally impose business-specific vaccination requirements on their employees. By August 2021, several firms, such as Flow, DIGICEL, Lionel C.  Hill Supermarket, Hill Milling Company, BGI Cargo, Rubis Service Stations, and Tides Restaurant, had imposed

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vaccination or testing mandates on their workers (Russell 2021). This practice got its crudest expression from Lionel C. Hill Supermarket, which issued a memo to its stiff advising that “no employee will be allowed to enter Lionel C Hill Supermarket to work without a vaccination certificate” and informed all non-compliant workers that they “may return on pay day for any monies due to you and your termination letters” (Henry 2021). Similarly, the telecommunications firm Flow, in announcing its policy, declared that, while the decision was not taken lightly, the company felt itself compelled to act out of a sense of “responsibility to our employees, our customers, and the communities we serve” (Brathwaite 2021). Another telecommunications provider, DIGICEL, also mandated that their staff be vaccinated by October 15, 2021, or “show proof of a negative PCR test every two weeks” (Henry 2021), on the basis that given the “the essential nature of the services the company provides, it takes the health of employees and customers seriously” (E. Joseph 2021b). These actions, and the apparent complicit silence of the government, led to a loud and unequivocal response by the country’s labour unions and other anti-mandate civic groupings. Among those was the aforementioned head of the Unity Workers’ Union, and opposition senator, Casswell Franklyn, who complained that despite its announced opposition to mandatory vaccination, the government had used none of its existing legal powers to respond to the business-specific vaccine mandates. Franklyn was insistent that according to “Section (6) of the Employment (Prevention of Discrimination) Act 2020-26, workers should not be tossed out of companies because they refuse to take the jab” and argued that workers could either take the matter to court or to “the Labour Department and then the Labour Department would then refer them to the Employment Rights Tribunal” (Henry 2021). He felt, however, that the workers’ cries for help were “going unanswered by the authorities”. He insisted that the government was: allowing employers to break the law and they are allowing them to get away with it because it would not be in their best political interest. The law states that an employer shall not require a person to answer questions in relation to or undergo a test for a medical condition as a precondition to enter a contract of employment or as a condition for the continuance of employment. But they are doing it and the Labour Department and the minister are not saying to the employers ‘you are breaking the law’. Then you would hear politicians pretend that they love workers and all of that stuff.

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Based on these developments, the government appeared to be adopting a “hands-off” approach of delay and inaction and was tacitly standing on the side of elite economic interests at the expense of individual democratic liberties. As part of this strategy, the government engaged the services of a leading Attorney-at-Law, Leslie Haynes, on 28 July 2021, to provide a legal opinion on the constitutionality of mandatory legislation. His task was to “provide an opinion within ten (10) days on certain COVID-19 related matters… to inform the Government’s policy position for the purpose of public consultations during the month of August 2021 as well as being a reference document for the Social Partnership with whom it will be shared” (Haynes 2021, 3). A key conclusion of the legal opinion was that “vaccine mandates for groups of persons operating in high-risk settings and essential services are more likely to be judicially upheld against a constitutional challenge than sweeping mandate or ones relating to lower-risk settings and settings in which services not typically characterised as essential are performed” (Haynes 2021, 44). On the other hand, Haynes cautioned that “regarding the imposition of a scheme limiting access to services except to vaccinated persons, careful consideration should be given to the extent to which the scheme serves the Government’s objectives and the extent to which individual’s rights are infringed” (Haynes 2021, 45). Whatever the result of the consultation, it had no perceptible impact on policy since the government remained reluctant to announce a policy on mandatory vaccinations. In addition to calling for a formal legal review with no follow-up as a means of acquiescing to the economic status quo, the government also adopted what Barbadians colloquially refer to as a “see me, but don’t see me” approach to the actions of the private sector. Arising out of its entrapment to the economic power of the private sector and its lack of commitment to its professed ideals of individual rational choice, the government insisted on getting ‘full’ information prior to acting. Thus, in response to calls from the anti-mandate lobby for protection from the government following vaccine mandates from DIGICEL and Rubis, the Minister of Labour, Colin Jordan, issued a statement, declaring that “you hear about those things, but in terms of an actual document that you can look into, investigate and then make a [decision] on…so I am asking my labour department to check on those two to see… if there is any official documentation out there that we can use to fathom out what is happening” (E.  Joseph 2021d). He assured the public that “once the

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documentation has been seen, the labour department would then have to speak with the employer before giving them directions on their actions or advising them to adhere to the Employment (Prevention of Discrimination) Act 2020 which, among other things, prohibits discrimination on the grounds of a person’s medical condition” (E. Joseph 2021b). These promises of action notwithstanding, a newspaper report indicated that Lionel C.  Hill’s chief executive officer who had rejected the Labour Department’s advice to withdraw his mandate memo was “unavailable to confirm whether his ultimatum given to two unvaccinated workers to submit vaccine certificates by payday had been complied with”. Further, while the minister had indicated that the “ball was now in the court of the affected workers of Hill Milling and Lionel C Hill Supermarket to take legal action against their employer if they so desire” (Ibid.), there is no evidence of any such action having been taken in Barbados. This acquiescence by non-action led many commentators to demand clarity on the government’s position. It also pushed the public to more open demonstrations against mandatory vaccination. In the view of one writer, while “many might not admire the draconian position taken by the prime ministers of St Vincent and the Grenadines and Antigua and Barbuda on the mandatory vaccine issue”, at the very least, these leaders were forthright “in telling their respective people that they are there to govern the country and that they are insisting on mandatory vaccination”. In comparison to Barbados, “they are not leaving it for speculation, doubt or on the private sector to lead the offensive charge nor are they concerned about fall-out or unpopularity or losing votes” (Gittens 2021). In short, the government’s strategy of ‘non-action’ on mandatory vaccinations while tacitly facilitating privately imposed restrictions was suggestive of a general ambivalence to the principles of individual freedom which it professed, and which, it is being argued here, has generally been an underdeveloped feature of Caribbean democracy. In contrast, it was in the interventions of the anti-mandate movement that uncompromising assertions of principles of individual liberty can be identified as emerging as a counter to elite economic interests and political authoritarianism. From the outset, the anti-mandatory vaccination movement was based on historical suspicion that government-imposed mandates were being contemplated, less out of public health considerations than out of the need to satisfy the economic demands of traditional economic elites. Long before the first formally organised mass protest on August 7, 2021, a prominent attorney, Garth Patterson, had been

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anticipating that “there could be unrest over vaccine mandates” since the approaches adopted by “the private sector have collided with legislated employee protections and the tension between workplace safety and employee rights has created a perfect storm of strife, confusion, uncertainty and potentially industrial unrest in the workplace” (E. Joseph 2021b). When the protests emerged, however, they took the form not of industrial unrest in the workplace, but as civic protests in favour of the right not to have vaccines injected into their bodies, and their rights to employment as unvaccinated persons. Calling themselves the Barbados Concerned Citizens Against Mandated and Coerced Vaccination (BCCAMCV), the protest organisers described themselves as “taking a stance against… ‘vaccination intimidation’” (Graham 2021). The concerned citizens group comprised “various religious and spiritual organisations, grassroots community groups, activists, businesspeople and private individuals” (Graham 2021b); generally, sections of society which have championed specific lifestyle and cultural, religious-identity causes which place them in the vanguard of individual liberty, democratic struggles. Among the key participants in the group were Ibdul Rahman, a student minister of the Nation of Islam, Lumumba Batson and Emmanuel Beryllia associated with the Rastafari movement, and Winston Clarke, a practising Muslim. Significantly, the organisations associated with the Concerned Citizens’ Group had been recently involved in individual and cultural identity struggles around issues such as cannabis legalisation, the use of cannabis for religious purposes, secularisation of the curriculum, the right to home-schooling as a response to state-imposed religious values, the Black Lives Matter Movement, the dismantling of colonial-era statues and iconography, and the general secularisation of the state. Specifically, too, members of the Rastafari movement had historically championed the causes of anti-colonialism, anti-monarchism (republicanism), reparations and repatriation, long before these had become mainstream political demands. In addition, these groups have historically championed causes which have challenged elite economic interests. Thus, immediately after achieving a partial victory on cannabis legalisation, the Rastafari movement was instantly opposed to the fact that such legalisation had been delivered in such a manner as to allow external and internal economic investors to reap the rewards of the cannabis industry, while continuing to limit the Rastafari community from its use, a development which one spokesperson described as ‘cannabis colonisation’ (Graham 2021). Essentially, therefore, the

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Concerned Citizens should not be narrowly categorised as mere “anti-­ vaxxers,” but, instead, their actions should be viewed as related to broader demands for individual freedom and liberty and general resistance to state capture by elite economic interests. While the key demand of the Concerned Citizens march was that “we ain’t taking no vaccine” and that people should “stand up for their rights” (Clarke 2022), the main issue driving the demonstrators was the private sectors’ insistence on vaccine mandates, the jab or job threat, and the fact that the private sector had assumed for itself a policy-making role ahead of the government, and for their singular focus on profit-making in the midst of a public health crisis. Their ire against the private sector was seen more clearly in a later demonstration organised by Winston Clarke in the vicinity of Lionel C. Hill, the supermarket that had advanced the most uncompromising ‘vaccinate or vacate’ ultimatum to date. In announcing the protest for the 8th and 9th October 2021, Clarke went further and called for a wider consumer boycott of all business houses which had imposed the vaccine ultimatums. Clarke’s call was to “all Barbadians, those who care for their fellow Barbadians; those who care about their wellbeing and their right to be able to enjoy life, who like themselves, to desist from doing any business with Hill Milling or Hill Supermarket”, and “to boycott them continuously; them and their products”. He also warned “other businesses that mandate workers to take the injection” that they would be targeted “as the weeks go on, on a daily basis and on a regular basis”. He wanted the companies to know that they cannot “bully and intimidate and force and threaten people with the loss of their livelihood and to put a roof over their heads and take care of their children and pay their bills, just for an injection” (E. Joseph 2021c). It is safe to argue, that among all the expressions of protest, it was to the threat of consumer boycotts that the business community felt themselves most compelled to respond. The business community insisted that their primary concern was not to “create a divide” but that “at the core of the matter is an attempt by businesses to keep their workers safe” (Ibid.). They pleaded that while they were “not seeking to harm but to heal”, it was “not in the interests of any business to do anything which would cause them to lose staff, money or customers” (Ibid.). They insisted that “no business benefits financially by pursuing measures along the lines of vaccination and testing; implementing those policies, they don’t benefit financially, but it is a pursuit to try to keep their workplaces and their

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workers as healthy as possible in the midst of a public health crisis” (Ibid.), and they urged the public to allow the Labour Department to continue “handling the ongoing controversy” of ultimatums. This suggests that when faced with the option of consumer boycotts or government intervention as a response to vaccine ultimatums, the Barbadian private sector was more comfortable with the latter. However, a clearer picture on the private sector’s prioritising of profit in their COVID-19 policy recommendations can be seen in their later insistent demand for a full reopening and removal of all restrictions when the global approaches to COVID-19 moved to a new stage in early 2022. As the UK—Barbados’s major tourism source market—began the process of phased openings and the removal of restrictions, the local economic elite aggressively pursued two contradictory demands: the first was for the government to remove travel curfews and other restrictions that would allow the tourism economy to return to normal, and the second was to insist on the vaccination of workers in order to provide assurances to customers. Ironically, this new stance for relaxation of restrictions and protocols was advanced as being conducive to principles of liberty and freedom. However, given their insistence on placing the public health largely on the shoulders of workers, any pretentions to democratic principles were negated by employment contracts or the employers’ interpretation of such contracts. These contradictory stances led a leading attorney in labour law and newspaper columnist, Michelle Russel, to ask: What’s the rush by Employers to implement mandatory vaccine or PCR testing when the safety protocols continue to provide a safe place of work for their employees? None of these employers have required their customers, suppliers or tourists to be vaccinated or produce negative PCR tests in order to enter their establishments so why is it required for their employees? If these employers feel that the safety protocols are sufficient to protect their staff from unvaccinated suppliers and customers then it is disingenuous to suggest that the safety protocols, which to date have helped most businesses not experience even one case of coronavirus, are somehow now insufficient. (Russell 2021)

Russell suggests that “if comments on the social media pages of our news houses are any indication… many are becoming reluctant to take the

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vaccine because of this apparent push to make them mandatory” and she cautions that “coercion is not the way” (Ibid.). While coercion might not have been the way, the historical evolution of the Caribbean as sites of coerced labour meant that under the economic pressures of the pandemic, these tendencies were exacerbated rather than attenuated. Despite their awareness of the growing demands supportive of principles of individual freedom, and despite the pushback against majoritarian cultural norms as indications of new directions in Caribbean democracy in the early twenty-first century, when the interests of the traditional economic elites appeared threatened by the pandemic, it was elite authoritarianism rather than individual freedom which emerged as the dominant tendency. It is now left to examine the lessons that can be gleaned from the politics of COVID-19 management in Barbados for the future directions of democratic development in the Caribbean.

Conclusion: COVID-19 and Future Directions in Caribbean Democratic Development In the early decades of the twenty-first century, expressions of democratic aspirations in the English-speaking Caribbean assumed new directions previously left underdeveloped. Located as they were within the struggle for national self-determination and independence from Britain, the earliest expressions of Caribbean democratic aspirations were constructed largely within Lockean terms of ‘government by the consent of the governed,’ both in terms of replacing unrepresentative British authority with local representative authority and in terms of electing governments that reflected the wishes of the majority of voters. However, since the turn of the century, previously dormant calls for rights to self-defined life choices free from majority-imposed norms, have become more frontal aspects of Caribbean democratic demands. These calls have become more consistent in 2021/22 in the context of formal, state-directed constitution-review processes during which sections of civil society have been demanding that the constitution be altered to reflect a more secular and sovereign posture and to become more inclusive of the cultural values of all sections of society. In this context, there have been demands for minority- rights and free expression around issues pertaining to cannabis decriminalisation, gay rights and sexual and gender

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equality, abortion-rights, indigenous rights, religious freedom, and issues related to the sovereignty of self and the body. It is in this environment that the responses to COVID-19 were immersed. The pandemic, therefore, in addition to its obvious public health implications, tested and undermined the development of Caribbean democratic struggle for individual rights and freedoms. However, whatever its direction, the question of the economic power of ruling elites has always been an unacknowledged factor in liberal democratic theory. This is particularly true of the interventions of John Stuart Mill, who was more insistent on reducing democracy to what he called self-regarding pursuits, that “affect myself alone” and should not be curtailed as long as they do not “cause harm to others.” Indeed, when compared to John Locke’s notion of government by the consent of the governed, or Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarian notion of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, Mill’s focus on the right to do as one pleases, as the hallmark of democracy, is far more accommodating of economic inequality and the economic power of the privileged. One of the key lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic for Caribbean democracy is its exposure of the artificial separation between demands for individual liberty and broader questions of economic equality and economic democratisation and participation. There are specific features of the COVID-19 pandemic which ‘generalise’ its impact on Caribbean states due to their internal political and economic features, their mode of incorporation into the global political economy, and the configurations of their democratic practice. The all-encompassing nature of the COVID-19 ‘public health’ crisis coupled with the authoritarian state policy responses have accentuated its negative implications for worker productivity and labour relations, economic production and wealth accumulation, class contestations over public policy, and the role of the state both as social protector and as guarantor of capitalist relations, as well as a conduit for accommodation to the demands of the global economy. These broad political-economy features, therefore, must be considered when studying the tensions over individual rights in the face of majoritarian cultural impositions in a European-influenced post-colonial state. This is also important since, in recent years, Caribbean democratic discourses have come under post-modernist influences which treat social struggles as sites of individualised aspirations divorced from broader structural realities linked to economic and political relations (Lindahl 2001). Thus, demands of the LGBTQ, women’s movement, religious freedom movements, and

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other ‘lifestyle’ movements have been advanced in isolation from the historical cultural realities of European elite control and domination of Caribbean economic, cultural, and political life. While the resistance to an unwanted injection can be seen as a struggle for liberty, there are several inter-related issues in the Caribbean context which expose the error of artificiality pursuing individual rights in isolation from broader questions of equality, economic democratisation, and the rights of a popularly elected government to make decisions free from external domination. Issues such as the link between mandatory vaccinations and the right to work, the role of the state in responding to economic interests as opposed to public health imperatives, as well as the dependence of the state on external policy pressures such as the travel lobby in Europe indicate clearly that larger issues are at stake than a mere “anti-vax” movement. It might be useful therefore to conclude this examination of the politics of COVID-19 management in Barbados by highlighting, a thus far, unexamined issue in this narrative. That is, how decisions were made, not based on public health concerns emanating from the Barbados environment, but on what kinds of decisions were being made in the main tourism source market, the United Kingdom. This was seen clearly when, in March/April 2022, the British government had removed all restrictions on external travel, the language of the private sector became even more increasingly in favour of the removal of all restrictions for visitors to Barbados. This accommodation to a policy of shadowing UK COVID-19 policy got explicit expression from tourism officials in Barbados particularly after an English Test cricket tour in January and March 2022, resulted in local public outcry over the fact that Barbadian health officials appeared helpless in enforcing mask mandates to the thousands of English tourists who showed no inclination of respecting local mask mandates in public places. In the eyes of many, just as with the imposition of mandates on workers, the rules appeared to be applied to locals only while exempting tourists. In light of this, the public interventions of the CEO of the BHTA, Rudy Grant, appeared to be calling on the government to formally adopt a policy of accommodation which was already tacitly in operation. Thus, on April 1, 2022, in calling for the easing of mask mandates and other protocols, Grant argued that “many of the countries that our tourists are coming from have already relaxed the protocols including removing mask mandates and visitors arriving here are accustomed to fewer restrictions” (Corbin 2022). Grant’s views were echoed in a more direct way by Renée

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Coppin, the chairperson of the BHTA, who after indicating that several Caribbean states had “removed testing requirements for fully vaccinated guests” and complaining that “the projection for the month of April was low and as summer approaches, average occupancy levels were hovering around 30 per cent,” argued that while “masks have an important role to play… there are contexts within which the mask mandate is difficult to police and, based on the science, may not necessarily be implemented in the way it is being done” (Maddon 2022). In conclusion, it is clear therefore that issues of individual liberty and freedom will remain important nodes of discourse as the Caribbean moves further into its post-colonial future and as previously un-addressed issues of self-definition, cultural assertion, and individual choice become more critical areas of political action. However, given the historical impact of structurally determined relations of power and ownership in a few, mostly European, hands, and given the historical dependence of Caribbean states on European tourism markets, it is misleading to expect that demands for individual freedom can be pursued in isolation from addressing historical and structural inequalities. It is these historical and cultural inequalities that became particularly problematised by the all-embracing features of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, any future democratic movements towards individual freedom and liberty are likely to be successful only if they take the form of broad-based coalitions, that confront, rather than ignore, the historical structural, economic, political social and cultural realities that have given birth to the modern Caribbean.

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Clarke, Sherrylin. 2022. Hoteliers Push for Easing Mask Mandates and Other Protocols. Starcom Network Breaking News (Online). https://starcomnetwork. net/blog/2022/04/01/hoteliers-­push-­for-­easing-­mask-­mandate-­and-­other­protocols/. Corbin, Vernado. 2022. Thousands March Against Vaccine Coercion. Nation News (Online), August 7. https://www.nationnews.com/2021/08/07/ thousands-­march-­vaccine-­coercion/. Danns, George K. 1982. Domination of Power in Guyana: A study of the Police in a Third World Context. New Brunswick: Transaction, Inc. Domínguez, Jorge. 1988. Democratic Politics in Latin America and the Caribbean. Maryland: John Hopkins Press. Domínguez, Jorge I. 1993. The Caribbean Question: Why Has Liberal Democracy (Surprisingly) Flourished? In Democracy in the Caribbean: Political, Economic and Social Perspectives, ed. Jorge Domínguez, Roberta Pastor, and DeLisle Worrell, 1–25. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Emmanuel, Patrick. 1978. Crown Colony Politics in Grenada, 197-1951. St. Michael: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies. Franklyn, Casswell. 2021. Unconstitutional Lockdowns. Barbados Today (Online), February. https://barbadostoday.bb/2021/02/19/btcolumn-­unconstitution al-­lockdown/. Gaillard, Sharefil. 2020. Covid Bill Infringes on Human Rights – Felicia Dujon. Loop News St. Lucia (Online), October 12. https://stlucia.loopnews.com/ content/covid-­bill-­infringes-­human-­rights-­felicia-­dujon. Gill, Joy-Ann. 2021. Prime Minister Not in Favour of Mandatory Vaccination. Barbados Government Information Service (Online), September 25. https:// gisbarbados.gov.bb/blog/pm-­not-­in-­favour-­of-­mandatory-­vaccination/. Gittens, Patrick. 2021. What Is Govt’s Real Position on Vaccine Mandate? Barbados Today, October 10. https://barbadostoday.bb/2021/10/10/ btspeakingout-­what-­is-­govts-­real-­position-­on-­vaccine-­mandate/. Graham, Kendy. 2021. Ras Simba Says Rastas Being Marginalised. The Daily Nation (Online), August 2. https://www.nationnews.com/2021/08/02/ ras-­simba-­says-­rastas-­marginalised/. ———. 2021b. Group Plans Walk for Saturday. The Daily Nation (Online), August 2. https://www.nationnews.com/2021/08/05/group-­plans-­walk-­ saturday/. Henry, Anesta. 2021. “No Mandatory Vaccination in Barbados PM Says”, in Barbados Today (Online). August 21, 2021. Downloaded on April 15th 2022. https://barbadostoday.bb/2021/08/21/no-­m andatory-­v accination-­i n­barbados-­pm-­says/. Haynes, Leslie. 2021. Opinion on Issues Related to COVID-19, Submitted to the Attorney General of Barbados on August 17. Bridgetown: Government of Barbados.

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Human Rights Watch. 2020. Human Rights Dimensions of Covid 19 Response, March 19. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/19/human-­rights­dimensions-­covid-­19-­response. Joseph, Tennyson. 2011. Decolonization in St. Lucia: Politics and Global Neo-­ liberalism 1945–2010. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press. Joseph, Emmanuel. 2021a. BHTA Calls for Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination for Tourism Workers. Barbados Today (Online), October 10. https:// barbadostoday.bb/2021/10/10/bhta-­c alls-­f or-­m andator y-­c ovid-­1 9­vaccination-­for-­tourism-­workers/. ———. 2021b. QC Cautions There Could Be ‘Unrest’ Over Vaccine Mandates. Barbados Today (Online), October 6. https://barbadostoday.bb/2021/10/ 06/qc-­cautions-­there-­could-­be-­unrest-­over-­vaccine-­mandates/. ———. 2021c. Business Community and Activist Divided on Workplace Vaccine Mandates. Barbados Today (Online), October 8. https://barbadostoday. bb/2021/10/08/business-­community-­and-­activist-­divided-­on-­workplace-­ vaccine-­mandates/íí. ———. 2021d. Ministry Has No Confirmation of Vaccine Mandates. Barbados Today (Online), October 5. https://barbadostoday.bb/2021/10/05/ ministry-­has-­no-­confirmation-­of-­vaccine-­mandates/. Lewis, W.  Arthur. 1977. Labour in the West Indies: The Birth of a Workers’ Movement. London: New Beacon Books. Lindahl, Folke. 2001. Caribbean Diversity and Ideological Conformism: The Crisis of Marxism in the English-speaking Caribbean. In New Caribbean Thought, ed. Brian Meeks and Folke Lindahl, 309–324. Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. Loop News Trinidad & Tobago. 2021. Explainer: Here’s Why Barbados’ PM Will Not Mandate COVID Vaccines. Loop News Trinidad & Tobago, October 14. https://tt.loopnews.com/content/explainer-­heres-­why-­barbados-­pm-­will-­ not-­mandate-­covid-­vaccines-­5. Maddon, Marlon. 2022. BHTA Wants Mask Mandate and Entry Protocols Reviewed. Barbados Today (Online), April 8. https://barbadostoday. bb/2022/04/08/bhta-­wants-­mask-­mandate-­and-­entry-­protocols-­reviewed/. Millette, James. 1971. The Genesis of Crown Colony Politics in Trinidad and Tobago 1783–1810. Trinidad: Moko Enterprises Ltd. Russell, Michelle. 2021. Let’s Get It Right. The Sunday Sun (Online), August 1. https://nationnews-­brb.newsmemory.com/?selDate=20220415&editionStar t=Nationnews. Smith, Kareem. 2021. Business Sector Says Government Will Soon Have to Take Decisive Action on Vaccinations. Barbados Today (Online), September 24. https://barbadostoday.bb/2021/09/24/business-­s ector-­s ays-­g ovt­will-­soon-­have-­to-­take-­decisive-­action-­on-­vaccinations.

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Thomas, Clive. 1984. The Rise of the Authoritarian State in Peripheral Societies. New York: Monthly Review Press. United Kingdom Government. 1945. West India Royal Commission Report (Cmnd. 6607) (Chairman, Lord Moyne). London: UK Parliamentary Papers.

CHAPTER 6

COVID-19 Pandemic: Mainstreaming Risk Assessment and Management Wayne Charles-Soverall and Ken Hackshaw

Introduction In 2006, the Global Risks Report sounded the alarm on pandemics and other health-related risks (World Economic Forum 2021). A year later, the report presented a pandemic scenario that illustrated the amplifying role of “infodemics” in exacerbating the core risk. In 2020, the risk of a global pandemic became reality as governments, businesses, and societies surveyed the unprecedented damage inflicted since then (World Economic Forum 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic was the largest single shock experienced by most countries since World War II (OECD 2021). It exposed the underlying risks and consequences of economic disparities, social fragmentation, environmental degradation, human poverty, and the digital divide.

W. Charles-Soverall (*) The Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business and Management, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Bridgetown, Barbados K. Hackshaw Caribbean Risk Management Academy (CRMA), Plantation, FL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Roberts et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30889-5_6

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The capability of governments was severely tested as they struggled to implement policies and operational responses of unprecedented scale, speed, and scope to contain the pandemic (World Economic Forum 2021). Governments must balance between managing the pandemic and economic contraction, while at the same time creating new opportunities that are fundamental to social cohesion. For businesses, the economic, technological, and reputational pressures of the moment risked a disorderly meltdown that created a large cohort of unemployed workers and companies that went out of business. Societies risked fragmentation through emerging risks to human health, rising unemployment, and widening disparities. Crisis management is a core government competence; however, crises prompt unexpected paths (World Economic Forum 2022). One of the biggest lessons of the crisis is that the pandemic underscored how critical public trust and transparency are to maintaining public health amid drastic restrictions of freedom of movement in order for people to understand and comply with emergency measures in extraordinary times (OECD 2021). Evidence emerging from the global pandemic suggested that many governments operated with lower standards of consultation, transparency, oversight, or control in their processes. They introduced thousands of emergency regulations, often on a fast track, which damaged citizen perceptions of the competence, openness, transparency, and fairness of government. Evidence emerging from the crisis demonstrated that governments lacked the competence to effectively manage a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic (OECD 2021). In addition, the pandemic highlighted not only a lack of competence, but also a lack of preparedness of governments to manage scenarios filled with risks and uncertainties, and a lack of formal institutional mechanisms to improve response processes and implementation systems. In order to overcome some of these policy challenges, four major areas need to be improved: tackling misinformation, enhancing representation and participation in a fair and transparent manner, more robust and modern risk and crisis management protocols, and strengthening public governance to tackle global challenges while harnessing the potential of new technologies. To this end, it is critical that governments proactively strengthen their resilience to future risks. In addition, they must also seek to have public governance systems implemented to devise and implement policies that strengthen societies’ resilience during COVID-19, intra-COVID (our

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present state), and post-COVID environment. Moreover, they must safeguard citizens, build and maintain public trust, and support the healthy functioning of democratic systems which are key to societies’ capacity to absorb shocks (OCED 2021). In this context, resilience is defined as “the capacity of systems to absorb a disturbance, recover from disruptions and adapt to changing conditions while retaining essentially the same function as prior to the disruptive shock” (OECD 2019). We will, however, have to add another element to this definition: resilience speaks to “bouncing back” or, as the definition states, “while retaining the same function prior to the disruptive shock.” We submit that governments must “bounce forward” during this period. For going back—“prior”—may mean redeploying failed policies and processes that were ineffective in addressing the COVID-19 crisis. The status quo cannot continue. Normalisation of deviance must be expelled, for the environment we now all live in is much more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA), a term coined by the US military. This chapter examines how governments, including the OECD, but more particularly, those in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), coped with the risks and real-life stress associated with COVID-19, from multiple disciplinary perspectives; identifies key lessons about how they can improve their public policymaking, regulation, and communication to meet the needs of the ongoing crisis; and highlights strategies to improve their resilience to mitigate future threats.

Methodology This chapter uses a qualitative methodology, as it seeks to understand the nature and meanings of the phenomenon of the COVID-19 crisis, including its associated risks, with the tools of the social sciences—sociological risk theory—as well as with those of other multidisciplinary perspectives. The author used secondary sources primarily, including articles from international journals, reports from international organisations and institutions, and articles from local newspapers. The international reports included The Global Risks Report 2022 (World Economic Forum 2022), Global Risks Report 2021 (WEF 2021), Government at a Glance (OECD 2021), Latin America and Caribbean’s Winding Road to Recovery (IMF blog 2021), COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean: An overview of government responses to the crisis (OECD 2020), and COVID-19 Pandemic in the Caribbean (CDB 2020).

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The international articles included Visualized: A global risk assessment of 2022 and beyond (World Economic Forum 2022); COVID-19: Global Risk Communication and Community Engagement Strategy (IFRC, UNICEF, WHO 2020-21); Pandemics, global risks and adaptation: Challenges for a changing world (Research in Globalization 2 2020); and COVID-19 as a Global Risk: Confronting the Ambivalences of a Socionatural Threat (Societies 2020). These secondary sources allowed for multiple facets of the phenomenon to be revealed and understood based on the responses of Caribbean governments to the COVID-19 pandemic as the unit of analysis. Although the chapter does not involve an empirical effort, it benefits from the work of empirical economic and social scientists who undertook multidisciplinary research studies that informed the international articles and reports cited earlier. In what follows, we will further discuss the facets of outcomes within the context of the public policy and risk management boundaries based on the policy responses implemented by Caribbean governments. To this end, Section 1 seeks to clarify the meaning and nature of public policy as well as to discuss some of the key responses to government crises. Section 2 examines some of the critical factors that underpinned OECD government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the policy implications. Section 3 examines the major factors that impacted Caribbean governments’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and their associated policy implications. Section 4 examines the extent to which the concept of enterprise risk management is understood and integrated with the broader public policy issues associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Section 5 identifies the critical lessons learned from the COVID-19 experience in order to prepare governments and policymakers to be fit for the future. We finally review the experiences within the context of the new realities that emerged and will continue to impact governments’ public policy as they strive to be resilient during the recovery period as they seek to establish innovative pathways to sustainable development. In addition, we seek to look into the future based on our determination of how best to strengthen and prioritise public governance arrangements in order to proactively respond to future crises.

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Public Policy The study of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated risk management issues is placed squarely within the wider context of public policy. This is an important point of departure because public policy can be defined as what governments choose to do or not to do (Dye 1984). The overarching issue is risk management; therefore, this study uses the definition of global risk as events that cause significant negative impacts to governments, businesses, and societies over a ten-year period (World Economic Forum 2020). This reality has significant implications for public policy, and therefore, subsequent discussions of public policy will generally focus on governments’ responses to crises that they faced. In this regard, such discussions include approaches that emphasise public institutions, group networks, socioeconomic factors, rational choice theories, the product of ideas, the best course of action, and/or deliberate inaction. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were two intertwined factors that were fundamental to any attempt to achieve effective management of the pandemic: first, the readiness of governments, through their public sector organisations (PSOs), to adjust and modify response strategies according to changing circumstances; and second, the ability of governments to maintain societal trust through principled decisions and effective communication. Most governments failed on these two measures to live up to expectations because there were wide gaps in crisis preparedness and response strategies. The gaps in crisis preparedness and response strategies included the actions and behaviours of policymakers and specific stakeholders. In other words, few countries had the structured capacity to gather scientific data required for robust analysis to support rapid policy decision-making that was frequently distributed across different public agencies with conflicting agendas and a lack of policy coordination.

OECD Government Responses to COVID-19 In order to really understand the nature of the problems created by the gaps in crisis preparedness and policy response strategies, OECD governments undertook various research projects and surveys—Government at a Glance 2021, and the Global Risks Perception Survey 2021-2022. These research initiatives shed light on the policy challenges faced by OECD countries during the COVID-19 pandemic and the types of strategic policy responses that they enacted. As the world reflects on how governments

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managed the pandemic, the OECD research outcomes provide an opportunity to reflect and gain insights into the resilience of different countries as they often struggled to cope with competing demands. In 2020, OECD governments took unprecedented action to help their citizens and economies to absorb the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 crisis (OECD 2021). In this context, it was evident that without measures to slow its transmission, the spread of the pandemic would quickly outstrip governments’ ability to provide healthcare. Thus, in order to contain the spread of the virus, governments rapidly implemented “lockdowns” between February and April 2020, which involved unprecedented restrictions on civil liberties, as well as previously unthinkable disruptions to economic life, including bans on public events and gatherings, closures of schools and workplaces, and broad stay-at-home orders. During March and April 2020, almost all OECD countries set up income support schemes for workers whose places of employment were closed, as well as large-scale packages to support businesses, alongside additional public health measures that were slowly implemented (OECD 2021). In June 2020, these measures were followed by most OECD governments implementing contact tracing systems. Although there was some loosening of lockdown restrictions during the second and third quarters of 2020, many OECD countries increased their measures in the latter part of the year in response to rising infections. By mid-May 2021, lockdown measures were again declining as OECD governments were continuing to provide widespread economic support. Governments had to make fast policy decisions and deliver complex and novel policies and programmes, while maintaining control, transparency, and accountability mechanisms. In addition, all of these policy actions were taking place in an environment of disruption to normal government processes, especially the closure of government offices and the redesign of most aspects of government to enable working remotely. Furthermore, the results of the Global Risks Perception Survey 2021-2022 identified the top risks facing the world, according to 1000 surveyed experts and leaders across various disciplines, organisations, and geographies. It identified the following critical risks: social cohesion erosion, livelihood crises, mental health deterioration, debt crises, extreme weather and climate action failure, digital inequality, and geo-economic confrontations. In addition, there was a lack of proper governance of evidence in relation to quality of information, public authority, legitimacy, and transparency. These weaknesses eroded public trust in policymakers

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and governments across the world because they controlled not only the narrative but also the quantity of information released to the public who had legitimate questions about the nature of the policy advice and decision-­ making processes that undermined constitutional as well as fundamental human rights.

Caribbean Government Responses to COVID-19 The Caribbean was no different from the OECD countries in its battle to contain the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a consequence of continuous research on global risks associated with pandemics and weather events such as hurricanes and other natural disasters, the Global Risks Reports over the years have frequently discussed the risk of pandemics to health and livelihoods. For example, the 2020 edition highlighted how healthcare systems across the world were stretched, and also explored aspects of managing risk and building resilience to crises (World Economic Forum 2020). In general, the efforts of Caribbean governments fared much better than those of Latin America, which was declared by the WHO as the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, although measures to close public spaces and limit social gatherings included curfews and quarantines since March 2020, the number of confirmed deaths related to COVID-19 only started to decline by late August in most Latin American countries compared to fewer deaths in Caribbean countries. However, given the foregoing context, the evidence emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic indicated that Caribbean and Latin American governments as well as their OECD counterparts faced a number of policy challenges from the outset, namely, a crisis in global and national preparedness, weak institutional authority, a lack of appropriate laws and regulations to allow flexibility to respond adequately to the crisis, a lack of appropriate structures to facilitate policy responses and cross-government coordination, working in silos, weak data collection and sharing, weak policy analysis and decision-making, a lack of digital technology, inadequate risk financing, limited equipment and vaccines, weak stakeholder engagement in policymaking, and poor public communication. In the sections that follow, we therefore examine the governments’ response to some of these critical factors and the related policy implications for institutional behaviour.

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Institutional Authority From the outset, the World Health Organization (WHO) sought to maintain global oversight of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the evidence indicated that the advice of the WHO, which managed the global coordination of the health crisis, was challenged by its lack of independent investigative powers, lack of ability to sanction non-compliant member states, and nationalist behaviours in many countries which competed with the WHO (World Economic Forum 2021). In other words, the institutional authority of the WHO was not as impactful as intended because there were many unintended consequences as a result of its policy actions, particularly in relation to the curtailment of civil liberties, the perception of heavy-handed imposition of public authority, and the lack of transparency, which ultimately eroded public trust and undermined government legitimacy. In addition, most LAC governments reacted swiftly and pre-emptively to protect their citizens and contain the spread of COVID-19 and its impact on the economy and society (OECD 2020). However, while the rapid containment was laudable, other factors such as high levels of informality, lack of social protection, and limited healthcare infrastructure made an already bad situation much worse. Moreover, while it was highlighted that the response to risks like a pandemic requires global cooperation, information sharing, and policy coordination (OECD 2020), the reality on the ground was quite different because many government institutions and agencies worked in silos and failed to facilitate coordinated data collection and information sharing. It ultimately underscored the weak institutional authority of the various public institutions that operated in the public health and public policy environment.

Data Collection and Sharing In order to provide effective public policy analysis and evidence-based decision-making, governments in the Caribbean and Latin America required adequate data collection and information-sharing mechanisms to deal with the huge amounts of data related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which had to be effectively processed and accurately interpreted. However, the evidence indicated that early response efforts were significantly hampered by the lack of robust data collection and sharing systems to facilitate large-scale and real-time analysis of information such as testing and

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infection rates, fatality numbers, personal mobility, and viral genome sequences (World Economic Forum 2021). In addition, the existence of huge information gaps limited the potential of different healthcare providers, teams, and professionals across the healthcare system to offer the type of seamless and integrated care that was required. Thus, although some systems were developed, they were too limited in number to deliver the desired outcome. Furthermore, collaboration between the private and public sectors did not work well because there was a heavy reliance on the government to provide the bulk of resources and investments in public healthcare systems. In addition, the traditional approach of most public sector organisations (PSOs) was to operate in silos, pursuing an independent line of decision-making rather than providing a coordinated policy approach which would have been much more effective. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was critical that primary care providers were up to date about what happened to their patients in hospital settings. For this to happen, however, healthcare records needed to be linked across the different databases of the healthcare system. Such record linkages would have enabled the information value of individual data sets to grow, thus permitting connections between healthcare provided and the outcomes of that care over time, and also permitting data within one data set to be linked to data from other sources. However, the evidence illustrated that even though most countries were broadly using electronic healthcare records, their healthcare data infrastructure was inadequate. This prevailing weakness limited the potential for data to follow patients across different levels of care, types of providers, and institutions. In addition, although the use of technology was increased significantly over time, again, it was too limited in its application and scope. For example, although mobile apps were developed by most Caribbean governments in order to keep track of quarantine measures across the region, particularly in relation to safe travel protocols, the potential for further application was limited. Moreover, these limitations and institutional weaknesses highlighted the overall lack of adequate digital technology, which, in turn, contributed to weak policy analysis and decision-making.

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Containment Measures Implemented by Caribbean Governments The WHO sent out an alert of a new virus outbreak in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, known as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on 31 December 2019. This alert helped to influence and shape the containment measures that were implemented by most countries across the globe. The initial measures implemented by Caribbean governments to contain the spread of COVID-19 included regular handwashing, strict social distancing, mask-wearing, closure of schools, restrictions on public gatherings and entertainment, travel restrictions, and restrictive policies such as mandatory lockdowns and curfews. When the virus first appeared, the predominant modes of transmission were initially unclear, but evidence emerged to suggest that the main mode of transmission was through respiratory droplets and that the use of facemasks was an effective way to prevent transmission. As part of the containment policies introduced in the first semester of 2020, severe restrictions on the movement of people were adopted and levels of population compliance were high. People’s engagement was also necessary for the adoption of other preventive behaviours, such as the use of facemasks. However, while lockdowns in Caribbean and Latin American countries halted the economy, they were not effective enough to contain the spread of the virus, nor to reduce the burden on healthcare systems that were on the verge of collapse. In Barbados, the government decided not to close its borders, while six other Caribbean nations, including Trinidad and Tobago, made the decision to enforce a travel ban on passengers coming from China in order to stem the tide of the COVID-19 pandemic (Daily Nation February 5, 2020). In most of the other Caribbean countries, from the north to the south, the lockdowns proved to be very disastrous for the various economies as they literally came to a halt, causing massive unemployment, economic hardship on their respective populations, and severe burdens on their healthcare systems.

Healthcare System Challenges The primary healthcare systems were placed under severe pressures by the global COVID-19 pandemic because they were the first line of defence in the battle to contain the virus. This became very clear as a result of the

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rapid development of COVID-19 into a global pandemic over the past two years which dramatically tested healthcare systems globally, and the Caribbean was no exception. However, in comparison to other countries, the healthcare systems in the Caribbean were more severely challenged than those in the OECD countries primarily because they had significantly lower capacity, lower health expenditure, fewer hospital beds and healthcare professionals per 1000 inhabitants, weaker disease surveillance and tracking systems, lower testing capacity, less vaccinations, and greater vaccine hesitancy (OECD 2020). In addition, their early response efforts in general were severely hampered by the lack of robust data-sharing systems, especially the application of technology to overcome this problem (World Economic Forum 2021). While in many countries efforts to contain the spread of the virus led to the implementation of bold and often extraordinary policies, several of these initiatives turned usual medical and social practice on its head. In fact, some of these policies and practices included government declarations of states of emergency, thereby instituting initial national quarantines in March 2020 and subsequent curfews which were then extended periodically until October 2020 and beyond. In Trinidad and Tobago, the Minister of Health castigated social behaviour that reflected “the worst of young people” in order to enforce compliance with COVID-19 regulations, with a view to curbing the spread of the virus (Trinidad Newsday September 2020). However, a High Court judge ruled that COVID-19 regulations—which made it a criminal offence if someone breached the guidelines for places of worship—were unlawful (Trinidad Newsday September 11, 2020). The ruling was made in response to constitutional claims by citizens who challenged the validity of the COVID-19 public health regulations. These were the first test cases of the COVID-19 regulations in Trinidad and Tobago. The government of Barbados was next on the list to be challenged in court. In March 2021, constitutional challenges were filed by citizens against the restrictions imposed by the government as a result of its COVID-19 regulations. The attorney general welcomed the court challenges and said that he was not fazed by the lawsuits against the government’s Emergency Management (Amendment) Act 2020, which provided the basis for COVID-19 directives (Daily Nation March 16, 2021). These cases were central to issues related to the fundamental constitutional rights, civil liberties, and employment rights of citizens enshrined in the

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various constitutions and labour laws of the Caribbean which citizens perceived as being significantly eroded because of COVID-19 regulations imposed under the pretext of Emergency Management Acts by respective governments across the region. In addition, the implementation of mandatory vaccinations for visitors, and public sector workers in particular, was a major issue of contention in many countries. For example, public servants in Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago, viewed this as an excessive imposition, especially when the employment of those who refused the vaccines was terminated. These policy actions incurred the wrath of the trade unions across the Caribbean because they viewed such actions as contrary to the intent and spirit of the law (The Barbados Advocate May 19, 2021; The Barbados Advocate July 15, 2021; The Barbados Advocate July 23, 2021; The Barbados Advocate July 31, 2021). The government of Barbados, however, was hesitant to implement this mandate due to the pushback experienced in other countries (Midweek Nation October 2021), particularly in St. Vincent and the Grenadines where the prime minister was physically attacked as a result of the policies which he implemented. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, policy commitments were made to broaden patient and public involvement and improve shared decision in health systems. However, the need to accelerate decisions and implement policies to contain the spread of COVID-19 and provide care for acute patients often came at the expense of patient voice and shared decision-­ making. As the response to the pandemic evolved, renewed appeals were made to increase public and patient involvement as a way to achieve increased public trust and confidence in healthcare systems’ responses, for facilitation of public compliance with containment measures, for identification of better treatments and new approaches to healthcare delivery, including those for vulnerable and underserved populations, and to overcome vaccine hesitancy. The pandemic also made clear the need to better institutionalise mechanisms to include patient voice in more rapid policy responses, as a way of ensuring quality of care, improving decisions, and managing the politics of expert advice in times of uncertainty. While mandates and recommendations did have an effect on the uptake of facemask usage, many other factors impacted the response across countries. Thus, although the evidence still confirmed that the use of facemasks was important to prevent infections, immunisation became the main policy tool to contain the pandemic as soon as vaccines became available in

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late 2020 and early 2021. As countries began to expand their vaccination programmes, ensuring that people understood and agreed with the new vaccines, it was critical to reach the high levels of population vaccination that were needed to achieve “herd immunity.” However, after the initial supply and logistical challenges were addressed, the persistence in vaccination hesitancy among a fraction of the population remained an obstacle to achieving universal immunisation.

Access to Vaccines The availability of vaccines was a critical issue for many developing countries because access was limited, and the manufacture of vaccines was centred in developed countries for the most part. In addition, the issue of vaccination hesitancy was a persistent factor that undermined the ability of governments across the globe to achieve universal immunisation or the so-called herd immunity. Most countries in the Caribbean and Latin America joined the WHO’s COVAX Facility in the hope of gaining rapid and fair access to the COVID-19 vaccine once it became available, including some local initiatives to produce it in the region, such as Chile, Colombia, Cuba, and Peru, where clinical trials were implemented with American, Russian, and Chinese companies. Across Caribbean countries in December 2020, when the majority of people had not yet been vaccinated, between 23% and 60% of the population indicated that they would not get a COVID-19 vaccine if it were made available to them. Moreover, as vaccination programmes expanded by late April 2021, the proportion of unvaccinated people who were unwilling to receive a vaccine grew in several countries. Even as the pandemic persisted into the second half of 2021, many Caribbean countries still struggled to convince a sizable minority of their citizens to be vaccinated, and a plateauing effect in vaccination coverage was observed. This vaccine hesitancy created a major roadblock in efforts to prevent the further spread of COVID-19, particularly given the onset of the more virulent Delta variant and the looming threat of further highly infectious variants such as Omicron. In November 2021, even countries where a majority of the eligible population had been vaccinated still had sizeable numbers of people susceptible to the disease. One measure taken by a number of Caribbean countries to discourage COVID-19 transmission and to incentivise vaccination was the introduction of COVID-19 ‘passes’ intended to restrict access to certain public venues to only people who

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fulfilled requirements, often related to vaccination, testing, or recovery from COVID-19. Despite their coercive nature and an arguable restriction of individual liberty, these measures received broad popular support, indicating a possible balance between incentives and coercion as a way forward through the pandemic. It appeared that misinformation played a major role in fuelling vaccine hesitancy, even before the COVID-19 pandemic. More recent studies also highlighted the association of misinformation on social media with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. They illustrated the challenges that countries faced in rapidly scaling up a population-wide vaccination campaign and underscored the importance of effective communication and co-­ production between healthcare systems and the broader population (OECD 2021). In this context, engaging people was critical not only to achieve better results in mitigation efforts, but also to ensure ongoing healthcare management. In addition to individual responsibility and adoption of preventive behaviours to contain the spread of COVID-19, another important aspect was the continuity of care for chronic patients. Policies to promote patient safety have sometimes come at the expense of people-centred care, especially at the end of life. Many initial policy responses focused on containment in high-risk environments. Long-term care (LTC) facilities and hospitals put in place policies highly restricting patient and family choice. LTC and end-of-life care were particularly fraught with family members and loved ones in some cases prevented from seeing sick family members in hospital or long-term care facilities, and funerals banned or restricted in many areas. In successfully implementing policies to fight COVID-19 that infringed on regular behaviours and undercut civil liberties that people take for granted, the evidence indicated that other dimensions of people-centred care can become even more important. Given the foregoing observation, strongly institutionalising co-­ production and respectfulness, in particular, may be critical to ensuring that people trust and comply with these difficult decisions. Moreover, the evidence indicates that in situations where healthcare practitioners and patients have a voice, and where they are engaged in healthcare management and treated with respect, it may be easier to ensure buy-in when difficult policy measures must be implemented. In some cases, however, matters of trust may be beyond the control of healthcare systems and healthcare policymakers. In this context, public trust in government, including how the government responded to the social crisis engendered

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by the COVID-19 pandemic, coloured how people perceived the healthcare systems’ response as much as the actual response itself.

Enterprise Risk Management The issue of enterprise risk management (ERM) was not readily associated with the risks related to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Although several research studies examined the risks associated with climate change and other natural disaster scenarios, little attention was paid to the relationship between ERM and the pandemic or how an integrated risk management system could be applied to this public policy dilemma. The issue of enterprise risk management (ERM) has gained attention in the field of public sector management due to the dissemination of international integrated risk management frameworks. ERM can be defined as a structured process that allows for the proactive identification and evaluation of events and forces of change that impact an organisation and its strategy (Hackshaw, 2022). In addition, ERM is the integral, formal, and systemic use of risk management which has been adopted by various types of organisations, including the public sector. However, adoption of this risk process by Caribbean government agencies has been lacking. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, ERM and internal audit policies and processes can help to reduce the vulnerability of PSOs to risks while ensuring that governments are operating optimally to deliver programmes that benefit citizens and increase public trust in government (OECD 2020). Over the last decade, with an increased focus on international integrity standards on risk assessment and management, many countries adopted some of these policies, practices, and tools to identify and assess risks. In addition, mature internal control and risk management policies and procedures help governments to balance an enforcement-­ focused model with more preventive risk-based approaches (OECD 2020). However, in order to effectively implement risk management and internal audit policies, it is critical that all public officials understand their roles and responsibilities in identifying and managing integrity risks and, perhaps more importantly, the influential role of culture in incorporating foreign risk management models into local or regional contexts. To this end, three major risk conferences were held. First, the Caribbean Risk Management Academy (CRMA) held a conference in 2020 with the theme, Constructively Disrupting Caribbean Economies, and sub-themes including, Disaster Risk Management, Risk Governance, and Integrating

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Risk into Strategy. Second, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) convened a Caribbean Regional Risk Conference on April 6-7, 2022, that provided a forum for policymakers, senior technocrats, and other stakeholders to explore country risk management and risk governance strategies that could be applied to mitigate future risks. Third, the CRMA hosted its Caribbean Enterprise Risk Management Conference on July 16, 2022, with a theme: From Vulnerable to Resilient to Antifragile: The New Risk Frontier?

Integrated Risk Management System The COVID-19 pandemic is a particular kind of risk which risk theory does not adequately explain (Arias-Maldonado 2020). Thus, while national responses informed national decision-making and provided a perspective on how national short-term risk priorities compared with global risks and perspectives (World Economic Forum 2022), COVID-19 emerged as the first truly global illness which provided a new understanding of the vulnerability of the human species (Arias-Maldonado 2020). In this context, faced with a multitude of challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, Barbados and other Caribbean governments are being urged to urgently adopt an integrated risk management system (The Barbados Advocate April 8, 2022). In addition, the president of the Caribbean Development Bank, Dr. Gene Leon, said that initiatives are currently underway to develop “an integrated sovereign risk management blueprint that can be implemented into the national platform of the respective countries, as well as the terms of reference for the respective country risk coordinators” (CDB 2022). It is envisioned that this ecosystem will enable an integrated approach to effective risk management and lead to a more expedited path towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this context, the integrated risk management ecosystem would focus on four tools, namely, frameworks that would (1) categorise risks that are relevant to a country and identify the interconnected nature of those risks; (2) develop indicators reflecting the severity of each risk and evaluate the impact of planned measures to reduce those risks; (3) evaluate the availability of additional preparedness response and recovery measures that can be implemented and the likely impact of those measures; and (4) be a governance framework that ensures that the three previous tools involve

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all decision-makers, technocrats, and those affected by those risks in an integrated risk management process (CDB 2022). That said, and given Dr. Leon’s pronouncements, it is incumbent on the CDB and all stakeholders to avoid focusing their attention and resources solely on Disaster Risk Management, for enterprise risk management (ERM) encompasses much more. In order to buttress this new integrated approach, it was suggested that countries improve governance of internal risk assessment processes, elect national risk coordinators, and maintain adequate and appropriate risk tools to properly assess the operating environment to facilitate incorporating the mitigation of new and emerging risks (CDB 2022). Moreover, the Secretary-General of CARICOM, Dr. Carla Barnett, viewed “the operationalization of an integrated country risk management framework robust enough to strengthen social safety nets, and with the capacity to adapt to shocks” as “a key imperative for the Caribbean as the countries in the region seek a pathway to resilience and sustainable post-COVID recovery in preparation for the other crises that are sure to arise” (The Barbados Advocate April 5, 2022: 1).

Risk Financing Despite annual budget allocations for risk financing by international and regional health institutions such as the WHO and PAHO, many governments failed to include risk financing as a critical budget component because of the lack of integrated risk management systems. This major weakness was highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The evidence indicated that the WHO’s annual budget of US$2.4 billion was inadequate for the unprecedented scale of the economic fallout and development costs that resulted from the global pandemic. In addition, during the early stages of the pandemic, delivery of supplementary crisis funding proved to be too slow for the increasing demands placed on the system. In fact, international finance organisations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were much faster at mobilising the necessary financial arrangements to assist low- and middle-income developing countries in preparing healthcare services and supporting households during national lockdowns. These weaknesses illustrated the poor level of preparedness by many governments, although funding was available for these purposes. Moreover, it highlighted the prevailing mentality among many government institutions which preferred to operate as

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silos, even in the face of a national crisis that demanded collaboration and coordination among agencies which often had competing mandates and jurisdictions.

Fit for the Future: Lessons from COVID-19 The overwhelming evidence emerging from the analysis of government policy responses was that they were far more reactionary than anticipatory. This outcome reflected a certain degree of unpreparedness by governments across the globe as they grappled with the shifting vagaries of the pandemic, including political, social, economic, environmental, and technological challenges that were very difficult to resolve. As the magnitude of the socioeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic became clearer in the first months of 2020, it may have seemed consensual among policymakers that some of the guiding principles of healthcare systems would need to be placed on hold in the name of rapid containment of the spread of the virus. However, after nearly two years of an enduring pandemic and its continuing effects, it is clear that the principles of people-centredness remain a key approach to not only control the spread of infection, but more importantly, to achieve the best possible health outcomes. The responses to the COVID-19 pandemic offer a few lessons and recommendations that can make governments fit for the future by enhancing their overall capabilities and resilience. Some of the major lessons and recommendations include the following: 1. Enhancing risk processes, capabilities, and culture in order to avoid only learning how to prepare for the next pandemic, and thereby falling into the risk management trap of planning for the last crisis rather than anticipating the next. 2. Recognising the urgent need for policy change and improvements in public policymaking processes and public health operational procedures, including integrated risk management strategies. 3. Ensuring that crisis management and health systems are adequately updated in terms of their preparedness to respond to any extreme event or future pandemic. 4. Ensuring that international and national preparedness mechanisms are effectively coordinated to enable better collaboration.

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5. Implementing analytical frameworks that take an integrated and systems-­based view of risk assessments and risk financing. 6. Investing in risk champions to encourage national leadership and international cooperation. 7. Improving risk communications and combating misinformation. 8. Exploring new forms of public-private partnerships to enhance risk preparedness. 9. Enhancing institutional authority, healthcare capacity building, and data collection and information sharing. 10. Investing in vaccine manufacturing and related equipment. 11. Reducing dependence on government for importation of medicines, vaccines, and other key health products by investing more in public health, both financial and human capital, to ensure universal health and improve the resilience of public health systems. 12. Understanding the relationship between decision-making, public communication, and lockdown management practices in order to provide better social services and protect civil liberties. 13. Developing and institutionalising a people-centred approach before the next health shock hits. 14. Integrating national responses in relation to governments’ financial assistance to the vulnerable. 15. Strengthening the development of public policy in health by creating the UWI and PAHO postgraduate diploma and certificate programme in Health Policy and Health Systems.

Conclusion As a result of the comprehensive analysis of many governments’ policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in reviewing the global context of the pandemic, there is greater clarity of what worked and what did not work well. In addition, we have outlined some of the major lessons and recommendations to improve public policy and practice. This was particularly important in view of the evidence that most countries failed to consider the policy actions and behaviours of all stakeholders and related consequences for a range of risk outcomes, from probable to improbable and manageable to severe (World Economic Forum 2022). The reality is that most countries struggled with aspects of crisis management during the global pandemic. This was highlighted by the evidence which indicated that international and national preparedness

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mechanisms were inadequate for the task at hand, especially in four key areas of response to COVID-19: institutional authority, risk financing, information collection and sharing, and equipment and vaccines. National responses reflected divergent approaches to government decision-making, public communication, healthcare system capabilities, lockdown management practices, and financial assistance to the vulnerable. While government policymakers and healthcare professionals made concerted policy decisions and developed more people-centred policies as the pandemic evolved, the experience of the pandemic has shown that a people-centred approach would work far better when it is institutionalised before a health shock hits. The most critical lesson to emerge from this crisis is that if decision-­ makers only learn how to prepare for the next pandemic, rather than enhancing risk processes, capabilities, and culture, then the world will have fallen into the risk management trap of planning for the last crisis rather than anticipating the next (World Economic Forum 2021). In short, the realities that emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic prompted governments across the globe to recognise the urgent need for policy change and improvements in public policymaking processes and public health operational procedures, including integrated risk management strategies, to effectively manage future global risks such as pandemics, epidemics, and natural catastrophes. Given the emerging evidence from the OECD, Caribbean, and Latin America, the major policy initiative going forward is to ensure that health systems are adequately updated in terms of their preparedness to respond to any extreme weather events, influenza, or future pandemic (BAMP 2022; PAHO 2022). This is absolutely necessary because countries in the region reported a 10.4 % increase in cases of COVID-19, a 14% increase in COVID-19-related deaths (PAHO 2022), increased cases of non-­ communicable diseases (NCDs) directly related to COVID-19, more people suffering from mental illness, delayed surgeries, reduced preventative care, and interrupted maternal and child health services (BAMP 2022; The UWI 2021; WHO 2022). In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed that the health infrastructures across the region were severely strained and under-resourced from the beginning and struggled to cope over the two-year period. Moreover, the region has to reduce its dependence on imports for medicines, vaccines, and other key health products by investing more in public health, both financial and human capital, to ensure universal health

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and improve the resilience of systems against future health threats. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown the need to strengthen the development of public policy in health. To this end, the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) have joined forces to create a postgraduate diploma and certificate programme in Health Policy and Health Systems beginning in September 2022, to train persons who seek expertise in creating health policy and organising health systems. It is envisaged that this programme would be the best way to have an accredited, academic course that would empower healthcare professionals in the Caribbean. As time progresses, many of the COVID-19 protocols have been relaxed and/or removed by several countries in the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, and the OECD, as they strive to grow their economies and boost employment through greater investments in healthcare and tourism initiatives. However, the risks associated with these new policy actions cannot be overlooked as some public health officials warned of unforeseen dangers that may result from the removal of COVID-19 protocols.

References Arias-Maldonado, Manuel. 2020. COVID-19 as a Global Risk: Confronting the Ambivalences of a Socionatural Threat. Spain: University of Malaga, Department of Political Science. CDB. 2020. COVID-19 Pandemic in the Caribbean. Barbados: CDB, Economics Department. Dye, Thomas. 1984. Understanding Public Policy. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. OECD. 2019. Government at a Glance 2019. OECD. ­­———. 2020. COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Overview of Government Responses to the Crisis. OECD. ———. 2021. Government at a Glance 2021. OECD. PAHO. 2022. “Look out for the long-term effects of COVID-19.” The Barbados Advocate, June 30: 4. The University of the West Indies. 2021. Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Perceived Stress and Eating Behaviours of Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students of the UWI, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados: A Cross-Sectional Study. June-July 2021. World Economic Forum. 2020. Global Risks Report 2020. ———. 2021. Global Risks Report 2021.

PART II

Navigating COVID-19: Economic Development Issues in the Caribbean

CHAPTER 7

COVID-19 and the Caribbean: Economic Perspectives Kari Grenade, Zanna Barnard, Jason Cotton, Donna Kaidou-Jeffrey, and Patricia Welsh

Introduction This chapter provides an assessment of the macroeconomic impact of COVID-19 on selected Caribbean countries and attendant policy implications. The objective of the chapter is to contribute to the new and emerging body of scholarly work on the impact of COVID-19 by reflecting on the Caribbean’s economic experience with the pandemic and sharing

K. Grenade (*) Ministry of Finance, St. George’s, Grenada Z. Barnard • P. Welsh Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, Basseterre, Saint Kitts and Nevis e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] J. Cotton • D. Kaidou-Jeffrey Caribbean Development Bank, St. Michael, Barbados e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Roberts et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30889-5_7

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lessons in relation to the design, implementation and impact of economic policies in response to crises. This chapter contends that the Caribbean’s economic pillars have been shaken by the unparalleled nature of the COVID-19 shock, requiring fundamental reinforcement to strengthen economic resilience to support a new development paradigm. The methodological approach involves both quantitative and qualitative methods, including (a) data analytics of key macroeconomic variables to examine and assess the impact on national income, economic activity (particularly in the services and productive sectors), public finances, labour markets, prices and international transactions; and (b) desk reviews and analyses of COVID-19-related economic policy/strategy documents, economic measures implemented, economic-related legislations and other relevant economic-related material. Data and information for the chapter are sourced from the official websites and publications of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and country authorities. The selected countries for the chapter are the member states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) plus the British Overseas Dependent Territories that are members of the CDB (Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands). Throughout the chapter, the country grouping is referred to as “the sample countries” or “the region” interchangeably. The remainder of the chapter is organised into five sections as follows: the following section examines the macroeconomic context prevailing at the onset of COVID-19, focusing on economic performance during the period 2000–2019; the next section reviews and assesses the macroeconomic impact of COVID-19  in the sample countries over the period 2019–2021; the next examines the economic measures and policies implemented by governments in the region to cushion the economic shock occasioned by COVID-19; the next one reflects on lessons from the Caribbean’s experience with COVID-19; and the last section discusses policy imperatives for a new economic paradigm for the region.

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The Macroeconomic Environment at the Onset of COVID-19 Table 7.1 presents stylised facts about the sample countries. Their relatively small physical and population sizes, as well as other inherent features, have important economic implications. Naturally, their production bases are narrow, concentrated in a handful of economic sectors, the most dominant being tourism, industry and agriculture. Consequently, their domestic markets are thin, making them highly dependent on external markets and trade for almost all of their consumption and investment. Their strong and necessary reliance on external markets exposes them to external economic shocks arising from the vagaries of international trade and global business cycles. Arthur (2000) laments that with a few exceptions, for the most part, the economic experiences of small states such as those covered in this chapter have been one of volatile economic growth, persistent poverty, fiscal instability, high unemployment, difficulties in meeting international payments and one economic crisis after another. Arthur (2000, 105) singled out volatility and vulnerability as two special attributes of small states that “set them apart from other species of societies.” Indeed, the sample countries are extremely vulnerable to economic, natural, and climatic shocks that typically affect their entire population, economy and society more severely, with the impacts persisting for much longer, unlike that of larger countries facing similar shocks. The World Bank (2021) rightly observed that whether and to what extent Caribbean small states are able to effectively and efficiently absorb exogenous shocks to lessen their negative macroeconomic impacts depends in large measure on prevailing institutional capacities, arrangements, and resources. However, their relatively small sizes translate into insufficient and constrained institutional capacity and resources, which literally means that they lurk from one external economic shock to another. Arthur (2000) was correct in asserting that the limited institutional capacities of small Caribbean states, as a consequence of their relative smallness, have important implications for their ability to attain the basic conditions for sustained growth and development. At the onset of COVID-19 in early 2020, the region’s macroeconomic context was already strained. The average real gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the region was a modest 2.3% over the period 2000–2019, with volatility in output as measured by the standard

389,486

287,021

30,033

64,948

71,808

10,010

430

22,810

151

240

750

340

196,850 782,775

27,560

Belize

British Virgin Islands Cayman Islands Dominica

Grenada

Guyana

Haiti

Agriculture

Tourism

Agriculture

Tourism

Tourism

Agriculture

Tourism

Tourism

Tourism Tourism

Dominant sector (2019)

11,293,079 Agriculture

112,002

390,351

14,869 97,115

91 440

Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda The Bahamas Barbados

Population (2019)

Land area (km2) (2019)

Country

Table 7.1  Country overview

Upper middle income Upper middle income Upper middle income Low income

High income

GDP growth volatility (%)

15,445

37,269

n.a 21,945

2990

13,052

16,868

12,922

n.a

1.7

2.8

2.7

1.7

1.3

1.1

3.5

0.6

1.0

2.7 2.6

2.7

2.4

4.7

3.8

3.2

2.7

3.1

2.6

2.3

9.0 5.8

2000–2019 (Average)

GDP per GDP capita growth (Constant, (%) PPP$)

Lower middle 6930 income High income n.a

High income

High income

High income High income

World Bank’s income classification (2019)a

11.5 3.5 (2019) 78.2 12.1 (2016) 83.1 15.4 (2019) 62.9 14.1 (2018) 26.3 n.a

34.8 10.1 (2019) 103.8 10.1 (2019) 86.3 6.5 (2019) 8.8 n.a

44.5 n.a 97.2 n.a

2000–2019

11

2

6

6

5

3

4

5

6

5 5

Public Unemployment Number debt rate (%) of (% of natural GDP) disastersb

19/3/20

11/3/20

16/3/20

22/3/20

12/3/20

26/3/20

23/3/20

17/3/20

15/3/20

26/3/20 13/3/20

Date of first reported COVID-­19 case

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Agriculture & Mining Industry

Tourism

163,820 581,363

1,394,969

38,194

High income

n.a

Upper middle 18,507 income High income 25,828

Upper middle 15,452 income Upper middle 12,507 income

5.3

2.9

3.1

2.1

1.7

3.3

2.2

0.7

4.7

5.4

3.2

2.8

2.9

4.1

4.0

1.5

35.6 6.9 (2019) 28.5 3.5 (2019) 2.2 7.0 (2019

52.6 21.5 (2018) 66.9 n.a

107.3 n.a

120.7 7.7 (2019) 4.2 n.a

7

6

8

6

5

5

3

10

23/3/20

12/3/20

13/3/20

11/3/20

13/3/20

25/3/20

18/3/20

10/3/20

Includes hurricanes, tropical storms, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, droughts

b

a

Based on gross national income (GNI) per capita

Note: n.a. means unavailable

Sources: CDB, ECCB, World Development Indicators; World Economic Outlook (WEO) Database; Official Websites of the Governments of Anguilla, British Virgin and Montserrat; United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (www.unocha.org)

Trinidad 5130 and Tobago Turks and 950 Caicos

Agriculture

Tourism

Upper middle 10,545 income Construction Upper middle n.a income Tourism High income 26,718

Tourism

110,593

390

182,795

620

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Suriname

52,834

260

St. Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia

4649

102

Montserrat

2,948,277

10,830

Jamaica

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deviation of real GDP growth, pronounced, averaging 3.7%. Fiscal deficits were persistent, averaging 2.9% of GDP, and public1 indebtedness grew more burdensome, averaging 66.1% of GDP over the 20-year period. The average unemployment rate was 10.7%, and the average inflation rate was 5.5%. Inflation was generally low and stable for all of the countries, with the exceptions of Haiti, Jamaica and Suriname. The external current account deficits were sustained throughout the sample period, averaging 4.4% of GDP. Moreover, the region collectively had faced approximately 108 climatic and/or natural shocks. Indeed, COVID-19 collided with weak macroeconomic fundamentals and exacerbated the region’s long-­ standing challenges. COVID-19 also collided with weak health traditionally low health expenditure. Public expenditure on health in the sample countries averaged a mere 5.0% during 2000–2019 (based on data from the World Bank).

Macroeconomic Impact of COVID-19 The COVID-19 pandemic led to a collapse of economic activity with unprecedented negative growth rates, rising unemployment, inflationary pressures, deterioration in public finances, surges in public debt, spike in remittance inflows and wider trade deficits. Regional economic activity contracted, with a sharp double-digit average decline of 11.0% in 2020 compared with the relatively slow growth rate of 2.4% in 2019 (Table 7.2). Tourism-dependent economies were most severely impacted by the crisis. Sharp contractions in tourist arrivals were recorded due to temporary border closures, lockdowns and strict social distancing protocols. The Caribbean region suffered disproportionately more with travel and tourism (TT) declining sharply by 58.0% in 2020, relative to 2019, above the world average TT contraction of 49.1% and highest among all regions of the world, including Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America (World Travel and Tourism Council [WTTC] 2021, 7). Within the region, tourism-­ dependent economies in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) and service producers (which includes tourism and financial services) declined by 15.7% and 14.3%, respectively, in 2020, both above the regional average contraction. Of the service producers, declines were particularly acute in Anguilla, Turks and Caicos, Antigua and Barbuda and Saint Lucia. Tourism’s contribution to GDP and employment in these 1

 Includes Central Government debt only.

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Table 7.2  Real GDP growth rate (percent)

Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda The Bahamas Barbados Belize British Virgin Islands Cayman Islands Dominica Grenada Guyana Haiti Jamaica Montserrat St. Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines Suriname Trinidad and Tobago Turks and Caicos Simple Average

2019

2020

2021

5.5 4.9 0.7 −1.3 1.8 1.5 3.8 5.5 0.7 5.4 −1.7 1.0 7.0 4.2 −0.1 0.4 1.1 −0.2 5.3 2.4

−29.9 −20.2 −14.5 −18.0 −14.0 −9.5 −6.8 −16.6 −13.8 43.5 −3.3 −10.0 −5.3 −14.2 −20.4 −5.3 −15.9 −7.4 −26.8 −11.0

11.1 5.3 2.0 3.3 8.5 4.5 1.2 6.5 5.7 20.4 −0.7 4.6 8.0 −3.9 7.0 0.7 0.7 −3.0 2.6 4.4

Sources: Central Statistical Offices, CDB, ECCB

countries is more than 40.0%. Meanwhile, other ancillary sectors such as wholesale and retail, transportation and storage and manufacturing were impacted. Although some regional economies reopened to travel in the second half of 2020, the recovery was stifled by new outbreaks of COVID-19 infections. The performance of commodity-dependent economies was mixed. Regional commodity-exporting economies grew on average by 1.6% in 2020, slightly lower than the 2.0% growth in 2019. Guyana’s economic performance accelerated to 43.5% in 2020 because of its first full year of commercial oil production. Economic activity in the other regional commodity exporters was mixed, with deeper contractions in Suriname (15.9%) and Belize (14.0%), relative to Trinidad and Tobago (7.4%). In Suriname, the economic contraction was particularly evident in the mining, manufacturing, transportation and distributive trade sectors. Meanwhile, Belize, although an exporter of crude petroleum, is still heavily dependent on the tourism industry, which contributes about 45.0% of

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GDP, 38.0% of employment and 42.8% of exports receipts. Consequently, Belize’s tourism activity collapsed significantly in 2020. In Trinidad and Tobago, reduced crude oil prices and lower energy demand negatively impacted the energy sector, but the pace of economic contraction was tempered by advances in the financial, insurance and real estate sectors. The pandemic slowed the economic recovery from recent natural hazards events and heightened the vulnerability to future shocks. Following two consecutive years of strong growth in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma in September 2017, the economies of Anguilla and Turks and Caicos were derailed by COVID-19. The Bahamian economy was originally projected to strengthen in 2020 following the passage of Hurricane Dorian in September 2019, but it contracted sharply by 14.5% in 2020. Haiti, while battling the effects of COVID-19, was struck by Tropical Cyclone Laura on September 8, 2020, which further weakened its economic performance. St. Vincent and the Grenadines also had volcanic eruptions—effusive eruptions from December 2020m and explosive eruptions in April 2021—which adversely affected economic activity. Notably, the region’s high susceptibility to natural hazards and climate change shocks coupled with macroeconomic shocks remains a constraint to sustained and accelerated growth and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The 2021 Commonwealth SDG Tracker identified that SDG progress for some CARICOM member countries decelerated significantly between 2020 and 2021, from an index score of 66.82 to 64.65. Regional economic activity showed signs of a nascent recovery in 2021, but is unlikely to recover to pre-COVID-19 levels before 2023. Average economic growth for the region was estimated at 3.0% in 2021. The growth was due in part to the reopening of economies, as the phased roll out of vaccines progressed and tourism activity resumed, particularly in the second half of the year. This growth, however, was uneven and led by commodity producers as commodity prices rebounded. Meanwhile, economic growth in some of the tourism-dependent economies slowed due to natural hazard events, which hampered domestic production. The pandemic triggered heightened concerns about the region’s food insecurity. The combined food import bill for the 14 CARICOM countries increased from US$2.1 billion in 2000, to US$4.8 billion in 2018, a trend, if continued, was expected to increase to between $8-$10 billion by 2020 (Ewing-Chow 2019, 1). Moreover, more than half of CARICOM countries import in excess of 80.0% of the food they consume, the

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exceptions being Belize, Guyana and Haiti that produce more than 50.0% of their food consumption. The importation of major agricultural commodities is dependent on a reliable international shipping infrastructure, and the significant disruption of regular transportation routes and logistics caused by the COVID-19 pandemic was a major cause of concern. Regional agricultural production improved slightly (0.4%) in 2020, from a decline of 2.4% in 2019. Most of this improvement in regional agricultural production was due to the government of Guyana’s thrust towards the development of the agriculture sector as a strategic imperative. Regarding unemployment, for the countries with available data, the average unemployment rate rose to 16.3% at the end of 2020, 5.2 percentage points higher than the average rate in 2019 (Table 7.3). The rise in unemployment was particularly acute in tourism-dependent economies, which were hardest hit by the pandemic. With a gradual reopening and easing of social distancing protocols in 2021, the average unemployment rate fell to 15.7% at the end of the year. The average inflation rate rose from 3.5% in 2020, to 5.8% in 2021 (Table 7.4). The increase was attributed in part to rising food and energy prices, emanating partly from the impact of global logistics and supply chain issues beginning in 2020, and an upward movement in oil prices and freighting costs. In the case of Suriname, the surge in average consumer prices by 58.6%, following a 34.9% increase in 2020, was attributed to further devaluation of the Suriname dollar. The pandemic’s impact on public finances was pervasive, particularly in 2020. General government expenditures rose, as measures were implemented to save lives and to stabilise economies. The sum of general government expenditure for the sample countries was estimated at US$25.2 billion in 2021, up from US$22.6 billion in 2019. An average annual rate of growth of 5.8% in public expenditure was estimated since the onset of COVID-19. The average of general government total expenditure (as a percentage of GDP) for the sample countries rose to 33.8% in 2021, from 31.1% in 2019. The sum of general government revenue was estimated to have declined by 10.1%, to US$19.3 billion in 2020, before stabilising to US$19.0 billion in 2021. As a percentage of GDP, the average general government revenue was steady from 2019, reaching 31.5% by 2021 (Table 7.5). Consequently, public debt rose sharply from an estimated average of 55.4% of GDP in 2019, to 72.0% in 2020. The public debt to GDP ratio rose more significantly in Barbados, Dominica, Belize, Saint Lucia and

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Table 7.3  Unemployment rate (percent)

The Bahamas Barbados Belize Cayman Islands Grenada Guyana Jamaica Saint Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines Suriname Simple Average

2019

2020

2021

10.1 10.7 9.0 3.5 15.1 11.9 7.7 15.6 18.6 8.8 11.1

25.6 24.7 13.7 7.6 18.5 15.8 8.4 17.1 20.3 11.1 16.3

21.5 18.6 10.6 n.a. 16.6 n.a. 7.1a n.a. n.a. 11.2 15.7

2020

2021

Sources: Central Statistics Offices, CDB Means at October 2021

a

Table 7.4  Average inflation rate (percent) 2019 Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda The Bahamas Barbados Belize British Virgin Islands Cayman Islands Dominica Grenada Guyana Haiti Jamaica Montserrat St. Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines Suriname Trinidad and Tobago Turks and Caicos Simple Average

0.8 1.4 2.5 4.1 0.2 1.4 6.0 1.5 0.6 2.1 17.3 3.9 −1.1 −0.3 0.5 0.9 4.4 1.0 2.2 2.6

Sources: Ministries of Finance, Central Banks and WEO

−0.5 1.1 0.0 2.9 0.1 0.7 1.0 −0.7 −0.7 0.7 22.9 5.2 −1.9 −0.6 −1.8 −0.6 34.9 0.6 4.0 3.5

1.8 1.4 3.0 2.5 3.1 2.6 2.1 1.5 2.5 3.2 16.2 5.7 1.5 −1.0 2.5 2.0 58.6 1.8 −0.1 5.8

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Table 7.5  General government revenue and expenditure

(In US$ billion) Sum of general government expenditure Sum of general government revenue (In percent of GDP) Average of general government expenditure Average of general government revenue Range for general government expenditure Range for general government revenue

2019

2020

2021

22.6 21.0

23.4 19.3

25.3 19.0

31.1 28.9 9.4–86.4 8.0–73.3

35.3 30.8 9.7–92.3 7.5–87.3

33.8 31.5 10.0–75.4 7.9–76.8

70.0

80.9

90.0

67.9

107.4

0.3 Turks and Caicos

Trinidad and Tobago

Suriname

Saint Lucia

St. Kitts and Nevis

Jamaica

2021

St. Vincent and the Grenadines

2020

5.9

21.3 2019

Haiti

Grenada

11.9 Dominica

11.4 Belize

Barbados

The Bahamas

Antigua and Barbuda

0.0

Anguilla

20.0

Cayman Islands

40.0

British Virgin Islands

60.0

Montserrat

72.9

75.2

80.0

65.6

100.0

98.6

120.0

51.4

140.0

109.1

123.3

160.0

Guyana

180.0

148.2

156.8

Sources: Ministries of Finance, Central Banks and WEO. Data exclude British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos

Fig. 7.1  Public debt (percent of GDP). (Sources: Ministries of Finance, Central Banks and WEO)

Suriname in 2020 (Fig. 7.1). By 2021, the average public debt was estimated at 70.8% of GDP. On average, contributions from migrants rose in 2020 in response to the elevation in unemployment during the height of the pandemic. Remittance inflows grew to an average of 6.6% of GDP, from an average

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Table 7.6  Remittance flows (percent of GDP)

Antigua and Barbuda Barbados Belize Dominica Grenada Guyana Haiti Jamaica St. Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Suriname St. Vincent and the Grenadines Turks and Caicos Trinidad and Tobago Simple Average

2019

2020

2021 (Estimate)

1.5 2.1 4.9 8.0 4.0 7.4 22.5 16.2 2.2 2.0 2.4 5.7 0.6 0.6 5.7

1.8 2.5 7.4 9.7 4.6 6.6 21.4 22.2 2.6 2.5 4.3 5.5 0.8 0.9 6.6

1.8 2.3 7.3 9.2 4.5 5.3 15.4 23.6 2.7 2.4 6.1 n.a. 0.7 0.8 5.9

Source: The Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD)

of 5.7% in 2019. Remittances moderated in 2021 as economic activity and employment levels began to recover in the majority of regional economies. Haiti and Jamaica account for the largest share of remittance inflows in the Caribbean, averaging over 20.0% of GDP (Table 7.6). Foreign direct investment (FDI) flows fell sharply, in some cases to a one-decade low in 2020. The decline in FDI reflected the wider global economic fallout due to the pandemic (Table 7.7). At the time of writing this chapter in February 2022, data for 2021 were unavailable. The average external current account deficit (Fig. 7.2) increased from 6.6% of GDP in 2019, to 9.5% of GDP in 2020. This reflected the fallout in most service-oriented economies and the decline in tourism.

Policy Responses Most governments responded quickly to the COVID-19 pandemic, with targeted fiscal and monetary policy actions. Regarding fiscal measures, governments provided significant income and payroll support, which came in several forms including fuel subsidies to bus drivers, utility (electricity and water) relief, expanded cash transfer programmes and food and care packages. In 2020, income support to households in the ECCU

7  COVID-19 AND THE CARIBBEAN: ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES 

Table 7.7 Foreign direct investment (percent of GDP) Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda The Bahamas Barbados Dominica Grenada Haiti Jamaica Montserrat St. Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines Turks and Caicos

137

Average 2010–2019

2020

18.3 7.4 11.7 7.4 4.3 9.6 1.8 4.2 5.4 12.1 5.6 14.8 2.5

8.6 1.6 7.8 6.0 5.1 13.9 0.3 2.6 0.4 5.4 1.0 9.4 2.9

Source: UNCTAD

2020

4.4

0.1

Trinidad and Tobago

Suriname

Saint Lucia

St. Kitts and Nevis

Montserrat

Jamaica

St. Vincent and the Grenadines

2019

Haiti

Guyana

Grenada

Dominica

Belize

Barbados

Bahamas

Antigua

15.0 11.7 8.6 7.5 10.0 3.9 0.9 5.0 0.0 -5.0 -0.6 -2.3-0.1 -2.1 -3.9 -3.1 -10.0 -5.6-7.9 -8.0 -8.6 -9.8 -9.6 -15.0 -10.0 -12.1 -14.3 -20.0 -16.6 -17.0 -18.0 -18.3 -22.5 -25.0 -26.6 -30.0 -28.3 -35.0 -32.8 -40.0

Fig. 7.2  External current account balance (percent of GDP). (Source: UNCTAD)

represented the second largest share of governments’ expenditure of approximately 37.1%, equivalent to US$55.8  million. Additional health sector spending (both recurrent and capital) accounted for the largest share, accounting for 44.0% of the total (US$66.4 million). In non-ECCU countries, current transfers and subsidies increased in several countries, reflecting the implementation of stimulus packages that

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sought to support households and the economy, beginning in 2020. The main policy responses focused on health spending, social protection, income and payroll support, tax exemptions and deferrals, and productive sector support. The average fiscal stimulus packages were approximately 3.0% and 3.6% of GDP for non-ECCU and ECCU countries, respectively, in 2020. Governments’ support to households included a combination of food and care packages, direct transfers (income support and cash transfers) and augmented existing welfare/social support programmes to protect the most vulnerable. New and/or expanded household programmes were implemented in Barbados, The Bahamas, Belize and Grenada. Without formal unemployment benefits in the majority of countries, except Barbados and The Bahamas, some governments had to step in to provide emergency temporary unemployment protection through the National Insurance Schemes (NIS)/Boards (NIB). For example, Grenada implemented an unfunded temporary unemployment benefit programmes over the period May 2020 to January 2021, benefitting 5 201 persons at a total cost of US$2.1 million. In Barbados, even with the unemployment scheme in place, the government provided liquidity support and capital to replenish the NIS due to the extreme demands that had been placed on it. The NIS in Barbados had processed over 50,000 applications for unemployment benefits as of March 2021. NIS unemployment and severance outlays in Barbados reached US$87.5  million (2.0% of GDP) in fiscal year 2020/21. The duration of these unemployment benefits varied from 3 to 6 months, but shorter in some cases such as Turks and Caicos, where an 8-week benefit was paid either as periodic payment or a lump sum. In The Bahamas, the Unemployment Assistance Programme (operated under the NIB) extended the unemployment benefits to include self-­ employed persons particularly from the tourism sector. Despite the payment of cash transfer of US$150 per week, a significant fraction of the informal workers who were indirectly linked to the tourism sector were excluded. Support to productive sectors also featured in the various stimulus packages. For businesses in the tourism sector, the assistance was layered with payroll support, loan support and grant funding. In the Cayman Islands, for example, businesses were supported with loan funding and more specifically grant funding for micro and small businesses. For tourism-­based businesses in the Cayman Islands, the support extended to

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re-hiring of employees and training. In Barbados, NIS contributions were deferred for up to 3 months for employers who retained 75.0% of their employees. The Barbados Tourism Fund Facility (US$100 million) provided loan resources for working capital and investment loans for hotels and tourism-related businesses. Governments of Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines provided support to the tourism industry and agricultural sectors to bolster resilience in tourism and to increase agricultural production to ensure greater food security. For ECCU countries, spending on the productive sectors accounted for 9.5% of the total COVID-19-related expenditure (US$14.3 million) in 2020. Additionally, the governments of Dominica and Grenada made funds available to their respective development banks for concessional on-­ lending to micro and small businesses to provide the necessary liquidity support in 2020. The governments of Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines also made funds available to promote youth micro enterprises. In 2021, the government of St. Kitts and Nevis granted a waiver on commercial rent for six months (July to December 2021) for small businesses that lease spaces from government-owned buildings. Additionally, there were reductions in corporate and income tax, value added tax and customs duty exemptions and waivers on selected medical supplies, hygiene items, cleaning supplies and food items. Tax exemptions and deferrals varied in 2020. In the Turks and Caicos Islands, a 50.0% reduction in stamp duties and planning fees and waiver of customs duties on construction materials over a 3-month period were expected to boost FDI.  In Jamaica and Guyana, customs duties were also waived on the importation of medical supplies, while in Guyana an extension was granted on the deadline for filing tax returns by 6 months. Grenada also implemented a 3-month deferral of advance payments of annual stamp tax and corporate income tax. At the ECCU level, revenue foregone from tax/ duty waivers was equivalent to US$10.6 million and US$12.7 million in 2020 and 2021, respectively. Regarding monetary policy responses, although the actions taken by monetary authorities varied, the general posture was to maintain an accommodative monetary policy until there were clear signs that economic activity was returning to pre-pandemic levels. This helped to support domestic economic activity and cushion inflationary pressures. In particular, the actions of regional central banks have helped to prevent a financial collapse that would have compounded the sharp decline in real sector activity.

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The primary policy responses by regional monetary authorities were to reduce the reserve requirement for deposit-taking institutions and trust companies and provide temporary regulatory forbearance. Central banks in Belize, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago reduced their cash reserve requirement for banks and other licensees. Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Barbados reduced the government securities requirement for banks and removed the securities requirement for deposit-taking finance and trust companies. Moratoria on loan payments were the most frequently used forbearance facility by central banks, commercial banks and other lenders. The time for the moratoria varied and ranged from 3 months to 1 year, whereby the shorter moratoria periods were extended in several instances. Central Banks also exercised forbearance by allowing licensees to not classify loans that were under moratoria as non-performing. Reduced discount rates on overnight lending to commercial banks were used in central banks in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. This helped to reduce the cost of liquidity to commercial banks and other licensed financial institutions. Enhanced commitment to liquidity support was available to licensed financial institutions in Jamaica and Barbados. The limits for overnight borrowing were removed, and a range of acceptable repo products was expanded in Jamaica, while the Central Bank of Barbados expressed its willingness to make collateralised loans to its licensees for up to six months. Exchange control measures, such as suspending the approval of foreign exchange outflows for portfolio investment in The Bahamas and reduced foreign exchange sales in the Bank of Jamaica, were also policy responses to combat the pandemic. In the ECCU, the ECCB temporarily reduced the rates on short-term and long-term credit to 2.0% and 3.5% from 6.5%, respectively. It also increased member governments’ allocation of the fiduciary issue to 75.0% from 60.0% and supported commercial banks’ COVID-19 Loan Moratoria programmes. Table 7.8 summarises the policy responses.

Reflections and Lessons The pandemic was still ongoing at the time of writing this chapter in February 2022—23 months following the first country in the sample to report its first case of COVID-19. Nonetheless, the impact of, and responses to, the pandemic in the Caribbean up until February 2022

Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda The Bahamas Barbados Belize British Virgin Islands Cayman Islands Dominica Grenada Guyana Haiti Jamaica Montserrat

x

x x x x x x

x

x x x

x x

x

x x x

x

x x x x x x

x

x

x

x

x x

x x

x x

x x x x x x

x

x x x

x

x x

x

x x x x x

x x

x

x x

x

x x

x x x x x x

x x

x

x x

Reduce Regulatory interest/ Forbearance Discount rate

Monetary responses

Foregone Household MSME Additional Productive Reduce revenue support support health sector reserve spending support requirement for licensees

Fiscal responses

Table 7.8  Summary of responses to COVID-19

x x

x x

x

x x

Enhanced commitment to liquidity support of licensees and/ or Government

(continued)

x

x

Exchange control measures

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141

x x

x x

x

x

x

x

x x

x x

x x

x

x

x

x

x x

x x

x x x

x

x x x

x x

x

Sources: IMF, Country Authorities, Central Bank of Barbados Financial Stability Report 2020 and authors

St. Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines Suriname Trinidad and Tobago Turks and Caicos Islands x

x x

x x

x

Reduce Regulatory interest/ Forbearance Discount rate

Monetary responses

Foregone Household MSME Additional Productive Reduce revenue support support health sector reserve spending support requirement for licensees

Fiscal responses

Table 7.8 (continued)

x x

x

Enhanced commitment to liquidity support of licensees and/ or Government

Exchange control measures

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evinces the following lessons that are useful for the region’s resilience-­ building and sustainable development planning. First, the criticality of prioritising health. The region was ill-prepared to deal with the pandemic, not only because of the novelty of the virus, but also because of acute weaknesses in the countries’ health systems, which were laid bare by COVID-19. Public expenditure on health in the sample countries averaged 5.0% during 2000–2019 (based on data from the World Bank), which suggests chronic underinvestment in health systems. Indeed, COVID-19 could become endemic; it is also possible that the region could face other pandemics in the future. The region’s health experience with COVID-19 has made clear the cruciality for fundamental improvements in pandemic preparedness and health systems, paying particular emphasis on strengthening primary healthcare systems, enhancing healthcare capacity, substantially upgrading healthcare infrastructure and bolstering the eco-system for collection and monitoring of health data for effective policy-making. According to Byron et al. (2021), some countries have already increased their health budgets as well as local production of medical supplies and equipment, which are welcomed developments. Second, the importance of having strong fiscal buffers. The variations in countries’ ability to respond to the pandemic reflected the differences in governments’ capacities to access domestic and external finance. Many of the countries were already facing strained public finances at the onset of the crisis, which restricted their ability to adequately cushion the adverse socio-economic impacts of COVID-19. In essence, the majority of the regional governments could not do whatever it took to deal with the fallout from the pandemic, but instead, did what they could afford, which, in many cases, was minimal. The unprecedented economic shock occasioned by COVID-19 reinforces the old lessons about the importance of sound public finance management (PFM) and evinces new ones about preparing PFM systems for emergency response challenges. Governments are advised to ensure that their PFM systems are equipped to meet the new requirements and challenges posed by COVID-19, especially to support the delivery of emergency health services and other public services that can come under strain during pandemics. Third, the essentiality of strong collaboration. COVID-19 exposed the fragility of humanity and has shown that no country on its own can overcome the pandemic. There is a collective recognition of the value of solidarity and cooperation within and between countries, especially in areas such as health, economics, education, social protection, food security,

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negotiations, trade, labour market issues, policy dialogue and advocacy. The cooperation between CARICOM, the Pan American Health Organization, the Caribbean Public Health Agency, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States and regional governments aptly illustrates the new kind of collective strength that is required to effectively deal with future pandemics and attendant economic and other challenges. Enhanced solidarity will be important going forward to help countries and governments leverage knowledge and experience as well as lobby development partners to better support recovery and resilience building.

Medium-term Policy Imperatives The interlocking challenges confronting the region require short-term actions to resuscitate economies as well as systemic actions to usher in a new development paradigm. Governments have been rightly focused on supporting the sectors most affected by COVID-19 to help spur economic activity and job creation in the short term; policy actions on this front, as described in this chapter, must continue and, in some instances, intensify. This section deals with policy imperatives to strengthen economic resilience and accelerate economic transformation over the medium term. This chapter contends that the Caribbean’s economic pillars have been shaken by the unparalleled nature of the COVID-19 shock, necessitating fundamental reinforcement to strengthen economic resilience to support a new development paradigm. Building economic resilience will require that the region embrace a new economic model that is values-based, people-­ centred and nature-positive to promote and safeguard human well-being above everything else. An economic model where values, people and nature are the overarching and undergirding tenets will be better able to support the sort of transformative shifts in economic policies, management, institutional arrangements and outcomes that will be required to build and sustain economic resilience and, by extension, sustainable development. Transformative shifts in policies and institutional arrangements are required that are ultimately geared at fostering and sustaining new modes of economic growth and pathways towards wealth creation and potential maximisation. Achieving those two aims will necessitate that deliberate policy actions are systematically taken to accelerate strategic diversification, expand value-added technology-imbued production, enhance exports sophistication and propel innovation and entrepreneurship. Such

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strategic actions must focus on addressing food and nutrition insecurity, strengthening sectoral linkages, improving trade logistics and digitising commerce. Indeed, the creation of new businesses, particularly digital ones, be they pandemic-induced or otherwise, will be important for diversification, value generation and economic transformation. Accelerating digital transformation and mainstreaming e-commerce are pressing priorities. Governments must scale up investments in high-speed broadband and fibre networks and digital literacy and develop appropriate legislative and regulatory frameworks. Easing and expanding access to finance business development will be needed for economic transformation, which will necessitate a stable, sound, modern, agile, innovative and appropriately regulated financial system. In the context of the tourism industry, a reshaping of the industry will be required, involving transformative shifts in policies, practices, financing and operational strategies as well as innovation and smart solutions to mainstream sustainability, optimise tourism’s value to regional economies and, importantly, build resilience of the industry. Transformative shifts in fiscal policies, management and practices will also be required to bolster economic resilience. Prior to COVID-19, Wright et  al. (2017) observed that a new fiscal-structural culture was needed in the region to build fiscal buffers and ultimately entrench fiscal discipline and protect debt sustainability. This has become even more crucial given the interlocking challenges that the region must address. Intentional actions will have to be taken to enhance the strategic orientation of national budgets to support better prioritisation and targeting of expenditures given competing priorities. Additionally, tax systems will have to be recalibrated, taking into account new modes of economic activities in the context of the twenty-first-century economy. Overall, PFM systems and institutions will have to be fundamentally overhauled to bolster fiscal and economic resilience to ultimately support sustainable development. Strengthening economic resilience and accelerating economic transformation of necessity will require regional policymakers and all stakeholders to redouble their efforts at synchronising economic growth and development with environmental sustainability. This calls for scaled-up investments to mainstream climate change adaptation and mitigation measures in all sectors. Governments must be intentional about investing in nature-­ positive and climate-resilient infrastructure and promoting and

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empowering an environmentally conscious citizenry. Regional collaboration and collective advocacy must also intensify to support a new development paradigm that is environmentally sustainable.

Conclusion The unparalleled nature of the COVID-19 pandemic placed an almost sudden stop on regional economic activity, leading to unparalleled hardships for Caribbean economies and citizens. This chapter examined the macroeconomic impact of COVID-19 and the extraordinary role that the fiscal and monetary authorities played in order to cushion the negative consequences of the unprecedented shock. The analysis highlighted three critical lessons, which are the need to prioritise health, the importance of having strong fiscal buffers and the imperative of fostering and strengthening solidarity and cooperation within and between countries, especially in areas such as health, education, social protection, food security, trade and labour market issues. The chapter discussed four policy imperatives to strengthen economic resilience and to accelerate economic transformation over the medium term, which are as follows: (a) build a new economic model that is values-­ based, people-centred and nature-positive to promote and safeguard human well-being above everything else; (b) foster and sustain new modes of economic growth, wealth creation and potential maximisation; (c) fast-­ track digital transformation, which would be demonstrated in the creation of new digital businesses and the acceleration of e-commerce; and (d) safeguard the vital productive sectors and optimise their value to better support resilience and sustainable development.

References Arthur, Owen. 2000. Small States in a Changing World: Globalisation, Regionalism, Culture and Identity. In The Essential Owen: Speeches & Statements of Prof. The Rt. Hon. Owen S.  Arthur, ed. Trevor Carmichael and Justin Robinson, 102–112. Barbados: Miller Publishing Company Limited. Byron, Jessica, Jacqueline Laguardia Martinez, Annita Montoute, and Keron Niles. 2021. Impacts of COVID-19 in the Commonwealth Caribbean: Key Lessons. The Round Table—The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs 10 (1): 99–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/00358533.2021.1875694.

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Ewing-Chow, Daphne. 2019. Five Overlooked Facts About Caribbean Food Security. Forbes Online Magazine. https://www.forbes.com/sites/daphneewingchow/2019/02/20/five-­f acts-­a bout-­c aribbean-­f ood-­s ecurity/ ?sh=794766350162. World Bank. 2021. 360° Resilience: A Guide to Prepare the Caribbean for a New Generation of Shocks. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Travel and Tourism Council. 2021. Travel and Tourism Economic Impact: Global Economic Impact and Trends 2021. https://wttc.org/Portals/0/ Documents/Reports/2021/Global%20Economic%20Impact%20and%20 Trends%202021.pdf?ver=2021-­07-­01-­114957-­177. Wright, Allan, Kari Grenade, and Ankie Scott-Joseph. 2017. Fiscal Rules: Towards a New Paradigm for Fiscal Sustainability in Small States. IDB Working Paper Series No. IDB-WP-780. Inter-American Development Bank.

CHAPTER 8

Social Insecurity: COVID-19, Unemployment Insurance, and the Case for Reform in the Eastern Caribbean Dalano R. DaSouza

Introduction Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, social security systems in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) were in need of reform. As pay-outs threaten to eclipse contributions, there are concerns about the long-term financial viability of the national insurance authorities across the sub-region comprised of Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Lucia. Job losses from the pandemic threaten to exacerbate this reality. The increase in unemployment has put social security systems in the region under a microscope, both in terms of the unexpected decline in contributions and their role in supporting the labour force. The ILO

D. R. DaSouza (*) Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, The University of the West Indies, Bridgetown, Barbados e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Roberts et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30889-5_8

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(2021) estimated that over 26 million persons in Latin America and the Caribbean lost their jobs during the height of the pandemic in 2020, increasing the vulnerability of many households while reducing contributions to social security. Without a safety net, many workers were left incomeless when lockdowns, border closures, and other measures were implemented in the Caribbean. As the scale of the fallout from COVID-19 became clear, countries began implementing measures to support their struggling workforce. Gentilini et al. (2021) estimate that between March 2020 and May 2021, a total of 3333 social protection measures including social assistance, social insurance, and labour market responses have been planned or implemented in 222 countries or territories. Of these, there have been 172 unemployment insurance (UI) programmes in 97 countries, and 245 social security contribution waiver/subsidy initiatives introduced across 110 countries. Before COVID-19, UI was offered by only two CARICOM countries: Barbados and The Bahamas. The ILO (2019) reported that an average 88 percent of the unemployed in Barbados accessed UI during the pandemic, while in The Bahamas approximately 26 percent of workers were laid off. Both countries extended coverage beyond the established legal limits of their UI programmes in response to increasing pandemic-induced unemployment. In the ECCU, the Governments of Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines implemented temporary UI and/or cash transfer payments to workers left jobless as a direct consequence of COVID-19. This study focuses on these five countries since Montserrat and Anguilla are not fully independent states, and Antigua and Barbuda did not mount a meaningful UI programme through its social security system. In recent years, several studies have called for substantive changes to existing systems to address their long-term financial viability and widen the pool of active contributors. Many have suggested the implementation of UI for reasons including income replacement, its role as a social safety net, macroeconomic stabilisation, and its ability to aid in labour market restructuring and transition (Nassar et al. 2016; De Ferranti et al. 2000; Silva et  al. 2021). I evaluate the extent to which UI can perform these roles in the ECCU, and whether this can be done without compromising the sustainability of national insurance funds. Ultimately, I examine whether there is evidence to support reforms which make such programmes permanent policy.

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The chapter proceeds as follows: “The Status Quo: Pre-Pandemic Social Security Operations” describes the existing systems in the sub-­ region, while “COVID-19 and the UI Response” provides an analysis of the temporary UI programmes instituted in response to the pandemic. Following this, I advance the case for development and implementation of permanent UI programmes under their current social security frameworks. Conclusions come thereafter.

The Status Quo: Pre-Pandemic Social Security Operations Overview of Social Security Social security systems across the region are similar. They are broadly designed along the lines of a ‘scaled premium’, partially funded benefits model. These schemes are premised on the pay-as-you-go assumption that current contributors will generate the resources required to pay benefits to the current generation of pensioners and beneficiaries (Nassar et al. 2016). Contributions take the form of payroll taxes paid by both employees and employers, with employers typically paying a larger share. Self-employed contributors pay directly into the scheme. Contribution rates are linked to the range of available benefits and financial performance of social security systems and vary by country (Table 8.1). Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Table 8.1  Contribution rates for social security systems, 2022 (percent of earnings) Country

Employee

Employer

Total

Self-Employed

Antigua and Barbuda The Bahamas Barbados Dominica Grenada Jamaica St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines Trinidad and Tobago

6.25 3.9 11.1 6.25 5 3 5 5 4.5 4.4

8.25 5.9 12.75 7.5 6 3 7 5 5.5 8.8

14.5 9.8 23.85 13.75 11 6 12 10 10 13.2

10 8.8 17.1 11.4 11 6 10 10 9.5 11.2

Sources: National social security institutions

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The Bahamas, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago are included for comparison purposes. Antigua and Barbuda has a similar system to the five nations under investigation, but did not institute a UI programme in response to COVID-19. Barbados and The Bahamas are the only two which offered UI before the pandemic, while Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica are included for rate comparison given the relative size of their populations. Of the five countries being examined, coverage for both salaried employees and self-employed individuals is mandatory in Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. However, enforcement of the latter has proven difficult historically as the size of the informal economy militates against tracking sources of income. St. Lucia treats coverage for the self-employed as voluntary and not required by law. Non-contribution by self-employed persons is one of the major issues impacting the long-term sustainability of national insurance schemes in the Caribbean (Nassar et al. 2016). To appreciate how the introduction of UI in the ECCU may change the dynamic of social security, I examine the Dominica Social Security (DSS), Grenada National Insurance Scheme (GNIS), the St. Kitts and Nevis Social Security Board (SKNSSB), National Insurance Corporation of St. Lucia (NICSL), and the National Insurance Scheme of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (NISSVG). Though qualification criteria may differ, all employees across these five states are generally entitled to benefits for maternity, sickness, invalidity, old-age, employment injury, as well as funeral grant and assignment of survivor’s benefits. Self-employed contributors are generally entitled to all benefits except employment injury. Additionally, there are special benefits only provided in some countries. For example, the DSS and SKNSSB include for most classes of workers a redundancy and severance benefit, respectively. While the Redundancy Fund is administered by the DSS and the Severance Payment Fund by SKNSSB, they are governed separately under the countries’ respective Protection of Employment legislation. In Dominica, employers pay an additional 0.25 percent to the Redundancy Fund on top of their 7.25 percent contribution. Similarly, SKNSSB requires employers to contribute an additional amount of 1 percent of employee earnings to its fund. These funds compensate workers who are made redundant under criteria outlined in the legislation. While there are slight variations between countries, generally, earnings for the purposes of determining contributions include overtime, shift pay,

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Table 8.2  Maximum insurable earnings, pensionable age, and life expectancy Country

Max Insurable Earnings (USD per Month)a

Statutory Pensionable Age

Dominica

$2592.59

65b

Grenada St Kitts and Nevis St Lucia

$1851.85 $2407.41

60 62

$1851.85

65

St Vincent and the Grenadines

$1604.81

65c

Early Pensionable Age (penalty)

Life Expectancy At Birth

At 60 Years

60 (0.5% per month) ---

77

21

73 77

19 19

60 (0.5% per month) 60 (6% per year)

74

21

73

21

Sources: National Social Security Authorities, World Health Organisation (1USD = 2.7ECD)

a

b

Varies by date of birth with the maximum being 65 years old, those born after 1964

Varies by date of birth with the maximum being 65 years old, those born after 1956

c

bonuses, hazard pay, holiday pay, commissions, and most other allowances. Insurable earnings caps, statutory pensionable ages, and life expectancy vary by country (Table 8.2). Several countries have made changes in recent years in response to declining sustainability of funds. Increasing life expectancy and rising pension payments have forced countries to increase the statutory pensionable age in a bid to stem the tide of widening contribution-­to-payout gaps. In the Caribbean, old-age pensions account for about two-thirds of total benefits paid (Nassar et al. 2016). Financial Sustainability Even before the pandemic, actuarial analyses of social security systems were raising concerns about the long-term sustainability of the funds. Ageing populations (lower economically active segments) along with low economic growth and high unemployment have conspired to erode once large surpluses and growing reserves. Nassar et al. (2016) found that while total income still exceeded total expenditure in all five countries, contribution income itself had fallen below total expenditure in all but St. Lucia’s NIC.  Moreover, the social security reserves of the countries were

154 

D. R. DASOUZA

Table 8.3  Projected sustainability of social security funds Country

Dominica Grenada St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Date established

1975 1983 1977 1979 1986

Year when expenditure first exceeds: Contribution income

Total income

2015 2016 2015 2018 2011

2030 2026 2022–2027 2028 2019

Reserve exhaustion year

2045 2035 2038–2043 2050 2026

Source: Latest available actuarial reviews, Nassar et al. (2016)

projected to be exhausted between the years 2026  in the case of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and 2050 for St. Lucia (Table 8.3). Since 2016, some governments have implemented social security reforms intended to extend the lifespan of funds. Apart from the changes in the statutory pensionable age, some countries also adjusted the scope of benefits pay-out including eligibility and their calculation. More recent actuarial reviews have confirmed long-term projections of increasing gaps between contributions and benefits expenditure. For 2019, just before the pandemic hit, benefits expenditure and total expenditure exceeded contributions received in every country except for St. Lucia (Fig. 8.1). DSS recorded an EC$5 million gap between contribution income and benefits expenditure, but an EC$11.9 million deficit when compared to total expenditure which includes administrative costs and other net write-­ offs. GNIS’ benefits expenditure exceeded contributions income by EC$10.8 million. This gap increased to EC$19.7 million when compared to total expenditure. SKNSSB’s EC$1.8  million gap between contributions and benefit pay-outs was the smallest of the islands. However, because of relatively high total expenditure when compared to contributions, the gap rose to EC$16.2 million. St. Lucia’s NIC performed the best in 2019; contributions income exceeded benefits expenditure by EC$23.8 million and total expenditure by EC$6.6 million. While benefits expenditure exceeded contributions in the NISSVG by only EC$2.1 million, that gap widened to EC$21.7 million when the latter is compared to total expenditure.

8  SOCIAL INSECURITY: COVID-19, UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE…  140

EC$ millions

120 100 80 60

85.0 58.1 63.1

95.8

104.7

115.8 99.6 101.4

124.6

155

118

100.8

89.5

70

67.8 69.9

40 20 0

Dominica*

Grenada

St Kitts and Nevis

Contributions

Benefits Expenditure

St Lucia

St Vincent and the Grenadines

Total Expenditure

Fig. 8.1  Contributions versus expenditure 2019. (Source: National Social Security Authorities’ annual accounts. *—Figures are from 2018) 250

218.8

EC$ millions

200

100

152.3

140.3

150 74.2

95.8

104.7

115.8 101.4

100.8

118

63.1 70

93 69.9

89.5

50 0

Dominica*

Grenada

Total Income

St Kitts and Nevis Benefits Expenditure

St Lucia

St Vincent and the Grenadines

Total Expenditure

Fig. 8.2  Total income versus expenditure, 2019. (Source: National Social Security Authorities’ annual accounts. *—Figures are from 2018)

Contributions are not the sole source of revenue for social security institutions. They typically earn interest income from returns on reserves as well as other investments, ownership stake in business activities, rental of property, and changes in the value of assets. When interest and other income are added to contributions, total income outstripped benefits expenditure and total expenditure (Fig. 8.2). St. Lucia’s NIC maintained the highest income relative to its benefits and total expenditures, while DSS and NISSVG had the least favourable gaps.

156 

D. R. DASOUZA

Years

Notwithstanding this more positive assessment, the growth rate of benefits expenditure has meant that despite increases in reserves over the last five years, the ratio of the two (in years) has declined (Fig. 8.3). In 2015, St. Lucia’s reserves could pay its annual benefits expenditure for 25 years (ceteris paribus), whereas in 2019 this was reduced to 22 years. The experience has been similar in all five countries. Population demographics have played an important role in this trend. Pension benefits expenditure has increased as the number of pensioners receiving payments climbed to historic values (Fig. 8.4). Moreover, improvement in life expectancy means that the average pensioner will now live longer and therefore 25

25

20

21

15

16

10 5 0

24

25

19

18

14

2015

18

13

8 7

9 7

23

8 6

2016

2017

22 16

10 7 6

10

2018

2019

Dominica

Grenada

St Lucia

St Vincent and the Grenadines

7

St Kis and Nevis

Fig. 8.3  Reserves/benefit expenditure. (Source: National Social Security Authorities’ annual accounts) 11,500 10,500 9,500 8,500 7,500 6,500 5,500 4,500

2015

2016

2017

2018

Dominica

Grenada

St Lucia

St Vincent and the Grenadines

2019

St Kis and Nevis

Fig. 8.4  Number of pensioners. (Source: National Social Security Authorities’ annual accounts)

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collect more benefits. Between 2015 and 2019, Grenada saw the greatest increase in pensioners (8280 to 10,637), followed by St. Kitts and Nevis (4885 to 6661), and then St. Lucia (5266 to 6744).

Analysis: COVID-19 and the UI Response Given persistent questions about sustainability of social security systems and the relative infrequency of shocks which trigger large spikes in unemployment, countries have been slow to consider the introduction of UI.  However, over the last 20  years, there have been two such general shocks—the economic fallout of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States and the global financial crisis of 2008/2009—and two country-­ specific shocks to Grenada (Hurricane Ivan in 2004) and Dominica (Hurricane Maria in 2017). On these occasions, ECCU governments were called upon to support the labour force financially (albeit not directly through the social security systems in all instances). Enter the coronavirus in December 2019. What was initially billed as a virus localised to China, quickly became the latest in a series of harrowing case studies in global travel epidemiology. Within weeks, cases were reported in almost every country around the world. The response was to shutter—businesses, government, schools, travel, and lives stood still in an effort to contain the spread of COVID-19. The impact was far-reaching, particularly on employment. Rising Unemployment Since March 2020, border closures, lockdowns, and curfews were implemented in some form across all the countries under consideration in the ECCU except St. Vincent and the Grenadines (which also suffered a significant volcanic eruption in April 2021). Unfortunately, these policies had the side effect of exacerbating the impact of declining global economic activity, particularly in respect to tourism. Although difficult to concretely assess at the time, unemployment soared in the sub-region. “We are observing a sharp rise in unemployment across the currency union and, in fact, at least two countries are now reporting unemployment somewhere approaching 50 percent”, said Eastern Caribbean Central Bank Governor, Timothy Antoine, in May 2020 (SKNIS 2020). Data and projections at the time painted a grim picture for the islands.

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Dominica—Building on baseline scenarios, including the likelihood of a gross domestic product (GDP) decline in excess of 6 percent in 2020 (a value which turned out to be an underestimation), the UNDP estimated that unemployment levels would surpass 25 percent, resulting in more than one in every four workers being unemployed, reduced consumption, and increased hardship which would likely be exacerbated by lower remittances from abroad (UNDP 2020). Grenada—The ILO estimated that Grenada’s unemployment rate increased from 15.7 percent in Q2 of 2019 to 28.4 percent in the 2020 Q2 as the pandemic deepened. Over the period, there was an additional 5177 out of the labour force and an additional 4444 unemployed (ILO 2020). The report also noted decreased labour force participation of youth aged 15–24 (39.42 versus 51.4 percent) and adults aged 25–64 (77.7 versus 83.2 percent). In Q2 of 2020, data showed that the number of employers and self-employed individuals reporting income declined markedly. St. Kitts and Nevis—ECLAC (2020) estimated that given that approximately 58 percent of the country’s employment and 29 percent of its GDP were attributable to the tourism sector, the COVID-19 pandemic would increase unemployment by at least 15 percent during 2020. By May 2020, over 2000 persons had registered a loss of income due to the fallout from the virus. St. Lucia—Compared to 2019, visitor arrivals, cruise ship arrivals, and yacht arrivals fell by 65, 63, and 60 percent, respectively. The agriculture industry, which depends significantly on the demand from local hotels and restaurants, contracted by 9.5 percent, while the manufacturing industry and the construction sector experienced declines of 10.4 and 9.9 percent, respectively. Consequently, the unemployment rate increased from 16.8 percent in 2019 to 17.6 percent in 2020 Q2 before reaching 21.7 percent by the end of the year. Social security contribution income contracted by 39.72 percent from EC$34.5  million in October–December 2019 to $20.8 million in April–June 2020 (NICSL 2021). St. Vincent and the Grenadines—As the country coped with the twin threats of COVID-19 and a significant volcanic eruption, statistics from the NISSVG in June 2020 reported that 395 businesses had partially or completely shut down since 1st March 2020, representing over 16 percent of the total active employers registered. Based on the over 3000 claims filed with the NISSVG, the government estimated that unemployment

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had increased by over 10 percent over the three-month period (Gonsalves 2020). Temporary UI Implementation Faced with deteriorating economic and social circumstances, governments implemented mechanisms to support the labour force. While I focus primarily on measures implemented through the respective social security authorities, it is important to note that additional assistance was provided directly through the state apparatus in all five countries. Since UI is not a feature of the social security system, governments referred to the temporary programmes by various names including “unemployment relief”, “financial assistance”, and “grants”. Nevertheless, their characteristics place them firmly in the realm of UI, but for the fact that some pay-outs were on a non-contributory basis. The size and scale of UI benefits are commonly determined in the following three generic ways: I. Earnings-related—The level of benefits is tied to some percentage of the worker’s previous earnings. Under this system, individuals who earned more before becoming jobless receive higher UI payments than their lower earning counterparts. This is usually subject to set a minimum and maximum level of benefits (ILO 2020). Barbados, the United States, and most of Europe utilise such a system. II. Flat-rate—Benefits are set at one low level irrespective of recipients’ previous income. However, there may be some variation based on other characteristics such as family size, number of dependents, or other characteristics. III. Income-tested benefits—Benefits depend on the results of means testing based on predetermined criteria. This structure requires more complicated administration and oversight and is therefore not popular in developing countries. Temporary COVID-19 UI enacted in the ECCU utilised elements of all three. NISSVG’s benefits took the form of flat-rate payment, while the NICSL’s was calculated as a percentage of earnings, and DSS incorporated elements of income testing by using a maximum income for the disqualification of applicants (Table 8.4). Gentilini et al. (2021) provide a detailed summary of UI eligibility criteria for all five countries.

160 

D. R. DASOUZA

Table 8.4  Temporary UI benefits measures Country

# of recipients

Length (# of months)

Benefit calculation

Dominica

3454

12

Grenada St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia

5201 9003

11 9

Flat-rate monthly payments of EC$600 to individuals with minor dependents and EC$400 to those without. Flat-rate monthly payments of EC$330 Maximum monthly EC$1000 payment

16,756

6

St. Vincent and the Grenadines

4746

15

50% of insurable earnings in February 2020; minimum of EC$500; maximum of EC$1500 per month, less any financial assistance from employer Flat-rate monthly payments of EC$300

Source: National Social Security Authorities, Gentilini et al. (2021) Total Spent

Female

70

Male 66.6

EC$ Millions

60 50 40

36.8

30 20 10 0

29.8

22.7

7.9

11.6 4.6

3.3

Dominica

5.8

3.5

10.9

11.1

2.3

Grenada

St Kitts and Nevis

St Lucia

St Vincent and the Grenadines*

Fig. 8.5  Social security UI disbursements. (Source: National Social Security Authorities. *- UI spending not available by sex (latest available data as of March 2022))

The nuanced approach to the design and implementation of UI meant that each country allocated different financing to programmes based on available resources and the perceived needs of the labour force. Differences in total spending (Fig. 8.5) are largely due to benefit calculation methods, the duration programmes, as well as the choice of different governments to implement facets of their response through the state, rather than the

8  SOCIAL INSECURITY: COVID-19, UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE…  Female 10000 9000 8000 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0

161

Male 9584 7172

4582 4421 2923 1810 1644

Dominica

2240 2506

2278

Grenada

St Kitts and Nevis

St Lucia

St Vincent and the Grenadines

Fig. 8.6  UI recipients by sex. (Source: National Social Security Authorities (latest available data as of March 2022))

social security authorities. Though only lasting for six months, St. Lucia’s NIC paid out approximately EC$66.6 million in UI benefits to 16,756 recipients, while SKNSSB disbursed EC$22.7 million over nine months, and NISSVG paid out EC$10.9  million to 4746 individuals over a 15-month period. Similarly, GNIS disbursed benefits to 5201 applicants during an 11-month period for a total of EC$5.8 million. Data from the social security authorities revealed that females were generally receiving UI at a higher rate than males. The implication being that female employment was likely disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Only NISSVG paid out UI benefits to more males than females (Fig. 8.6). While this occurrence is worthy of further interrogation, it is outside the scope of this research. These statistics alone are unable to tell the full story of unemployment. By investigating UI benefits paid to different industries, we gain a better appreciation of the pandemic’s toll on jobs. Given the structure of ECCU economies, the contribution of tourism to GDP, and the halt to global travel, it is unsurprising that the majority of UI recipients were employed in hospitality. UI breakdown by industry varied across countries. Dominica is excluded since the DSS did not record benefit pay-outs by industry. Grenada The GNIS recorded the most UI recipients in the following five sectors: hospitality (31 percent); wholesale and retail trade (16 percent); construction (13 percent); real estate and business services (11 percent); and social and related community services (7 percent). This is shown in Fig. 8.7.

162 

D. R. DASOUZA 0

200

400

600

800

1,000

1,200

1,400

1,600

1,800

Hospitality Wholesale & Retail Trade Construction Real Estate & Business Services Social & Related Community Services Transport, Storage & Communication Manufacturing Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing Recreation & Cultural Services Personal & Household Services Electricity Gas & Water Roadside Cleaning & Maintenance Public Adminstration & Defense Banking, Finance & Insurance Sanitary & Similar Services

Female

Male

Fig. 8.7  GNIS UI recipients by industry. (Source: GNIS (latest available data as of March 2022)) EC$ Millions $-

$0.5

$1.0

$1.5

$2.0

Hospitality Wholesale & Retail Trade Real Estate & Business Services Social & Related Community Services Construction Transport, Storage & Communication Manufacturing Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing Recreation & Cultural Services Personal & Household Services Roadside Cleaning & Maintenance Electricity Gas & Water Banking, Finance & Insurance Public Adminstration & Defense Sanitary & Similar Services

Female

Male

Fig. 8.8  Total GNIS UI pay-outs by industry. (Source: GNIS (latest available data as of March 2022))

However, in terms of the total value of UI benefits, more money was disbursed to recipients in real estate and business services (EC$0.52 million) and social and related community services (EC$0.49 million) than the EC$0.44 million paid to the construction industry (Fig. 8.8). Females

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outnumber males in most industries, both in terms of the number of recipients and the value of payouts. St. Kitts and Nevis The SKNSSB’s top five pay-out industries in terms of the number UI recipients were hospitality (27 percent), wholesale and retail trade (15.5 percent), construction (13.1 percent), manufacturing (12 percent), and transport, storage, and communications (8.7 percent) (Fig. 8.9). These industries were ranked the same when considered by the total value of benefits paid out (Fig.  8.10). Their proportion of total money disbursed by industry also roughly coincides with the proportion of recipients. St. Lucia The country’s leading industries in terms of the number of UI recipients are the same as Grenada but for ‘construction’ which is replaced by ‘transportation, storage, and communication’ (Fig. 8.11). However, St. Lucia’s ratios of recipients to total sectoral benefits are markedly different. While 0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

Hospitality Wholesale & Retail Trade Construction Manufacturing Transport, Storage & Communications Real Estate, Renting & Business Activities Other Community, Social & Personal Services Last Worked in 2020 Public Administration & Defence Agriculture, Hunting & Forestry Private Household with Employed Persons Education Health & Social Work Financial Intermediation Electricity, Gas & Water Supply Fishing Undisclosed Extra-Territorial Organization & Bodies Mining & Quarrying

Female

Male

Fig. 8.9  SKNSSB UI recipients by industry. (Source: SKNSSB (latest available data as of March 2022))

164 

D. R. DASOUZA

EC$ Millions -

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Hospitality Construction Transport, Storage & Communications Real Estate, Renting & Business Activities Agriculture, Hunting & Forestry Private Household with Employed Persons Health & Social Work Financial Intermediation Undisclosed Mining & Quarrying

Female

Male

Fig. 8.10  Total SKNSSB UI pay-outs by industry. (Source: SKNSSB (latest available data as of March 2022)) 0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

9000

Hospitality Wholesale & Retail Trade Transport, Storage & Communication Social & Related Community Services Real Estate & Business Services Self-Employed Public Administration & Defence Manufacturing Construction Activities not adequately defined* Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing Financial Intermediations Mining & Quarrying Electricity, Gas & Water Supply Voluntary

Female

Male

Fig. 8.11  NICSL UI recipients by industry. (Source: NICSL (latest available data as of March 2022))

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EC$ Millions -

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Hospitality Transport, Storage & Communication Wholesale & Retail Trade Social & Related Community Services Real Estate & Business Services Self-Employed Public Administration & Defence Manufacturing Activities not adequately defined* Construction Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing Financial Intermediations Electricity, Gas & Water Supply Mining & Quarrying Voluntary

Female

Male

Fig. 8.12  Total NICSL UI pay-outs by industry. (Source: NICSL (latest available data as of March 2022))

only 49 percent of recipients are from the hospitality industry, 60 percent (EC$39.9 million) of total benefits was paid to same. The scale of unemployment within tourism is emphasised when one considers that the ‘whole and retail trade’ industry (which ranked second) had only 1723 UI recipients to hospitality’s 8201. Similarly, in terms of pay-outs, the four other industries which followed hospitality combine to account for 23 percent (EC$15.2  million) of total benefits disbursed (Fig. 8.12). St. Vincent and the Grenadines Although the NISSVG was unable to provide UI benefits pay-out by sector, the pattern is similar to the other countries. Approximately 40 percent of UI recipients were employed directly in the hospitality industry (Fig.  8.13). This was followed by seafarers and oil rig workers (26 percent), recipients from the education system (7.6 percent), self-employed persons (6.5 percent), and construction workers (4.7 percent).

166 

D. R. DASOUZA 0

200

400

600

800

1,000

1,200

1,400

1,600

1,800

2,000

Hospitality Seafarers & oil rig workers Education Self-Employed Construction Wholesale & retail trade/repairs Manufacturing Professional Activities Agriculture, forestry & fishing Administrative & Support Activities Private Household Other Service Activities Health & social activities Arts, Entertainment & Recreation Real Estate activities Voluntary Contributor Finance Insurance Public Administration & Social Security Information & Communication

Female

Male

Fig. 8.13  NISSVG UI recipients by industry. (Source: NISSVG (latest available data as of March 2022))

Interestingly, the bulk of the recipients from the ‘seafarers and oil rig workers’ category were employed in the international cruise tourism sector, meaning that they could be considered hospitality workers by some standards.

The Case for Reform: Towards Permanent UI Despite temporary deployment to address the impact of the pandemic, there remains no consensus on UI as a permanent measure in the ECCU. The ILO (2021) labelled the absence of UI in the region a major social protection gap under its Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention No. 102. It argues that UI would enhance the capacity to respond to economic shocks, while reducing the burden on social assistance programmes, which usually provide low levels of coverage. Severance and redundancy funds such as those which exist in Dominica and St. Kitts and Nevis can also be repurposed to better aid the labour force. In recent years, some ECCU states have explored permanent UI.  In 2019, the SKNSSB procured actuarial advice to design an UI programme.

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The recommended benefit rate was 40 percent of average insured earnings for a maximum of 13 weeks. More recently, the impact of the pandemic caused the NICSL to fast-track plans for permanent UI. The institution has completed a feasibility study for introducing UI for presentation to the country’s government. Dominica, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago have reportedly engaged the ILO for technical assistance on the design and cost assessment for the implementation of UI schemes. However, many across the region remain unconvinced of the need or sustainability of UI. Among the main arguments against UI are questions about the financial position of social security authorities, the likely need for increase in contribution rates, and the structure of the labour market, particularly as it relates to the level of informal workers. These will be addressed as I make the case for permanent UI. Generally, UI is considered to have four main objectives: income replacement/reward labour force attachment, acting as a social safety net, macroeconomic stabilisation, and aiding with labour market restructuring and transition. The remainder of this section argues that the ECCU could benefit from all four. I. Income replacement/Reward Labour Force Attachment UI aims to support workers in the short-term transition to new employment. It allows them to maintain some level of income while they jobhunt. UI has enabled workers to hold out for better paying jobs or those more suited to their skill level and qualifications (Mazza 2000). Achieving this objective would be useful to ECCU countries in four ways. Firstly, UI would incentivise individuals to seek jobs (be economically active) since many UI schemes require that applicants show proof of job searching (Toohey 2021). Moreover, UI contributes to lower turnover rates since workers have been shown to remain employed in order to make the required number of contributions to qualify for UI benefits before leaving a job. Secondly, research suggests that there will be less resistance to an increase in contribution rates if UI is being added to the suite of benefits. Workers and employers are less likely to reject a rate hike meant to fund some tangible benefit. Disney (2004) found that strengthening the link between pension contributions and benefits improves labour market outcomes. Thirdly, given the scale of COVID-19-induced unemployment highlighted above, the introduction of UI may incentivise self-employed

168 

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individuals to sign up as contributors in an effort to protect their incomes against future shocks. This would be particularly useful in the ECCU where the informal economy is relatively large, but participation in social security is low among the self-employed despite being mandatory in some countries. Several studies have concluded that an increase in social security participation by the self-employed would significantly improve the sustainability of regional systems (Nassar et al. 2016; Mazza 2000). Fourthly, given the region’s history of high frictional and seasonal employment, structured income replacement could be transformational. Dependence on tourism and agriculture means that large segments of the workforce become jobless during low productivity months of the year. Barbados’ use of UI to allow seasonal workers to maintain an income during the off season and return to their jobs in season is particularly instructive. The ECCU analysis above has demonstrated the vulnerability of workers in the hospitality industry not just to seasonal fluctuations, but also to demand shocks. Demand shocks to the global economy (like the ongoing COVID-19) which affect the region’s trading partners have historically had large effects on unemployment (Archibald et  al. 2011; Craigwell and Wright 2013). Permanent UI systems would cushion this blow by providing some level of income replacement, typically with faster response times than were experienced during the pandemic by countries without UI. For example, as COVID-19 restrictions were implemented, UI disbursements in Barbados, The Bahamas, and the US were ramped up much quicker when compared to the significant lag in deploying temporary UI programmes in the ECCU. Barbados’ National Insurance Scheme paid out BB$155.5 million (1USD = 2BBD) in 2020, compared to BB$49.3  million and BB$32.8  million in 2019 and 2018, respectively (Phillips 2021). Bitler et al. (2020) documented significantly increased UI pay-outs in the US as pandemic-induced unemployment surged. II. Social Safety Net As a social safety net, UI aims to protect lower income segments of the labour force from slipping into poverty due to unemployment. Questions remain as to whether it can perform this role in developing countries, especially those with relatively large informal sectors. Mazza (2000) argued that despite high levels of poverty and income inequality in the region, UI typically does not protect the poor, but rather middle-income

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workers because only a segment of eligible recipients would be near the poverty line. Low UI coverage of the poor is typically more prevalent in countries with large informal sectors. Wong and Qian (2020) and Bitler et al. (2020) found limited success of UI as a safety net in China and the US, respectively, during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings notwithstanding, there are also many studies which have demonstrated the capacity of functioning and malleable UI systems to act as an effective social safety net. Moffitt (2013) documented how UI in the US benefitted lower income workers during the ‘Great Recession’. In terms of the UI analysis in this study, the NISSVG reported that 3021 of the 4746 recipients (63 percent) earned less than EC$2000 monthly, while in Dominica the DSS only paid UI to those earning less than EC$4000. In both instances, UI benefits were targeted to those with profiles indicative of being closest to the poverty line, suggesting some level of success as a social safety net. A relevant concern is whether in acting as a safety net, UI creates work disincentives. Since UI has been shown to have some impact on effort to find work (and duration of unemployment), there is a potential trade-off between encouraging work and reducing poverty (Burtless 1989; Wanberg et al. 2020). However, it is my considered view that if policymakers are truly concerned with implementing an effective safety net through UI, less attention should be given to unemployment duration of low-income earners. From a labour economics perspective, if wages are any indication of productivity, then little production will be lost even if some of the labour force’s low-income segment increase their unemployment duration. In other words, the trade-off for potentially keeping these workers above the poverty is negligible when compared to what they individually add to GDP (Danziger and Gottschalk 1989). Consequently, selecting the optimal expiration duration of UI benefits will be critical for ECCU countries. The need to maintain the solvency and sustainability of social security schemes brings added complexity  to the debate. Invariably, one must question whether prolonged UI benefits can compromise the system. Many have been quick to use the COVID-19 pandemic (which is a once in a lifetime shock) to so conclude. However, while some recapitalisation was done in Barbados, the UI system did not collapse. In St. Lucia, the NICSL paid UI to 34 percent of its pre-pandemic active contributors, with the long-term impact on the fund being only a 6-month decline in projected exhaustion from June 2051 to December 2050. More generally, in a study of how UI pay-outs would respond to shocks in the

170 

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unemployment rate in Barbados, Campbell and Bynoe-Mayers (2016) found that UI increases are usually marginal and decline within a few quarters. III. Macroeconomic Stabilisation UI as tool for macroeconomic stabilisation is consequential during pronounced cyclical economic downturns or recessions. The aim is to maintain consumer spending and improve welfare as unemployment increases. UI systems which best stabilise macroeconomic activity typically have broad coverage of the unemployed, a generous income replacement rate, and are liquid enough to act as a social safety net. While measuring UI’s stabilisation role is not straightforward, some studies have provided estimates. Gruber (1997) estimates that average consumption expenditures in the US would fall by about 20 percent in the absence of unemployment insurance, and Di Maggio and Kermani (2016) found that consumption is less responsive to rising unemployment when UI benefits are more generous (higher-income replacement rates and longer eligibility periods). Many countries with permanent UI have not quantified its impact. With an income replacement rate of roughly 60 percent, Barbados’ UI pay-outs in the wake of the pandemic theoretically performed a stabilisation role by preventing up to a 40 percent decline in spending. However, based on what we know about the dynamics of unemployment and the COVID-19 restrictions implemented, the effect was likely lower. Having lost 40 percent of their income in a period of great economic uncertainty, UI recipients with the budgetary space to cut consumption by more than that amount would have likely done so. Moreover, the shuttering of many industries/sectors in the country served to significantly limit opportunities for spending across the economy. Ultimately, however, the existence of an UI system which responded with alacrity to increasing joblessness doubtless performed an important macroeconomic stabilisation role in Barbados by limiting GDP contraction in 2020 and aiding the partial recovery in 2021. On the other hand, the ECCU’s temporary UI programmes which were characterised by relatively limited coverage, lags in implementation, and low rates of income replacement had limited impact. For example, data provided by NISSVG showed that the average monthly salary of UI recipients was EC$1400, while the UI pay-out was EC$300, resulting in an average income replacement rate of just 21 percent. Not only is this a

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significant decline in purchasing power, but when coupled with the effect of the lost consumption multiplier effect, the probability of a large GDP contraction is increased. Sutherland and Craigwell (2011) estimated the marginal propensity to consume in the ECCU to be 0.79. This seminal calculation makes it possible to model the consumption multiplier effect on the five economies as follows: Consumption multiplier 

1 1   4.79 1  MPC 1  0.79

This value implies that each EC$1.00 change in consumption spending causes a change of approximately EC$4.79  in economic output. From this, one can highlight how UI could perform a stabilisation role in the ECCU. Every dollar paid out in benefits to the unemployed adds EC$4.79 to the economy through multiple rounds of spending. This is critical since the opposite effect is also at work—each dollar of income lost due to increasing unemployment reduces economic output by approximately EC$4.79. Table 8.5 shows the estimated stabilisation effect of the temporary UI programmes in the ECCU. St. Lucia’s UI pay-out of EC$66.6 million stabilised consumption by EC$319 million, while Dominica’s relatively small pay-out of EC$5.8 million saved EC$27.8  million in economic activity. Based on this, we can conclude that while temporary UI deployment helped to stabilise consumption in the five countries, the impact was limited by the size of the programmes and implementation lags. Permanent systems with better income replacement rates would improve outcomes in the ECCU. Table 8.5  Estimated economic impact of temporary UI (EC$ millions) Country

UI Benefits

Economic Impact

Dominica Grenada St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines

7.9 5.8 22.7 66.6 10.9

37.8 27.8 108.7 319 52.2

Source: National Social Security Authorities, author’s calculations

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IV. Promote Labour Market Restructuring/Transition Structural unemployment is something familiar to the ECCU.  When countries transitioned from agrarian to services-based economies, joblessness increased as the labour market adjusted. In countries undergoing structural adjustment and large lay-offs, UI is a way to reduce workers’ resistance by facilitating smoother income transition. This was an important motivation behind the enactment of UI systems in Eastern Europe (Mazza 2000). The analysis of UI programmes in the ECCU has demonstrated the vulnerabilities of tourism over-reliance. As Caribbean countries attempt to restructure economies towards more balanced output including digital services, some types of jobs will be lost or may require that workers upskill. I contend that the existence of a well-designed UI system will facilitate more efficient transformation of ECCU economies in the coming years.

Conclusion The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the inadequacies of ECCU labour market protections and the lack of a robust social safety net for those in the most important industries of the sub-region’s economies. Rising unemployment saw frantic efforts by governments to implement temporary UI which were ultimately offered insufficient coverage. Hospitality, wholesale and retail trade and construction—the most important contributors to GDP in the ECCU—were decimated by falling demand and consumption. While policymakers remain hesitant to implement a permanent UI system, the case to move in this direction is stronger than ever. To be sure, necessity does not infer ease. Any UI scheme introduced must successfully navigate the weaknesses in financial sustainability of social security funds, the likely need for increase in contribution rates, and the informal structure of labour markets. In the final analysis, these concerns can largely be addressed at the design stage. It requires that UI schemes be tailored to the unique economic and social context of ECCU states in order to properly fulfil the four roles discussed above. These countries can benefit from the experience of other states, as well as the voluminous literature on UI design and implementation. Accordingly, governments of the ECCU and wider Caribbean should explore the introduction of UI. Feasibility studies such as those conducted by St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Lucia should be used to

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inform policy across the region. Such interventions would assist individual social security authorities with important UI design concerns such as income replacement rates and benefits duration, if they are to overcome the implementation issues raised above. Countries also need to address the level of labour informality in their economies. Bringing more self-employed and seasonal workers under the formal social security system will improve fund sustainability and widen safety net coverage. Given existing cooperation between ECCU member states, there is also scope of exploration of a sub-regional UI system with the aim of increasing the pool of resources to improve coverage and benefits using a multi-state approach. The vulnerability of small island developing states is well documented, and social security is but one of the many issues facing the ECCU and the wider Caribbean. As the COVID-19 pandemic recedes, the region is confronted with fears of another impending global recession, the economic fall-out from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, including rising oil prices, continued supply chain disruptions, inflationary pressures, in addition to the rising threat of natural disasters as climate change advances. Importantly, all of these risks increase the probability of lower economic growth and rising unemployment. When added to the historical regional challenges of high unemployment, low education attainment, limited fiscal space, and high public debt, they reinforce the need for the move towards permanent UI systems. Future-proofing Caribbean economies must incorporate enhanced social protections; the labour force can only be made better off by it.

References Archibald, Xiomara, Denny Lewis-Bynoe, and Winston Moore. 2011. Caribbean Labour Markets and the “Great Recession”. Caribbean Development Bank. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/%2D%2D-­a mericas/ %2D%2D-­r o-­lima/%2D%2D-­sro-­port_of_spain/documents/presentation/ wcms_307512.pdf. Bitler, Marianne, Hilary Hoynes, and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach. 2020. The Social Safety Net in the Wake of COVID-19. NBER Working Paper No. 27796, National Bureau of Economic Research. Burtless, Gary. 1989. Unemployment Insurance and Labour Supply: A Survey. In Unemployment Insurance: The Second Half-century, ed. W. Lee Hansen, James F. Byers, and Jan Levine Thal. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Campbell, Trevor, and Nola Elsie Bynoe-Mayers. 2016. The Impact of the Unemployment Rate on Unemployment Benefits in Barbados: An Impulse

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Response Approach. International Journal of Public Administration 39 (4): 284–292. Craigwell, Roland, and Allan Wright. 2013. Explaining Unemployment in the Caribbean Again. International Journal of Business and Social Science 4 (9): 262–273. Danziger, Sheldon, and Peter Gottschalk. 1989. Unemployment Insurance and the Safety Net for the Unemployed. In Unemployment Insurance: The Second Half-century, ed. W. Lee Hansen, James F. Byers, and Jan Levine Thal, 47–68. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. De Ferranti, D., G. Perry, I.S. Gill, and L. Servén. 2000. Securing Our Future in a Global Economy. World Bank Group. Di Maggio, Marco and Amir Kermani. 2016. The Importance of Unemployment Insurance as an Automatic Stabiliser. Working Paper #22625. National Bureau of Economic Research. Disney, Richard. 2004. Are Contributions to Public Pension Programmes a Tax on Employment? Economic Policy 19 (39): 267–311. ECLAC. 2020. Recovery Measures for the Tourism Sector in Latin America and the Caribbean Present an Opportunity to Promote Sustainability and Resilience. Gentilini, Ugo, Mohamed Almenfi, John Blomquist, and Pamela Dale. 2021. Social Protection and Jobs Responses to COVID-19: A Real-Time Review of Country Measures. Working Paper, World Bank. Gonsalves, Camillo. 2020. Implementation of the COVID-19 Recovery and Stimulus Package. Ministerial: Statement to Parliament. Gruber, Jonathan. 1997. The Consumption Smoothing Benefits of Unemployment Insurance. The American Economic Review 87 (1): 192–205. International Labour Organisation. 2019. World Social Protection Report 2017–19: Universal Social Protection to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. ———. 2020. COVID-19 and the English and Dutch-Speaking Caribbean Labour Market. Impact and Policy Assessment. ———. 2021. The Employment Crisis in the Pandemic: Towards a Human-centred Job Recovery. Labour Overview Series Latin America and the Caribbean. Mazza, Jaxqueline. 2000. Unemployment Insurance: Case Studies and Lessons for Latin America and the Caribbean. Working Paper #411, Inter-American Development Bank. Moffitt, Robert. 2013. The Great Recession and the Social Safety Net. ANNALS, AAPSS 650 (1): 143–166. Nassar, Koffie, Joel Okwuokei, Mike Li, Timothy Robinson, and Saji Thomas. 2016. National Insurance Scheme Reforms in the Caribbean. IMF Working Paper 16/206, IMF. NICSL. 2021. Economic Relief Programme of the National Insurance Corporation St. Lucia. OECS Social Protection: Conference.

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Phillips, Nya. 2021. NIS Financially Stable Despite Impact of Pandemic. Barbados Government Information Service. 3. https://gisbarbados.gov.bb/blog/nis-­ financially-­stable-­despite-­impact-­of-­pandemic/. Accessed 4 March 2022. Silva, Joana, Liliana Sousa, Truman Packard, and Raymond Robertson. 2021. Employment in Crisis: The Path to Better Jobs in a Post-COVID-19 Latin America. World Bank Group. SKNIS. 2020. Governor of ECCB Outlines Economic Impact on the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. May 3. https://www. sknis.gov.kn/2020/05/03/governor-­of-­eccb-­outlines-­economic-­impact-­on-­ the-­eastern-­caribbean-­currency-­union-­due-­to-­the-­covid-­19-­pandemic/. Sutherland, Richard, and Roland Craigwell. 2011. "Private Consumption Expenditure in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union." MPRA Paper No. 40932. Toohey, Desmond. 2021. The Effects of Unemployment Insurance in Late Career: Evidence from Social Security Offsets. Southern Economic Journal 88 (2): 628–648. UNDP. 2020. Human and Economic Assessment of Impact—Commonwealth of Dominica. COVID-19 Policy Document Series. Wanberg, Connie R., Edwin A.J. van Hooft, Karyn Dossinger, Annelies E.M. van Vianen, and Ute-Christine Klehe. 2020. How Strong Is My Safety Net? Perceived Unemployment Insurance Generosity and Implications for Job Search, Mental Health, and Reemployment. Journal of Applied Psychology 105 (3): 209–229. Wong, Christine, and Jiwei Qian. 2020. COVID-19 Highlights need to Strengthen China’s Social Security Safety Net: The Unemployment Insurance Scheme. EAI Background Brief No.1572.

CHAPTER 9

Managing COVID-19 in the French Caribbean: The Case of Martinique Hélène Zamor

Introduction Sandwiched between Dominica in the North and St. Lucia in the South, Martinique was settled by the French in 1635. It is an island of 425 square miles with a population of 354,800 inhabitants. On March 19, 1946, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Réunion Island, and Martinique officially became French Overseas Departments. With this new political status, French law was extended to all four territories and their inhabitants became the beneficiaries of the same civil and socio-political rights as the French metropolitan counterparts. They have also adopted the same policies and laws that the French government has implemented over the years. In 2015, Martinique became Collectivité Territoriale. It has been an associate member of CARICOM and ACS (Association of Caribbean States).

H. Zamor (*) Department of Language, Linguistics and Literatures, Faculty of Humanities and Education, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Bridgetown, Barbados e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Roberts et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30889-5_9

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This chapter discusses the status of Martinique as Collectivité Territoriale within the framework of certain health measures such as the attestation (waiver) and pass sanitaire (health certificate) that the French government imposed on all French citizens to protect them from the coronavirus. The chapter also seeks to assess the socio-economic impact of the of the COVID-19 pandemic on Martinique’s economy and society, including the government’s response. Finally, an analysis is provided of Martinicans’ responses to the pandemic and the vaccination programme.

Methodology and Limitations Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, interviews could not be conducted in Martinique in order to obtain further details on how the various economic sectors had been impacted. As a result, secondary sources were primarily reports; economic and news reports were used in order to obtain information. These reports were written by different entities such as QualiStat Institute, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE), and Chambre de Commerce et de l’Industrie de la Martinique (CCIM). Information on the management of the health crisis was also available in the Martinique 1 news report (franceinfo). Although extensive studies have been made available on the impact of the health crisis on Martinique’s economy, little is known about businesses’ responses to the government’s financial assistance. No further research was found on the effects of the pandemic on job categories in the tourism industry. This chapter seeks to address the following questions: • How has the pandemic impacted Martinique’s society and economy? • What types of financial support have been put in place to assist businesses since the beginning of the pandemic? • What measures have been implemented to control the spread of the pandemic? • What have been some of the responses to the pandemic by Martinicans?

Martinique as a Collectivité Territoriale (CTM) This section discusses the status of Martinique as a Collectivité Territoriale. As stated earlier, Martinique became a Département d’Outre-Mer (French Overseas Department) after the Second World War. The island fell under

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the jurisdiction of two political elected assemblies that were respectively called Conseil Général (General Council) and Conseil Régional (Regional Council). Both assemblies were in charge of the economic development of the country. Following the referendum of January 24, 2010, the Collectivité Terrtitoriale of Martinique was established in December 2015. It replaced both the Conseil Général and Régional. Moreover, it was run by the Mouvement Indépendantiste de la Martinique (Granvorka and Angelli 2016). The CTM comprises three main entities. These include a deliberative assembly, an executive council, and the CECESEM.  The Assembly consists of 51 members and its work is coordinated by an office consisting of a president, 4 vice-presidents, and 17 commissions (Pastorale Sociétale n.d.). The Executive Council implements the necessary public policies for the economic and social development of the country. During an interview with Ewag magazine, former president of the Executive Council, Alfred Marie-Jeanne, explained the CTM’s engagements since the beginning of the pandemic (Ewag 2022). According to him, tablets were distributed to secondary school students who were in Terminale (CAPE) and Troisième (Fifth Form). Additionally, 20 million euros had been mobilized in order to support all medium- and small-sized businesses. The different financial support systems are further discussed in this chapter. The Conseil Economique Social Environnemental de la Culture et de l’Education de Martinique (CECESEM) is also part of the CTM. Its mission is to guide political decision-makers as well as the population. Moreover, it contributes to other fields such as economy, employment, social environment, culture, sport, health, education, and innovation. Before the advent of the CTM, the Parti Progressite Martiniquais (PPM), whose founder was the late poet and writer Aimé Césaire, had already highlighted political autonomy for Martinique. This party sought to strengthen the relationship between Martinique and its Caribbean neighbours. The French government supported the PPM’s initiative and agreed that Martinique should join organizations such as the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), CARICOM, the Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) (Granvorka and Angelli 2016). Today, Martinique is an associate member of ACS, OECS, and ECLAC.

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Implementation of COVID-19 Protocols: Curfews, Lockdowns, Attestation, and Passe Sanitaire In order to implement COVID-19 protocols, the French Government worked closely with the Scientific Committee comprising professionals in epidemiology and medicine. The Agence Régionale de Santé (ARS) has played a vital role in monitoring and managing the health crisis in France and the French Overseas Department. This institution was created by the law: Hospital, Patients, Health and Territories (HPST) on July 21, 2009 (Senbel 2011, 1). Moreover, it comprises various entities who make health policies in the regions and Departments. These entities include the Direction des Affaires Sanitaires et Sociales (DRASS), Groupements Régionaux de Santé Publique (GRSP), Union Régionale des Caisses d’Assurance Maladie (URCAM), and Missions Régionales de Santé (MRS). The pandemic has forced the French authorities to implement several restrictive measures with a view of protecting the population. Among them are lockdowns, curfews, attestations, and passes sanitaires to control the spread of the disease. After the first lockdown, Martinicans gradually resumed their activities. They were still required to comply with the French government’s health protocols, however. Schools and nurseries remained closed because mayors feared for children’s health. As a result, teaching continued online. Both bars and restaurants were closed until further notice. Residents were allowed to move around but only with an attestation indicating the reasons why they were leaving home. Large public gatherings were also limited to ten persons (Martinique1 2020). One source indicated that banks, supermarkets, gas-stations, and other essential businesses were able to operate. The second lockdown took place from October 30 to December 1, 2020. This time, schools, canteens, and nurseries remained open. Nevertheless, online teaching at the tertiary level continued. The university restaurant was allowed to sell take-away food and students were able to come to the library by appointments (UFETAM 2020). In April 2021, Martinique was on another lockdown owing to a new surge in COVID-19 cases. A three-week curfew between 7.00 p.m. and 5.00 a.m. was announced by Préfet Stanislas Cazelles (Pinel-Fereol 2021). It was further extended for a few more weeks because the numbers continued to rise. During that period, many residents were infected by the “English variants”. Martinique’s Prefecture reported a test positivity rate of 11.5% and an incidence rate of 243 per 100,000 inhabitants (Brault

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2021). Seven people succumbed to the virus, while 862 cases were recorded during that period. The previous week, 724 cases were reported. All age groups were affected and four clusters outside the school environment were under investigation. As far as vaccination was concerned, 24,799 people had received their first dose while 31,348 were fully vaccinated (Brault 2021). All French citizens were allowed to travel only for specific reasons (death in the family, sickness, or any other urgent circumstances). Prior to travelling, they were required to take a PCR test which had to be negative. The French government restricted persons’ movements by requiring them to submit an attestation (written document), in which they had to indicate their reasons to leave home. A number of specific reasons were listed on the attestation (Trésident 2021). These included medical appointments, providing baby-sitting services, taking care of the elderly, relocating, visiting nursing homes, taking pets for a short walk. Schools, universities, and nurseries were still operating but not at full capacity. It was reported that the incidence rate had climbed to 273 cases per 100,000 inhabitants (Dergelet 2021). Further restrictions were in place in order to force residents to remain at home. Travelling beyond 10 kilometres was prohibited unless an attestation was produced. Businesses were encouraged to work four days online. Essential businesses such as banks, insurances, markets, laundromats, car dealers, and others were authorized to continue their operations (Dergelet 2021). During the month of July 2021, Martinique was experiencing one of its worse moments with the pandemic. Forty-two people were admitted to the hospital while 12 were placed in the intensive care unit. A month later, 359 people were hospitalized and 60 were admitted into the intensive care unit. There were now 901 infections per 100,000 inhabitants. The Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de la Martinique (CHUM), which is the general hospital, was under tremendous pressure. Stretchers accumulated in the corridors of the hospital and health workers were extremely exhausted. Patients 60  years or younger would be treated before those who were much older (Michalik 2021). Both ARS and Prefecture had highlighted a sharp increase of COVID-19 cases in Martinique. In mid-July 2021, 3537 new cases and 8 deaths were recorded. Positivity rate was above the alert threshold of 10% compared to the previous week. People aged between 15 and 44 years were particularly affected (Samyde 2021). Since the beginning of the vaccination campaign in Martinique, 52,334 people had been fully vaccinated. In order to

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control the situation, non-vaccinated people were only allowed to travel for specific reasons. The curfew hours started at 9.00 p.m. and ended at 5.00  a.m. A week before, only 14% of the population was vaccinated. During a press conference, Préfet Stanislas Cazelles made it clear to Martinicans that a three-week lockdown was necessary. Thirteen people died from the disease and 792 new cases were recorded within four days at the end of July 2021. Therefore, the lockdown period started at the end of the month of July and was to end in mid-August. However, it was extended for another three-week period. Since the beginning of the outbreak, 405 people had succumbed to the COVID-19 virus. Out of the 22,351 tests that were carried out in mid-­ August 2021, 3211 persons tested positive. The total number of infected people was at 34,845. According to Pinel-Fereol (2021), these figures were published by the ARS. Moreover, the incidence rate was estimated at 875 (number of cases over 7 days per 100,000 inhabitants). The positivity rate rose to 14.4%, with 539 patients hospitalized, 78 of whom were in intensive care. A total of 470 people were transferred to the CHUM while 69 were at the Saint-Paul Clinic (Pinel-Fereol 2021). This grim picture prompted the French government to act quickly. During the lockdown, residents were required to stay at home from 5.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m. An attestation was submitted to the police station in case a person had to leave home. The French authorities recommended that citizens work online as much as possible. Access to beaches was prohibited except for persons who held a medical certificate recommending some exercising activities. However, both essential and non-essential businesses remained open, and their staff were required to wear a mask (Etienne 2021a). In mid-September 2021, some of the restrictions were lifted. Restaurants were allowed to open to the public with a mandatory health pass. Daytime travelling gradually resumed. The curfew in effect since August was pushed back to 8.00 p.m., and 10.00 p.m. for cultural, leisure, and catering activities with a travel certificate waiver (Treuil 2022). Besides attestations and lockdowns, France created a health certificate called a passe sanitaire or Health pass to fight against the virus. A number of criteria were outlined to get the passe sanitaire (Gouvernement 2021). Individuals who were fully vaccinated would receive their passe sanitaire seven days after the second injection. People who received the Johnson and Johnson one-dose vaccine could obtain their passe sanitaire 20 days after. Finally, persons who contracted the virus and received their first dose received their pass as well.

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On August 9, 2021, the passe sanitaire was implemented by the French government in order to control the spread of the Delta variant (Gouvernement 2021). In Martinique, the passe sanitaire went into effect on September 22, 2022. Anyone who was desirous of frequenting public spaces such as bars, libraries, and hospitals must produce some proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test (Ward et al. 2022). The passe sanitaire was extended to restaurants, face-to-face seminars for professionals (50 persons allowed), health institutions, persons visiting relatives in the hospital, long-distance journeys (trains), and stores/malls (size: over 20,000 m2). At the entrance of the mall, a security guard was designated to ensure that persons present their passe sanitaire. Health passes were required for commercial catering activities (bars and restaurants, including on terraces) with the exception of collective catering or take-away of prepared meals, professional road catering (on the basis of a list validated by prefectural decree) and rail catering, room service of hotel restaurants and bars, and non-commercial catering, including the free distribution of meals (Gouvernement 2021). For travelling, a 72- or 48- hour-PCR test was mandatory for travellers visiting certain destinations such as Corsica, EU countries, and French Overseas Departments. However, self-testing even under a health provider’s supervision was not accepted to travel to these destinations. All French citizens were advised to install the TousAntiCovid (All Against Covid) application on their mobile phone in order to download their passe sanitaire. The passe sanitaire is an EU digital anti-COVID certificate with a QR code that is readable by the TousAntiCovid app. Further regulations in relation to the passe sanitaire were implemented on December 15, 2021 (2021). For instance, 65-year-old people (and older) who received their vaccine needed to take their booster six months after their initial shot so that their health pass remained activated. A four-week grace period was given to them so that they could receive a booster. People who received their second dose of any of the other vaccines on May 17, 2021 could receive their booster on December 15, to keep their passe sanitaire (Gouvernement 2021). When the passe sanitaire came into effect on September 22, 2021 (Etienne 2021b), all persons who were 18 years and older were required to be fully vaccinated to go to public spaces and attend public events. On October 7, 2021, the director of the CHUM required that all visitors, patients, health workers, and staff members entering the premises of the hospital be vaccinated or show a negative PCR test (of less than 72 hours).

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In the event of a non-valid passe sanitaire, for the period of October 11–24, 2021, the CHUM staff member could present either a badge or a piece of evidence indicating that he/she was working at the hospital (Etienne 2021a). However, they were required to show a letter indicating that they were committed to take a PCR test every 72  hours (Etienne 2021c). On October 24, 2021, vaccination became mandatory for all individuals working in health facilities and services (Etienne 2021a). Thirty thousand people received their first dose between October 24 and October 26, 2021 (Livori and Etienne 2021). The figures increased from 99,937 to 129,803 for the first injection, which represented 41% of the population aged 12 and over (Livori and Etienne 2021). In October 2021, the number of people aged between 64 and 75 years old who had completed their vaccination schedule was on the rise. It increased from 70,682 to 118,096. This figure represented 50% of the population in that age group. Thirty-five per cent of people aged between 18 and 49 were fully vaccinated during the same period (Livori and Etienne 2021). However, the number of fully vaccinated persons has not exceeded 20% in both Guadeloupe and Martinique. The details on this matter are further discussed in the chapter. The ARS reported that 16.14% of the population over 12  years old were fully vaccinated compared to Metropolitan France, where 63.48% of people were fully vaccinated (De Founas 2021). In Guadeloupe, only 27.7% of adults received at least one dose of the vaccine. On March 14, 2022, the French authorities suspended the passe sanitaire requirement to enter any indoor spaces (restaurants, bars, professional events, etc.). Nevertheless, it remained in effect for people who visit hospitals, nursing homes, or any medical facilities (République française-Service-­Public. fr 2022).

Socio-economic Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Martinique’s Economy Like other countries in the world, Martinique has not been spared by the COVID-19 pandemic. The country confirmed its first cases on March 5, 2020. The first lockdown started on March 17 and ended on May 11, 2020. A second lockdown was implemented from October 29 to December 14, 2020. These two periods of lockdown and travel restrictions impacted Martinique’s economy. Due to the closure of businesses and decline of

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household consumption, Martinique’s economy experienced a 20% contraction. In 2020, exports decreased by 22% compared to the previous year. Shipments of refined oil-based products fell by 22% owing to health restrictions and lockdowns. While durable consumer goods dropped by 0.7%, imports of non-durable goods such as textiles, food products, and pharmaceuticals rose by 3.1% (Blanc and Cheptitski 2021). The pandemic has also impacted the construction industry. In 2019, 2400 construction sites were opened. The following year, only 1600 (construction sites) were in operation. This was a decline of 34% (Beltran 2020). Martinique has 34 towns which are managed by three main institutions. The Communauté d’Agglomération du Centre de la Martinique (CACEM) was created in 1992. It comprises the four main central towns, namely, Fort-de-France, Lamentin, Saint-Joseph, and Schoelcher. This institution represents 160,000 residents (42% of Martinique’s population), 60% of employment, and 18,000 businesses. The mayors of all four cities work together to ensure that residents can access the best services (electricity, housing, water, and transportation). In 2020, the CACEM granted only 1059 (18%) construction permits to its residents compared to the previous year (Beltran 2020). Also known as Espace Sud, the Communauté d’Agglomération de l’Espace Sud de la Martinique (CAESM) was established in 2004. The role of this institution does not differ from that of the CACEM and CAP in the sense that it ensures that the residents of the south-eastern cities of the island are well supplied in terms of electricity, housing, transportation, and water. CAESM represents a population of 117,986 inhabitants and stretches over an area of 409.1 km2 (Annuaire Mairie n.d.). Furthermore, it creates and develops industrial, craft, port, and tourist areas. The CAESM of the 12 southern towns granted 1080 construction permits to its residents, representing 19% of the total number of permits. Finally, the Communauté d’Agglomération du Pays Nord Martinique (CAP) was founded in 2013. It comprises 18 northern towns and has a population of 100,347 inhabitants. In 2020, 644 construction permits were given to residents (Beltran 2020). CAP is in charge of residents living in the north of Martinique, and its responsibilities are similar to those of CAESM and CACEM. In the third quarter of 2021, the number of paid jobs in the construction sector was estimated at 120,300. Therefore, the salaried workforce fell by 1.4% compared to the previous quarter. There were 1660 fewer jobs (Mével et al. 2022). In this sector, the paid workforce experienced a

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decrease of 1.8%. The number of people employed was estimated at 49,910 (900 fewer paid jobs). The number of jobs in the private sector also declined by 2% compared to the previous quarter. There were 1650 fewer people who were employed in construction. However, the public sector remained stable. In the non-market tertiary sector, the number of employees decreased by 0.8% in the third quarter of 2021. That sector employed 49,730 people, 410 fewer than in the previous quarter (Mével et al. 2022). A survey was conducted by the QualiStat Institute between September 29 and October 12, 2020, to take the pulse of the business sector. A total of 543 entrepreneurs were interviewed and expressed their views on how the health crisis impacted their businesses. In its report, QualiStat Institute indicated that some businesses reported that their turnover had fallen by 50%. Other businesses expressed great concerns about their future and foresaw another lockdown and permanent closure. A few businesses opted for either partial employment or teleworking in order to survive (QualiStat Etudes Conseil 2020, 6). During an interview that was conducted by reporter Hervé Brival in May 2020, Philippe Jock, the director of the Martinique Chamber of Commerce and Industry, expressed his views on both partial employment and teleworking (Brival 2020). According to him, partial employment helped businesses preserve jobs and skills in the first instance. Without disclosing figures, Jock argued that teleworking was costly for the French state. Therefore, he advised that businesses should resume face-to-face while observing social distancing measures. Partial employment request was granted to 6854 businesses. This figure represented 48,044 employees in the private sector (Brival 2020). Jock added that these figures were published by the DIECCTE Institution (Direction des Entreprises, de la Concurrence, de la Consommation du Travail et de l’Emploi). Prior to the pandemic, tourism contributed between 10 and 12% of the GDP of Martinique (Ecorys 2021). These percentages represented 580 million euros yearly (Ecorys 2021). The number of visitors had been on the rise (19%) because both cruise sector and stay tourism recorded an increase of 45% and 3.1% respectively. Sixty-three per cent of those visitors were of French origin (Raimbaud et  al. 2018). In 2019, with 963,900 visitors, tourist arrivals fell below the million-visitor threshold after a two-­ year prosperous season. This drop was generated by a decline in the number of cruise passengers which fell by 27.4% compared to 2018 (Marques 2021).

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The pandemic paralysed the tourism sector in 2020. It was indicated that 559,600 visitors came to Martinique in 2020. This number represents a decline of 41.9% compared to 2019 (Marques 2021). Both closure of borders and health protocols were held responsible for the decline of cruise passengers and tourists. Cruise ships made 83 fewer stops than in 2019, bringing their total number to 110 in 2020, following the decision of the authorities to prevent cruise lines from accessing the various French ports in March 2020. Thus, only 79,373 passengers began and ended their cruise in Martinique, including 30,650 headliners, down 33.3% compared to 2019. The number of tourists staying in hotel structures, rural cottages, furnished tourism apartments, villas, or homestays was below the threshold of 500,000 visitors for the first time since 2015 (Marques 2021). The majority of tourists who come to Martinique originate from France and account for 71.7% of the flow of tourists (Marques 2021). No further comments were made by Marques (2021) in relation to the stable numbers of French visitors who came to Martinique in 2020. Nevertheless, this stability may be explained by the fact that the French Caribbean islands have usually been the first destination that Metropolitan French choose to spend their holidays. Such was not the case for North American and European tourists whose numbers fell by 76.8% and 43% respectively. The annual decline in tourists (43.9%) was more marked in the second half of 2020 than in the first half (46.3% and 42% respectively compared to the same periods in 2019). All visitors, including tourists and day trippers, spent directly 254.7 million euros, a decrease of 48% compared to 2019. It was stated that 991,205 local passengers were transported in 2020, while the number of local passengers was estimated at 1971, 655 in 2019 (Jean-Marie 2021). In sum, total passenger traffic dropped by 50.1% in comparison to the previous year, following the unfavourable situation of transit traffic (60.0%). Travelling from Martinique to Guadeloupe and French Guiana was very difficult due to the health protocols that were put in place to reduce the risk of spreading the virus across these territories. As a result, the number of connecting flights between the three French Overseas Departments decreased by 53.7%. The flights transported 208,238 passengers to Guadeloupe (52% less compared to the previous year). A total of 27,446 passengers were taken to French Guiana (65.5% decrease compared to 2019). Even traffic to and from France decreased by 45% (Jean-­ Marie 2021).

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The hotel industry lost 41 million euros (69%) between 2019 and 2020 (Ecorys 2021). Self-employed people who were working in the areas of tourism, culture, and leisure suffered the consequences of the pandemic since they had “no active source of income”. They were still paying taxes in spite of their challenges. It was observed that these self-employed individuals were involved in accommodation and food services (Ecorys 2021, 12). During the first lockdown, the majority of hotels had to close “with only one in eight hotels open in Martinique”. Seventy per cent of hotels were open in June 2020 (Ecorys 2021, 12).

French Government and the Collectivité Territoriale’s (CTM) Response to Businesses Since the beginning of the pandemic, both the French government and CTM responded to the needs of businesses by offering different types of financial mechanisms. This financial support system has taken the form of state-guaranteed loans called Prêts Garantis par l’Etat (PGE) and moratoria on the repayment of their loans from banks. As of June 5, 2020, PGEs were given to 2228 businesses for a sum of 484 million euros. Eighty-six per cent of small companies (with fewer than 10 employees) were the ones who benefitted from this financial support system. According to the literature, 17,700 moratoria on loans were granted to companies as well. Furthermore, it was noted that firms in the automotive retail sector, and the trade and repair sector, were the main recipients of the PGE (Cornut et al. 2020). Since 2020, The Fonds de Solidarité (Solidarity Fund) has been made available for both medium-sized and small businesses. It consists of two components. In the first component, micro-entrepreneurs, independent workers, and medium-sized and small businesses have been entitled to a sum of 1500 euros once they fulfil certain requirements (Collectivité de la Martinique n.d.). This financial assistance is provided by the French state. For example, these companies must have ten employees and a turnover of 1 million euros. They are also supposed to have lost 50% of their turnover in March 2020 compared to March 2019. Finally, they have been required to be up to date with their social security contributions and tax payments (as at 31 December 2019) (Collectivité de la Martinique n.d.). In the second component, additional financial assistance has been given by the CTM since April 1, 2020. A sum of 2000 or 5000 euros has been

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allocated to those businesses who have not been able to settle their debts. They are also eligible for the Fonds de Solidarité when the bank has refused to grant them a liquidity loan or has not responded to them within ten days (Collectivité de la Martinique n.d.). Another financial support system called Fonds de Subvention Territoriale (FST) was put in place by the CTM (Collectivité de la Martinique n.d.). It has been made available for small and medium-sized businesses. In French, small and medium-sized businesses are referred to as (Très) Petites and Moyennes Entreprises (TPE and PM). In order to obtain the FST, both TPE and PM must be based in Martinique and have fewer than 50 employees and a turnover of 2.5 million euros or less. However, large and medium-sized companies, food businesses, real estate businesses, and regulated professions have not been entitled to the FST. To qualify for the FST, businesses must have started operating at least six months prior to March 15, 2020. They would have had to experience cash flow difficulties with loss turnover of 30% from January to March 2020. If they fit the criteria, businesses who lost 30% of their revenues between January and March 2020 received between 1000 and 10,000 euros for at least a year. Finally, if some companies experienced slowdown in their activities, they would be granted a flat rate aid of 1000 or 5000 euros for one year. They were eligible for this financial assistance provided that they had lost 10% of their revenues.

Martinicans’ Response to the Pandemic and Vaccination The health crisis had a psychological impact on Martinicans. After the first lockdown, there was a peak in the number of patients who visited osteopathy, sophrology, and psychotherapy practices because they felt stressed (Etienne 2021b). These patients experienced joint problems and physical pains due to lack of exercise and inadequate working conditions when it came to working remotely. Mrs Catherine Sainte-Rose Rosemond, a psychotherapist and sophrologist, observed that adults and young children were not coping well. According to her, several patients experienced anxiety, depression, eating habit disorders, and suicidal attempts (Etienne 2021c). In Martinique, an association known as SOS Kriz, whose aim is to assist people who are in distress, reported that some individuals had been living

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in fear after catching the virus (Etienne 2021a). In some cases, those individuals saw themselves dying at the Intensive Care Unit. It was noted that the Martinican society had become ill and disorganized. Others, such as businessmen and young and elderly people, expressed their fear, frustrations, and other negative feelings. While the elderly people were feeling isolated, the young people did not like the restrictions. However, SOS Kriz professionals recommended that people cultivate a positive attitude, exercise, and develop good eating habits, as well as remaining connected with friends either on the phone or via the internet (Etienne 2021b). Faced with the fourth wave of COVID-19  in the summer of 2021, Martinique postponed the reopening of school until September 13, 2021. Some parents who expressed concern about the situation told the Huffpost magazine that they found the situation extremely stressful. Parents have felt stressed particularly in situations when there is nobody to help them look after their children. In some cases, their siblings were not living in the island and their own parents had died (Huffpost 2021). Some of these parents had to find ways to look after their child while working. They would seek permission from their bosses to alternate half-days of work to keep their offspring until the beginning of the school year (Huffpost 2021). Parents also expressed their concerns about the impact of delaying school on their children’s learning. Some teachers were worried about the operations of school canteens due to the high number of cases of infected persons. Martinicans’ response to both the health pass and vaccine has not been favourable. The French government’s decision to make both vaccination and passe sanitaire mandatory has generated discontentment among 200,000 Metropolitan French citizens who descended into the streets of Paris. In Fort-de-France (Martinique), more than 1000 people marched into the streets (Le Bien Public 2021). On October 24, 2022, vaccination for all health workers was made mandatory. This French law generated strikes among health workers who thought that the vaccine was not effective. After so many social movements, the passe sanitaire was no longer mandatory. Martinicans have lost trust in the French government since their bad experience with Chlordecone in the 1990s. In the early 1970s, this chemical was used to eradicate weevils on banana plantations. While it was banned in the United States, the French continued to use it in the French Caribbean until the 1990s (Bourelle 2021). As a result, there has been an increasing number of cancer cases. Today, the vaccine has been perceived as poisonous and as dangerous as the Chlordecone which has

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claimed the lives of many. Stéphanie Mulot, a sociologist, reports that some people preferred folk medicine over vaccination (Boscher and de Rousiers 2021).

Conclusion Managing the COVID-19 situation in Martinique has been a challenging task. The country has been facing similar problems as its Caribbean neighbours. The number of deaths has contributed to the further decline in an aging population, and this health crisis may have long-term effects on both the business and employment sectors. Unemployment has always been a major concern in the country as prior to the pandemic, many Martinicans migrated to France and Europe to better themselves. There is a possibility that migration will increasingly be seen as an option especially since there have been job losses in various economic sectors. The health crisis has shown that Martinique and its Caribbean neighbours need to work together in order to build resilience and regain socio-economic stability. Further research on the business sector, agriculture, and tourism will be relevant to better understand how strategies can be implemented to improve Caribbean economies.

References Annuaire, Mairie. n.d. L’espace Sud de la Martinique. https://www.annuaire-­ mairie.fr/communaute-­agglomeration-­de-­l-­espace-­sud-­de-­la-­martinique.html. Beltran, Laurent. 2020.Construction. Forte Régression des Ouvertures des Chantiers. Insee Conjoncture Economique. July 8, 2021. https://www.insee.fr/ fr/statistiques/5017095?sommaire=5017345. Blanc, Sylvie, and Aliette Cheptitski. 2021. Synthèse Régionale. Contexte National. Insee Conjoncture Economique. July 8, 2021. https://www.insee.fr/ fr/statistiques/5387702?sommaire=5017345. Boscher, Marie and Inès de Rousiers. 2021. Comment expliquer le faible taux de vaccination aux Antilles? franceinfo: 1 Le Portail des Outre-Mer, August 6, 2021. https://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/comment-­expliquer-­le-­faible-­taux-­de-­ vaccination-­dans-­les-­antilles-­1073659.html. Bourelle, Hélène. 2021. Covid-19. Vaccination aux Antilles: après le chloredécone, les habitants ne font plus confiance à l’Etat. Reporterre, August 25, 2021. https://reporterre.net/Vaccination-­aux-­Antilles-­apres-­le-­chlordecone-­leshabitants-­ne-­font-­plus-­confiance-­a-­l-­Etat.

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Brault, Brigitte. 2021. Coronavirus en Martinique: 7 décès et 862 cas entre le 5 et le 11 Avril 2011. franceinfo Martinique 1. April 13, 2021. https://la1ere. francetvinfo.fr/martinique/coronavirus-­en-­martinique-­862-­nouveaux-­cas-­ entre-­le-­5-­et-­le-­11-­avril-­2021-­982903.html Brival, Hervé. 2020. Nous serons aux côtés des entreprises pour le rebond. France-­ Antilles, May 9, 2020. https://www.martinique.franceantilles.fr/actualite/ economie/nous-­s erons-­a ux-­c otes-­d es-­e ntreprises-­p our-­p reparer-­l e-­ rebond-­554168.php. Collectivité de la Martinique. n.d. Covid-19. Dispositifs économiques de soutien aux entreprises. https://www.collectivitedemartinique.mq/dispositifs-­ economiques-­de-­soutien-­aux-­entreprises/. Cornut Mathieu, Jean louis, Michelle Minatchy, and David Lauret. 2020. Un recul de l’activité économique de 20% pendant le confinement. Insee Flash Martinique. June 30, 2020. https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/4622405. De Fournas, Marie. 2021. Coronavirus aux Antilles. Pourquoi autant de Guadeloupéens et Martiniquais sont réfractaires à la vaccination. 20 Minutes Actualités. August 3, 2021. https://www.20minutes.fr/sante/3096543-­ 20210803-­coronavirus-­antilles-­pourquoi-­autant-­guadeloupeens-­martiniquais-­ refractaires-­vaccination. Dergelet, Florine. 2021. Nouveau confinement de 3 semaines pour la Martinique. Passeport Santé. https://www.passeportsante.net/fr/Actualites/Nouvelles/ Fiche.aspx?doc=nouveau-­confinement-­3-­semaines-­martinique. Ecorys. 2021. Outermost Region Fiche Martinique. Study on the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Outermost Regions. December 20, 2021. https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/index.cfm?action=publications.details &languageCode=en&publicationId=1505. Etienne, Guy. 2021a. 11 octobre. Entrée en vigueur du ‘passe sanitaire’ dans les lieux et établissements recevant du public en Martinique. https://la1ere. francetvinfo.fr/martinique/11-­o ctobre-­2 021-­e ntree-­e n-­v igueur-­d u-­p ass-­ sanitaire-­dans-­les-­lieux-­et-­etablissements-­recevant-­du-­public-­en-­martinique-­ 1124428.html. ———. 2021b. 4ème vague de Covid en Martinique: reconfinement pour 3 semaines et couvre-feu avancé à 19 h. franceinfo: Martinique 1, July 28, 2021. https://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/martinique/4e-­vague-­de-­covid-­en-­martinique-­ reconfinement-­pour-­3-­semaines-­et-­couvre-­feu-­avance-­a-­19h-­1068871.html. ———. 2021c. Cette pendémie qui fragilise l’équilibre pyschologique des Martiniquais. Comment ne pas perdre pied. franceinfo: Martinique 1, February 7, 2021. https://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/martinique/cette-­pandemie-­qui-­ fragilise-­l-­equilibre-­psychologique-­des-­martiniquais-­comment-­ne-­pas-­perdre-­ pied-­927436.html. Europe 1. 2021. Dès le 15 décembre, le maintien du passe sanitaire conditionné à la dose de rappel pour les plus de 65 ans. https://www.europe1.fr/sante/

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des-le-15-decembre-le-maintien-du-pass-sanitaire-conditionne-a-la-dose-derappel-pour-les-plus-de-65-ans-4076145. Ewag Média Positif. 2022. Face au confinement, le pays n’attend pas et la CTM s’engage. June 15, 2022. https://www.ewag.fr/2020/04/ctm-­actions-­ covid19/. Gouvernement. 2021. Passe sanitaire: toutes les réponses à vos questions. July 12, 2021. https://www.gouvernement.fr/actualite/pass-­sanitaire-­toutes-­ les-­reponses-­a-­vos-­questions. Granvorka, Charley, and Pierre Angelli. 2016. The European Legal Framework in the French Caribbean. Social and Economic Studies 65 (1): 87–105. Special Issue: Linking Ocean Governance in the Caribbean. https://www.jstor.org/ stable/pdf/26380111.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ac47ff6f2b0354cfa5abe83d7 1d50e490&ab_segments=&or. Huffpost. 2021. Rentrée Scolaire: En Martinique, les parents d’élèves s’inquiètent. https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/entry/rentree-­scolaire-­martinique-­parents-­ deleves-­sinquietent_fr_612f6f39e4b04778bffef567. Jean-Marie, José. 2021. Transport aérien. La crise sanitaire porte un coup d’arrêt au traffic aérien. Insee Conjoncture Economique. July 8, 2021. https://www. insee.fr/fr/statistiques/5398660?sommaire=5017345. Le Bien Public. 2021. Covid-19: La mobilisation anti-passe sanitaire en baisse en France. https://www.bienpublic.com/sante/2021/10/02/covid-­19-­le-­taux-­ d-­i ncidence-­e n-­b aisse-­r etrouvez-­l es-­d epartements-­o u-­l e-­v irus-­c ircule-­ le-­moins. Livori, Alain, and Guy Etienne. 2021. Les chiffres de la vaccination progressent lentement Martinique. franceinfo: Martinique 1. November 3, 2021. https:// la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/martinique/les-­chiffres-­de-­la-­vaccination-­progressent-­ lentement-­en-­martinique-­1144597.html. Martinique1. 2020. Ce qu’il sera possible ou non de faire à partir du 11 mai. May 11, 2020. https://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/martinique/debut-du-deconfinement-quelles-dispositions-prises-par-les-maires-de-martinique-830796.html. Marques, Bruno. 2021. Tourisme-Chute de la frequentation. Insee Conjoncture Martinique. July 8, 2021. https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/5017164?so mmaire=5017345. Mével, Eric, Nora Eliot and Antonin Creignou. 2022. La crise sanitaire freine l’économie martiniquaise. Note de Conjoncture Régionale—3ème trimestre 2021. Insee Conjoncture Martinique. January 13, 2022. https://www.insee.fr/ fr/statistiques/6036615. Michalik, Marie-Lévine. 2021. Covid-19: les chiffres pour comprendre la quatrième vague en Outre-Mer. Le Figaro Sciences. August 16, 2021. https:// www.lefigaro.fr/sciences/covid-­1 9-­p ortrait-­e n-­c hiffres-­d e-­l a-­q uatrieme-­ vague-­en-­outre-­mer-­20210816.

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Pastorale Sociétale. n.d. Les Missions de la CTM. https://pastoralesocietale. eglisemartinique.fr/531-­les-­mission-­de-­lactm.htm#:~:text=Qu'est%20ce%20 que%20la,les%20solidarit%C3%A9s%20et%20le%20sport. Pinel-Fereol, Peggy. 2021. Coronavirus en Martinique: 405 décès depuis le début de l’épidémie et 3211 nouveaux cas du 16 au 22 août 2021. franceinfo: Martinique 1, August 24, 2021. https://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/martinique/ coronavirus-­e n-­m artinique-­4 05-­d eces-­d epuis-­l e-­d ebut-­d e-­l -­e pidemie-­ et-­3-­211-­nouveaux-­cas-­du-­16-­au-­22-­aout-­2021-­1086691.html. QualiStat Etudes Conseil. 2020. Impact de l’épidémie de COVID-19 sur les entreprises de la Martinique. https://www.qualistat.fr/images/Sondages/ Societe/impact-­epidemie-­covid-­19-­entreprises-­martinique-­vague-­2.pdf Raimbaud, Baptiste, Floraline Cratère, and Dominique Trefoloni. 2018. Le Tourisme aux Antilles: à la conquête d’une plus large clientèle. Insee Analyses Guadeloupe. November 28, 2018. https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/ 3651505. Republique française Service-Public.fr. 2022. Passe sanitaire après le 14 mars 2022: dans quels lieux? https://www.service-­public.fr/particuliers/actualites/A15556. Samyde, Jean-Claude. 2021. Covid: l’épidémie flambe en Martinique avec 3537 cas et 8 décès en une semaine. franceinfo: Martinique 1. https://la1ere. francetvinfo.fr/martinique/covid-­l -­e pidemie-­f lambe-­e n-­m artinique-­ avec-­3537-­cas-­en-­une-­semaine-­1067998.html. Senbel, Eric. 2011. Mieux comprendre le rôle des agences régionales de santé. La Lettre du Rhumatologue 37: 35–37. https://www.edimark.fr/Front/frontpost/getfiles/17226.pdf. Treuil, Aurélie. 2022. La Martinique en 2021: une année sous couvre-feu. franceinfo: Martinique 1, January 22, 2022. https://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/martinique/la-­martinique-­en-­2021-­une-­annee-­sous-­couvre-­feu-­1197805.html. Trésident, Inès. 2021. Les mesures du 3e confinement s’appliquent samedi matin (17 avril 2021). https://la1ere.francetvinfo.fr/martinique/les-mesures-du3e-confinement-en-mar tinique-s-appliquent-des-samedi-matin-17-avril-2021-986017.html. UFETAM. 2020. Reconfinement. Ce qui est autorisé, restreint ou interdit à partir de 30 octobre 2020. Last modified 15 June 2022. https://www.cfdt-­ufetam. org/reconfinement-­c e-­q ui-­e st-­a utorise-­r estreint-­o u-­i nterdit-­a -­p artir-­d e-­ 30-­octobre-­2020/. Ward, Jeremy K. Fatima Gauna, Amandine Gagneux-Brunon, Elisabeth Botelho-­ Nevers, Jean-Luc Cracowski, Charles Khouri, Odile Launay, Pierre Verger, and Patrick Peretti-Watel. 2022. The French Health Pass Holds Lessons for Mandatory COVID-19. Nature Medecine 28. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-­021-­01661-­7.pdf.

CHAPTER 10

Using Monitoring and Evaluation and Evidence-Based Data to Build a More Resilient and Sustainable Caribbean Post-COVID-19 Nadini Persaud and Ruby Dagher

Introduction COVID-19 has profoundly changed our world, forcing us to embrace a new normal. At the same time, the pandemic has clearly demonstrated that the world’s people are not only resilient, but also quite innovative and capable of adapting. However, success on these fronts is shaped by many factors and circumstances. As the Caribbean region strategizes on how to

N. Persaud (*) The Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business and Management, The University of West Indies, Bridgetown, Barbados e-mail: [email protected] R. Dagher University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Roberts et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30889-5_10

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rebuild to make its countries more resilient to withstand future shocks, the design of developmental policies needs to be holistic, proactive, and forward-thinking. Simultaneously, and given the region’s commitment to the United Nations (UN) 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Agenda, these developmental policies must also be intricately aligned and integrated with this Agenda (Persaud and Dagher 2021a). This is a momentous endeavour for a region with an already fragile socio-economic fabric and a significant level of dependence on tourism for economic survival and advancement (Coley-Graham 2020). This, along with the reality of constant exposure to severe climate- and nature-induced shocks, has made development progress in the region quite volatile (Bourne et  al. 2015). More recently, the region’s financial woes have been considerably exacerbated with COVID-19-related deficits, including lost tourism dollars, which have directly impacted households in the region. This chapter will provide insight on how developmental policies should be designed and structured to move the Caribbean forward so that the region can become more resilient and sustainable. It will examine the various influences—internal and external to the region—that impact the development of policies and the achievement of the desired results. It will also explain why monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and, by extension, evidence-­based data are important and how both can help policymakers better understand the direct and indirect consequences of the pandemic and of the various policies (pre- and post-pandemic). Ultimately, and as demonstrated throughout the chapter, this integrated and evidence-based approach is proffered to propel the region on a pathway towards economic growth and development that is intricately intertwined with developing and building resilience and sustainability, along with greater equality and justice for the region’s people, so that no one is left behind. The chapter is structured as follows: Section “Introduction” provides context for the chapter. Section “Background and Regional Challenges” provides a brief overview on the region’s demographics, examines the impact of COVID-19 on the region and the measures implemented to endure the shock, discusses the impediments crippling economic progress in the region, examines the internal and external influences that impact developmental policies and the achievement of desired results, reviews the challenges with M&E and data collection in the region, and summarizes the manifesto of the UN 2030 SDGs Agenda. Section “Making the Caribbean more resilient and sustainable—the strategic road map and game plan needed for the catalyst of transformation” looks at adopting a

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systems thinking approach to developmental planning, valuing evidencebased data as the lifeblood of strategy formulation, exhibiting better and improved governance through accountability and transparency and routinizing M&E, fostering closer and more regional partnerships, improving fiscal and policy space, diversification of economies, prioritizing food security, incorporating the SDGs Agenda into developmental strategic planning, transforming public sector culture, regaining citizen trust to propel growth and economic development, empowering citizens to become more resilient and sustainable, and defending the region’s interests. The final section provides a brief conclusion.

Background and Regional Challenges Caribbean Region—Demographics The Caribbean region comprises an archipelago of islands with a land mass size of approximately 226,000 square kilometres and a population of roughly 44 million people (Worldometers 2022). The region is a melting pot of cultural diversity and ethnicities—a direct reflection of the region’s colonial past and its economic and administrative relationships with various European countries (Baptiste et al. 2019). Predominant languages are English, Dutch, French, Spanish, and Creole (Worldatlas 2022). The Caribbean has formed a number of economic partnerships including CARICOM, CARIFORUM, and the OECS to promote policy dialogue and cooperation (Baptiste et al. 2019). Impact of COVID-19 on the Region and Measures Implemented to Endure the Shock The economies of the Caribbean region which were already in a fragile economic state prior to the onslaught of the COVID-19 (Byron et  al. 2021) have been devastated by the pandemic. The pandemic has eroded decades of economic development and severely crippled many country economies (Persaud in press-a). Tourism, which accounts for roughly one-­ third of GDP in a majority of countries (Coley-Graham 2020), has been hit hard. The unemployment situation in the region has also been considerably exacerbated, worsening the economic quandary of the region. Throughout the pandemic, regional governments have tried to preserve livelihoods with a variety of temporary pledges such as food and income

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support, unemployment benefits (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development 2020), and cash injections to keep some businesses and sectors afloat (International Labour Office 2020). This has, however, come at the cost of rising country indebtedness (Arteaga et al. 2020). Presently, the region’s countries are cautiously starting to reopen their borders to save their economies from further devastation. However, this balancing act comes with a significant investment to regularly update national COVID-19 protocols and policies that simultaneously encourage visitors and keep their populations safe, policing these protocols and policies and monitoring them to gauge their effectiveness, and ensuring that adequate action is taken to prevent the spread of the virus. With new and emerging mutations of the virus, vaccine hesitancy by many Caribbean people, and a decrease in the adherence to public health measures (Pan American Health Organization 2021) such as social distancing and mask wearing by citizens of the region, trying to rebuild country economies in the region is a challenging endeavour. Impediments Crippling Economic Progress in the Region The Caribbean faces several developmental challenges (Bourne et al. 2015; Inter-American Development Bank [IDB] 2012). In contrast to other parts of the world where the average annual growth rate has been approximately 2 percent in low- and middle-income countries since 1970, the majority of countries in this region have underperformed other small economies. The region as a whole has experienced considerable volatility in terms of output performance, and relative growth performance has declined over the past 50 years (IDB 2022). Progress has been hindered by a number of antecedents including small size and limited resources; emigration of many educated professionals; rising unemployment (Bourne et al. 2015); high levels of economic openness with resultant dependency on a few sectors which has impacted the economic stability of the region (Dagher 2019; IDB 2022); acute vulnerability to natural hazards and climate-­induced exogenous shocks which continuously undermines macroeconomic stability and has hindered economic progress; inadequate infrastructure and economic and institutional structures to propel economic growth (IDB 2022; Persaud in press-a; Persaud and Dagher 2021a) and encourage foreign investment (Bourne et al. 2015); mistrust by citizens which suppresses growth, entrepreneurship, innovation, and investment and creates inequity (Keefer and Scartascini 2022); heavy reliance on foreign trade dependency; challenges in accessing concessionary

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financing; and low exports and diseconomies of scale (Bourne et al. 2015) which inevitability affect global competitiveness. Internal and External Influences That Impact Developmental Policies and the Achievement of Desired Results Development is an endeavour that requires change at the economic, political, environmental, and social level. In the Caribbean, development is a process that integrates an ecosystem of actors, processes, and legally binding agreements at the local, regional, and international levels. As such, as a process, policy development requires the integration of local, regional, and international factors. This ecosystem of factors includes a large variation of actors ranging from the people of these countries, development agencies, international non-governmental organizations, and regional economic actors, to regional and international financial institutions. The processes include those related to economic, political, and environmental agreements made at the regional and international levels. As such, the development of policies by Caribbean governments is a balancing act between local, regional, and international limitations and opportunities. One important underlying factor in this balancing act is how power is distributed in this ecosystem. Understanding the role of power, the inherent limitations within this ecosystem, and the resulting implications allows for a better appreciation of the design of certain policies and programmes. For most Small Island Developing States (SIDS), including those in the Caribbean, the most powerful influences lie outside of their borders: open markets that make countries very vulnerable to international economic shocks (von Togerstrom 2005; Wade 2003); heavy reliance on luxury product sectors (e.g., tourism and offshore banking) that are very sensitive to changes in the income of those living in other countries, especially those outside the region (Dagher 2019); agreements with international financial institutions and regional development banks that provide significant influence and control over expenditure, budgeting, and policy design based on a specific ideology (International Monetary Fund 2016); signatures and commitments to conventions at the international and regional levels that require certain action (e.g., the SDGs Agenda) or limit certain policy options (e.g., trade rules as per the World Trade Organization); and climate events that result from global climate change. However, it remains important to note that internal factors could also be quite damaging. Examples include corruption, mismanagement and waste of public sector

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funds, limited or no accountability and transparency by elected public sector officials, the disregard of the interests of certain groups, inequity and injustice, discrimination, the development of policies based on inaccurate information or missing evidence, the overlooking of data-driven knowledge and expertise, and, in some cases, retention of power through aggressive actions (Persaud 2022). Challenges with Monitoring and Evaluation and Data Collection in the Region The majority of the countries in the region have very small populations and many are coping with austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund. Scarce financial resources invariably impact public sector capacity development for both data collection and internal M&E (Persaud and Dagher 2020). Additionally, a good proportion of the region’s development initiatives are funded by international and regional financiers (Bourne et al. 2015). A requisite component of a majority of development aid agreements is an ex post evaluation. These evaluations are frequently sponsored and commissioned by the funder. Consequently, the evaluation is generally designed around the information priorities of the funder, who wield considerable control over the evaluation methodology thus influencing “how evaluation is practiced and used” (Bamberger 2000, 96). This often results in a disconnect between “development information needs, research traditions, and social and political contexts in the host countries” (Bamberger 2000, 101) and inevitability contributes to low buy-in and support of evaluation (Persaud in press-a, in press-b). In other instances, national agencies can become overwhelmed with trying to meet funder data requests. Faced with the reality of human capacity constraints, and limited financial resources, data collection for national development needs are often placed on the backburner in lieu of the funder’s needs (Persaud 2019). Moreover, sponsor influence over evaluations, and pressure to focus on the results framework and short-term results, often result in “skewed or incomplete assessments” (Persaud and Dagher 2020, 263), which translates into further distrust in evaluation. The lingering effects of the region’s colonial past pose an additional dilemma. Many educated locals often do not question recommendations prescribed by international actors or the status quo of established protocols for fear of being considered as pseudo professionals. They are also quick to point out that their country is not classified as developing, even

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though the country’s statistics may indicate high levels of poverty and inequality (Persaud and Dagher 2020). Furthermore, many public sector officials are distrustful of outsiders whom they perceive as formulating judgement on their work, without a proper understanding of the unique country circumstances (Dagher 2019). Consequently, the region has a very limited appetite and culture for evaluation (Persaud in press-a). With respect to data collection in the region, “the capacity of national statistical systems is woefully inadequate in most Caribbean SIDS” (Bourne et al. 2015, 49). Absence of timely, credible, and essential evidence-based data that is sufficiently disaggregated by demographics is an ongoing concern that creates “a critical weakness in national and corporate planning for progress” (Bourne et al. 2015, 49) in the region. Compounding this problem is a noticeable and prevalent silo attitude evidenced by a general reluctance to share data locally and regionally, even for research purposes. More specifically, Soeknandan (2021) notes that “information about projects and IDP’s is often secret and not shared, not with the Secretariat, neither with other Member States” (2). This silo attitude with respect to data sharing has created inefficiencies and resulted in unexplored interlinkages (Persaud in press-a). It has also led to “duplication and triplication of activities without achieving the desired results” (Soeknandan 2021, 2). It is hard to pinpoint whether this silo attitude is a manifestation of the region’s history, which has transcended and created cultural inhibitions and a certain degree of mistrust on the part of citizens or is caused by some other reason. What is clear is that inadequate cooperation and information sharing, coupled with poor national statistical systems are serious impediments to informed decision-making and effective M&E in the region. The United Nations 2030 SDGs Agenda The 2030 transformative Agenda was ratified in 2015 by all UN members. It provides a common vision for saving our planet, achieving world peace, and ending inequality and poverty (UN 2020a). The Agenda’s 17 goals and 169 targets are intricately integrated and interlinked (UN 2020b). They are dependent on vast financial resources and successful collaboration and partnerships at the international, regional, and local levels. The Agenda as currently formulated has several inherent weaknesses that need to be addressed. In addition to issues related to the manner in which the Agenda was formed and some of the inherent analytical weaknesses within

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it, its timeline will also need to be revisited as the limited progress made to date has been derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, the Agenda requires some fresh rethinking. It also requires buy-in from the world’s most powerful and elite, as these players control the finances and influence that can make or break the Agenda (Persaud and Dagher 2021a, 2022). Thus, there is need to either eliminate these power dynamics or use them so that everyone benefits by reassessing the functioning of the current global economic system and by reconfiguring how several goals are defined, how they are integrated together, how they are measured, and how they are funded. For instance, the world has witnessed how power and the global economic system have played an important role in vaccine inequity and in the hoarding of vaccines by wealthier countries (Moosa et  al. 2021). If the Agenda is to be successful, profiteering for specific commodities will need to be controlled and fundamental behavioural and philosophical mindset changes will be needed, especially among the most powerful and influential actors.

Making the Caribbean More Resilient and Sustainable—the Strategic Road Map and Game Plan Needed for the Catalyst of Transformation Adopting a System Thinking Approach to Developmental Planning Social, economic, and political issues result from the interaction of a combination of factors and forces. Development itself is a result of changes and advancements on several fronts. As such, policies that are meant to make the Caribbean more resilient and sustainable require comprehensive approaches that are not piecemeal in nature (Persaud and Dagher 2021a). When policies are more comprehensive, they account for the intended and unintended effects on everyone, especially those who are the most vulnerable and marginalized. Using a system thinking approach for strategic policy planning is therefore essential since resilience and sustainability can only be derived from efforts taken that are sufficiently proactive, visionary, all inclusive, and integrative to transcend to the future. This requires proper understanding of how policies interconnect and contribute to the overall big picture—the road map and game plan (see Fig. 10.1). Working within narrow confines and focusing only on selected variables will not

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Impediments to Development Progress in the Region  Small size, small populations  Brain drain of educated persons  Piecemeal planning and decision-making done in isolation of credible, disaggregated evidencebased data  Limited accountability and transparency and M&E culture  Limited financial resources and limited access to concessionary funding  High levels of economic openness  Heavy dependency on a few sectors  Low exports and heavy reliance on foreign trade  Diseconomies of scale  Constant exposure to climate induced events  Inadequate infrastructure coupled with limited policies and/or inadequate policies to encourage foreign direct investment, entrepreneurship, innovation  Insufficient public/private partnerships

                

Philosophical mindset change for leaders and citizens alike driven by leaders walking the talk Visionary leadership that can effect catalytic transformational change Better and improved governance exhibited through accountability and transparency, and a culture of M&E Valuing credible disaggregated evidence-based data as the life-blood of informed decision-making Reliance on a holistic system thinking approach to strategic planning for the short-medium-long term Understanding the interlinkages between development objectives Integration of the SDG Agenda into developmental strategic planning and unde rstanding the interlinkages among the goals Driving the initiative for resilience and sustainability from CARICOM level—rather than at the country level Defending the region’s interests by reducing power asymmetries between international players and the region by negotiating as a region rather than as individual countries Forging closer regional partnerships to benefit from economies of scale, innovation, and intellectual capital Creating policies that encourage public-partner initiatives, entrepreneurship, innovation, research Removal of information silos and engaging in data sharing Prioritization of expenditure with a focus on value-for-money Policy inclusiveness geared at ensuring that no Caribbean country or citizen is left behind Citizen empowerment and making efforts to regain citizen trust Diversification of economies that enables individual countries to prosper without competing with each other Improvement of fiscal and policy space through improved fiscal balance, strengthened economies, and increased negotiating power with external actors

Fig. 10.1  Road map/game plan for the catalytic transformation needed to build resilience and sustainability in the Caribbean

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bring about the type of transformation needed. Systems thinking is, however, a very complex process, since it must study micro-macro connections, internal and external connections, country specific challenges, and so on. Such an approach requires “new and more intensive ways of engaging across multiple disciplinary, ideological, sector, governance and country boundaries” (Ofir et al. 2019, 4). It also requires vast financial resources and decision-making informed through credible and timely e­ vidence-­based data and regular M&E (Persaud and Dagher 2021a). Valuing Evidence-Based Data as the Lifeblood of Strategy Formulation The Caribbean faces numerous challenges in its quest to become more resilient and sustainable. As such, current and future decision-making and strategic planning must be based on objective data—specifically, evidence-­ based data (Persaud and Dagher 2021a). Given the myriad challenges that surround us, decision-makers must rely on information that can provide insight whilst minimizing guesswork (Persaud and Yates 2023). In this environment, data must be viewed in a new way, namely, “a critical component into the complex mosaic from which decisions emerge” (Persaud 2021, 1). Evidence-based data is clearly the logical solution to support the holistic systems thinking approach being proposed. Additionally, credible evidence-based data is important for justifying policy actions in the midst of scarce financial resources. Successfully navigating in the post-COVID-19 era, sensible rebuilding, prioritization, and proactive strategic planning cannot be done in isolation of credible and current evidence-based data as this forms the bedrock of “shaping and informing policies” (Persaud and Dagher 2021b, 4). Evidence-based data must become the DNA of the public sector (Persaud in press-a) and not only in response to donors, with data being seen as the “lifeblood of decision making” (Independent Expert Advisory Group 2014, 2). Rebuilding post-COVID-19 will require serious prioritization. Countries must simultaneously address immediate needs, whilst planning for longer-term resilience and sustainability, and leaving no one behind. This will require timely and credible data which is currently in short supply. Moreover, data must be sufficiently disaggregated to facilitate informed policy. For instance, COVID-19 has affected some more than others (women more than men), and this can only be truly appreciated if

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we have disaggregated data. Once we have that data, we can respond more appropriately. In this regard, urgent priority must be placed on developing and strengthening national statistical systems. This should ideally be done through regional partnerships to obtain cost reductions in data infrastructure. This will prove to be very beneficial for countries that are small and have limited resources and infrastructure. Having a standardized data collection system throughout the region is also important for measuring progress on the SDGs and to facilitate data sharing internally among line-­ Ministries and externally between Caribbean countries. This initiative should therefore be driven from CARICOM. Given the small size of the majority of countries in the region, resources, including intellectual property and financial, must be pooled, or the end goal may simply become a pipe dream. The Caribbean community must work in partnership for a better tomorrow. As noted by former Deputy Secretary General of CARICOM, Ambassador Dr Manorma Soeknandan, “One cannot focus on a plethora of actions all over the place;” rather there “is need to streamline activities towards achieving efficient, accountable and transparent results” (2021, 3). Additionally, commitment must be made at the CARICOM level for institutional capacity development and maintenance of the regional’s statistical systems, or these systems will likely not be improved in any meaningful way and may even deteriorate. The silo attitude with respect to data sharing must also be acknowledged. If the region is to progress, this crippling impediment to development progress must be removed. Progress cannot be achieved if scarce financial resources are continuously wasted on duplicating data and decision-­making is based on outdated and insufficiently disaggregated data. Reliable, valid, and timely data must become the central ingredient in decision-making (Persaud and Dagher 2021a). It is also important to ensure that development initiatives are not “confined to silos that ignore the interactions within, between and around them” (Ofir et al. 2019, 1). Exhibiting Better and Improved Governance Through Accountability and Transparency and Routinizing M&E Learning from mistakes is an important ingredient for success (Persaud and Dagher 2021a). However, the Caribbean region as a whole has not as yet embraced two fundamental hallmarks of good governance, namely, accountability and transparency. While many politicians preach about

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these characteristics on the campaign trail, actual demonstration while in office is often lacking. If the region is truly serious about building a more resilient and sustainable Caribbean, then the Caribbean’s public sector must develop a culture for accountability and transparency which must be facilitated through regular M&E (Persaud in press-a). Additionally, M&E can inform policymaking in many other ways including measuring progress from baseline, diagnosing problems, learning from mistakes, and assessing the suitability of policy actions (Persaud and Dagher 2021a). The region must, therefore, commit to putting the infrastructure in place to make M&E mandatory in all public sector organizations. This will require development of an M&E public sector policy that is supported by top leadership who must demonstrate seriousness of intent through provision of an adequate budget line-item in annual government estimates to make this process a reality (Persaud in press-a). Similar to the game plan needed for strengthening and building credible national statistical systems, this may also require intervention at the CARICOM level to drive this initiative and sustain the process. Moreover, given the financial reality of our times, public sector enterprises must also commit to a culture of cost-­ inclusive evaluation where public sector spending must justify costs in relation to benefits (Persaud 2018). Analysis of various alternatives must also be conducted to guarantee value-for-money and to ensure that the best configuration of development priorities is implemented with the limited and constrained financial resources (Persaud and Yates 2023) at the region’s disposal. Having proper functioning M&E systems and credible evidence-based data are fundamental prerequisites for a holistic system thinking approach to development planning geared towards resilience and sustainability. It is also critically important for ensuring that the most vulnerable and under-­ represented citizens in the region are incorporated in the national and regional development plans and policies, to ensure that no one is left behind. Fostering Closer and More Regional Partnerships There is need for greater and closer regional partnerships targeted at all levels of development progress (Bishop et  al. 2011). This will help to reduce costs through economies of scale, whilst simultaneously harmonizing processes. COVID-19 and other climate-induced events have clearly demonstrated that we do not operate in a bubble—we need each other

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(Persaud and Dagher 2021a). We are one region, and we must work in partnership if we are serious about sustainability and resilience. Moreover, serious thought must be given at the CARICOM level to determine the best suited development initiative that can propel growth in each Caribbean country, so that no country is left behind. Improving Fiscal and Policy Space The rebuilding of countries and economies in the Caribbean needs to occur through the improvement of the countries’ fiscal and policy spaces (Persaud and Dagher 2021a). By using M&E and data-driven policymaking processes, countries can ensure the cost-effective use of finances and help prioritize focus on policies and programmes that are meant to lead to improvement at the country level. It is imperative that Caribbean countries decrease their reliance on bailout from external players given the restrictions that these players often put on a country’s policy space (Bourne et al. 2015; Dagher 2019). In order to achieve this level of independence, countries need to consider economic viability, the development of their human capacity, and alternative means to deal with crises. Diversification of Economies Given the acute vulnerability and exposure of the region to natural hazards and the increasing number of climate-induced shocks caused by global warming, the Caribbean must decrease its vulnerability to external economic crises and economic volatility (Bourne et  al. 2015). This will require a multi-faceted approach including trade diversification, and investments in intellectual property, human capacity development, technology, innovation, research and development, national statistical systems, and M&E units. Although tourism will undoubtedly remain as a major contributor to GDP since the region offers a unique experience—sun, sea, sand—new and innovative tourism products need to be considered (e.g., medical tourism, conference hosting). However, it is important that countries specialize in different product offerings and not compete with each other. Thus, if one country is focusing on conference hosting, another should focus on eco-tourism. Additionally, the cost of air travel within the region needs to be urgently addressed to encourage more inter-regional travel. For example, the cost of a 40-minute flight from Barbados to Grenada costs more than a 3½-hour flight from Barbados to New York.

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Prioritizing Food Security Food security must become a priority (Bishop et al. 2011) in the quest for building resilience and sustainability (Antoine 2021). While this has become the new “buzz word” at the country level, movement towards food security must be a regional effort with individual countries focusing on a few crops and/or livestock and supplying the rest of the region. This will permit economies of scale for inputs needed, as well as the outputs produced. In the short- to medium-term, this may require a CARICOM policy that encourages farming and livestock production through subsidized water rates, duty free concessions on farm equipment, protective tariffs on food being produced in the region, and so on. In light of the region’s vulnerability to climate-induced events and natural disasters, it may also be advisable for at least two countries to produce similar crops to protect the food security of the region. Governments will also need to play a more active role in helping to protect and preserve food security. For instance, in Barbados, the onus is essentially on the farmer to deal with the problem of deterring green monkeys. Simply preparing a manual that outlines how to deter the green monkey from raiding cultivated farms is of little help to farmers who incur both the work and costs to protect their crops. Incorporating the SDGs Agenda into Developmental Strategic Planning Commitment towards the SDGs Agenda which all countries in the region have signed needs to be better informed through the understanding of the Agenda’s limitations and challenges. This should also lead to the integration of the Agenda’s goals in the countries’ development plans following the necessary adjustments needed to minimize the Agenda’s weakness and the imbalance in power dynamics at the international, economic, political, and environmental stages (Persaud and Dagher 2021a, 2022). Given the interlinkages of the countries in the Caribbean, it is imperative that policy initiatives be coordinated at the CARICOM level. Furthermore, Caribbean leaders must seriously work together to deal with issues such as: • Contradiction between a significant focus on economic growth and protection of the environment.

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• How to achieve an all-inclusive economic system and growth when promoting neoliberal policies and open economies. This will be particularly relevant for countries without strong manufacturing and production in non-income sensitive products and services. • Tension between local priorities and responding to structural adjustment programmes. This is important since waiting to achieve the structural adjustment objectives take time and money, money that is diverted away from the social spending that is needed to achieve some of the social-oriented SDGs. • Trying to preserve natural habitats whilst trying to achieve food security and expand infrastructure to propel economic growth. • Interlinkages between the goals and how they will be achieved. For example, nutrition and education go hand-in-hand, education needs to be integrated with technological infrastructure and innovation to prevent the inequity that occurred during COVID-19, citizen trust is important to drive economic growth, building resilience to climate-­ induced events requires modification of building codes to ensure that all buildings can withstand a Category 6 hurricane, and so on. How will governments get all existing domestic buildings up to minimum standards? How will the most vulnerable be protected? Will governments be proactive or reactive? Which option will cost more and how will a reactive policy impact economic recovery efforts? Given the integrative and indivisible nature of the goals, and facing the reality of financial constraints, what are the trade-offs that will be required? How will focus on one policy impact another—will it constrain, contradict, cancel—and how detrimental is the effect? These are tough questions which must be answered in the quest for resilience and sustainability. Transforming Public Sector Culture Although public sector reform has occurred in some countries, it does not appear to have been very impactful. In order for the region to become more resilient and sustainable, major reformation will be needed with respect to public sector financial management (Grenade and Wright 2019), modernization as it pertains to transparency, accountability, and effectiveness (Draper 2001), along with improvement in work ethic of all public sector employees. On the latter point, many public sector employees remain uncommitted to ethical work habits. For instance, some are

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often late, go out during the day to take care of personal matters, and do the bare minimum. Some ever take a day off when it is their birthday. These practices waste valuable taxpayers’ dollars through lost productivity. However, there are no serious repercussions for this type of behaviour. Money always carries an opportunity cost—if it is used for one thing, it comes at the cost of not doing something else (Persaud and Yates 2023). Building resilience and sustainability is a difficult endeavour, one that requires commitment, dedication, vast financial resources, and proactive rather than reactive thinking. More importantly, however, it requires the input and commitment of every Caribbean citizen. Regaining Citizen Trust to Propel Growth and Economic Development The general lack of accountability and transparency and the absence of legislated consequences for corruption and untrustworthy behaviour by some politicians in the region have resulted in mistrust on the part of many citizens. Moreover, the limited policy space that countries in the region face has contributed to the perception of non-responsiveness on the part of governments (Dagher 2019). Low trust by citizens has a negative effect on the “key drivers of growth and inequality” (Keefer and Scartascini 2022, 11). Given this reality, the Caribbean will need to work hard to regain citizen trust. This can best be achieved by CARICOM formulating policies for implementation at the individual country level that removes information and power asymmetries. For instance, more regulation is needed, greater accountability and transparency is required, legal and administrative barriers need to be removed to promote and encourage business, infrastructure must be provided to stimulate investment, policies must be designed to encourage entrepreneurship, technology must be utilized to reduce inefficiencies in service delivery to citizens, private-public partnerships must be encouraged, and promises must be delivered by elected officials. Moreover, attention also needs to be placed on improving the policy space of countries in the region so that leaders have the tools needed to respond to their citizen’s needs. Empowering Citizens to Become More Resilient and Sustainable The conversation on building resilience and sustainability is usually at the policy level. As such, many citizens may perceive that this is an activity

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reserved exclusively for the government. However, governments cannot do this on their own. Each citizen must play a role in the quest for sustainable development (Persaud 2020). For example, a government can ensure that all of their citizens are well educated. However, whether each citizen becomes an asset or liability to society is an individual choice. COVID-19 has certainly shown the region’s people the importance of saving for a rainy day. Many Caribbean citizens may feel that they do not earn enough to put aside any savings. Yet, some of these same citizens sport the latest fashions or spend money to beautify themselves monthly. Prioritizing spending of limited financial resources is important regardless of social economic status. Citizens must also individually think about how they can achieve food security, how they can reduce global warming and preserve our environment. We all have an important role to play, and much can be achieved when citizens mobilize and work together as a community. In doing so, they can hold government to account and empower themselves. Defending the Region’s Interests Due to the small size of the Caribbean region and its vulnerability to external shocks, external funding plays a big role in the region’s economy. However, this financing often carries a significant price, namely, having to implement policies that emanate from western ideologies that often conflict with the region’s aspiration and interests (Dagher 2019). For this reason, it may be beneficial for the Caribbean to negotiate as one body, rather than as individual countries. This will likely permit the unbalanced power dynamics at play to become somewhat more equal and facilitate negotiations that could protect Caribbean interests. For instance, as suggested by Bourne et al. (2015), there is need for some revised eligibility criteria for concessional/non-concessional financing such as inclusion of economic vulnerability as a criterion and removal of per capita national income as a criterion. Negotiating as a region will also likely reduce the amount of influence that external financiers currently have over Caribbean SIDS. The entire region may also be in a better position to negotiate some debt relief from powerful and influential actors in exchange for working towards the SDGs.

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Conclusion If the Caribbean is truly serious about rebuilding to become more economically resilient and sustainable, then significant visionary leadership will be required to unlock the transformational changes needed. This will require a philosophical mindset change in all stakeholders (from politicians to citizens), serious consideration of what resilience and sustainability really means, what it entails, and the role of all stakeholders to make this vision a reality. The road map and the game plan outlined in this chapter will also need to be proactively driven from the CARICOM level. The bedrock of this transformation must include: greater accountability and transparency; salvaging citizen trust; developing a culture for M&E and evidence-based data; strengthening regional partnerships and cooperation; developing more public-private partnerships; removing information silos; retooling public sector officials; changing public sector culture; empowering citizens; and engaging in a more holistic system thinking approach to strategic planning geared at leaving no one behind. COVID-19 has shown us that as a people we are very resilient. We can learn from the lessons of this devastating pandemic and turn recovery into opportunities. All stakeholders (governments, citizens, financiers, data collection analysts, evaluators, etc.) must work together—for a chain is only as strong as it weakest link . United we stand, divided we fall. Serious cooperation and alignment will also be needed to bring about the type of transformation that is necessary to help the region in its quest for resilience, sustainability, and greater policy space for decision-making. Moreover, this journey will not be achieved overnight. It will likely be a long, rough, and rocky voyage. Still, the region must plough on, for without hope there is no reason to life.

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Responses at the End of Q3, 2020. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/ public/%2D%2D-­americas/%2D%2D-­r o-­lima/%2D%2Dsroport_of_spain/ documents/publication/wcms_760354.pdf. International Monetary Fund. 2016. IMF Conditionality. https://www.imf.org/ en/About/Factsheets/Sheets/2016/08/02/21/28/IMF-­Conditionality. Keefer, Philip, and Carlos Scartascini. 2022. The Key to Social Cohesion and Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean. International Development Bank. Moosa, Tatar, Jalal Montazeri Shoorekchali, Mohammad Reza Faraji, and Fernando A Wilson. (2021). International COVID-19 vaccine inequality amid the pandemic: Perpetuating a global crisis? Journal of Global Health. https://doi.org/10.7189/jogh.11.03086. Ofir, Zenda, Gerald Singh, Emile Beauchamp, Dorothy Lucks, Stefano D’Errico and Kassem El-Saddick. 2019. From Monitoring Goals to Systems-Informed Evaluation: Insights from SDG14. IIED Briefing March. https://pubs.iied. org/pdfs/17706IIED.pdf. Pan American Health Organization. 2021. PAHO Director Appeals to Caribbean People to Get Vaccinated, Observe Protective Measures. https://www.paho.org/ en/news/11-­8-­2021-­paho-­director-­appeals-­caribbean-­people-­get-­vaccinated-­ observe-­protective-­measures. Persaud, Nadini. 2018. A Practical Framework and Model for Promoting Cost-­ Inclusive Evaluation. Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation 14 (30): 88–104. ———. 2019. An Exploratory Study on Public Sector Program Evaluation Practices and Culture in Barbados, Belize, Guyana, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: Where Are We? Where Do We Need to Go? Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation 15 (32): 17–27. ———. 2020. Adopting Tools from Cost and Management Accounting to Improve the Manner in Which Costs in Social Programs are Analyzed and Evaluated. Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation 16 (34): 1–13. ———. 2021. Expanding the Repertoire of Evaluation Tools so That Evaluation Recommendations Can Assist Nonprofits to Enhance Strategic Planning and Design of Program Operations. Evaluation and Program Planning 89: 1–11. ———. 2022. Challenges with monitoring and evaluating the SDGs. Paper presented on June 2, 2022, at the Glocal Week of Activities May 30 to June 03, 2022. A joint initiative of the CARICOM Secretariat, Caribbean Evaluators International, Salises, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, and the Centre for Learning on Evaluation and Results for Latin America and the Caribbean. ———. in press-a. Evaluation Challenges, Practices and Use in the Commonwealth Caribbean: The Importance of Monitoring and Evaluation in the Region’s Post COVID-19 Recovery Efforts and the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals Agenda. In Oxford Handbook of Social Programs Evaluation in the Global South, ed. A.B. Brik and H. Bin. Oxford University Press.

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———. in press-b. Strengthening Evaluation Culture in the English-Speaking Commonwealth Caribbean: A Guide for Evaluation Practitioners and Decision-­ Makers in the Public, Private, and NGO Sectors. Kingston: Arawak Publications. Persaud, Nadini, and Ruby Dagher. 2020. Evaluations in the English-Speaking Commonwealth Caribbean Region: Lessons from the Field. American Journal of Evaluation 41 (2): 255–276. ———. 2021a. The Role of Monitoring and Evaluation in the UN 2030 SDGs Agenda. London: Palgrave McMillian Publishing. ———. 2021b. Evaluation in Our New Normal Environment: Navigating the Challenges with Data Collection. Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation 17 (38): 1–15. ———. 2022. Evaluation Challenges with the SDGs—Redesigning Measurement Indicators and Evaluation Systems. EVALSDGs Insight # 13. https://evalsdgs. org/portfolio/insights/. Persaud, Nadini, and Brian Yates. 2023. Cost Inclusive Evaluation: Planning It, Doing It, Using It. New York, NY: Guilford Publications. Soeknandan, Manorma. 2021. CARICOM Heading Towards a Results-Oriented Culture. Paper presented on May 31, 2021, at the Caribbean Evaluators International Glocal Week of Activities, May 31 to June 4. von Togerstrom, Barbara. 2005. Small Island Developing States and International Trade: Special Challenges in the Global Partnership for Development. Melbourne Journal of International Law 6 (2): 402–436. United Nations. 2020a. The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2020. New York: United Nations Publications. ———. 2020b. SDG Indicators: Global Indicator Framework for the Sustainable Development Goals and Targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/indicators/indicators-­list/. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. 2020. COVID-19 in the Caribbean and the Central America Region: Identifying blue Pathways to Move Forward in a COVID-19 Context and Beyond. https://unctad.org/es/ node/26953. Wade, Robert Hunter. 2003. What Strategies are Viable for Developing Countries Today? The World Trade Organization and the Shrinking of ‘Development Space’. Review of International Political Economy 10 (4): 621–644. Worldatlas. 2022. Caribbean Countries. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/ caribbean-­countries.html. Worldometers. 2022. Caribbean Population. https://www.worldometers.info/ world-­population/caribbean-­population/.

PART III

Tourism and Hospitality Perspectives on COVID-19

CHAPTER 11

Absorb, Adapt, or Transform? An Exploratory Analysis of Small Tourism Businesses’ Resilience Strategies During the Pandemic Sherma Roberts

Introduction Embedded in the academic narrative of a post-COVID-19 industry recovery is the idea that the pandemic has presented an unexpected opportunity to make deliberate decisions about the transformation to a more sustainable form of tourism that respects ecological limits, local community rights, equity, de-growth, and more democratized and indigenized forms of tourism (Higgins-Desbiolles 2020; Jamal 2019). From the perspective of the tourism business interest, the prevailing pandemic discourse has emphasized words such ‘recovery’, ‘innovation’, ‘return to normality,’ and ‘re-opening’ (Hall et al. 2020). These two interlocking interpretive

S. Roberts (*) School for Graduate Studies and Research, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Bridgetown, Barbados e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Roberts et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30889-5_11

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repertoires of resilience (Price et al. 2022) do not aver that tourism should not continue but interrogate the how of tourism’s recommencement. In other words, should the industry’s resilience response to the pandemic mostly mirror a transformative resilience agenda where there is an irrevocable and permanent disruption of beliefs, practices, and institutions (Béné et al. 2014; Hall 2018) or an adaptive or absorptive one where there is no significant alteration to the industry due to sound planning, and fiscal and technical support? (Bhamra et  al. 2011; Cutter et  al. 2008; Dahles and Susilowati 2015; Dahles et al. 2020). Small tourism businesses (STBs) are central to this discussion on the how of resilience responses in the industry given their ubiquity and generally assumed role as purveyors of traditional national economic development, innovation and more recently of empowerment and social cohesion (Roberts 2022). In the Caribbean, for example, small, medium, and microenterprises (SMMEs) account for one in two jobs and more than one-third of output and a recent United Nations report documents that “SMMEs in the Caribbean contribute on average 50% of GDP and create 45% of jobs in the region” (Scott 2022, 8). Similar findings are shared with respect to South Africa where 95% of tourism businesses would be classified as SMMEs (Booyens et al. 2022). Economic recovery in many tourism-driven economies is therefore contingent on the resilience of the myriad number and types of STBs operating in destinations (cf. Dayour, Amuquandoh and Adam 2020; Fuchs 2021; Hu, Yang and Zhang 2021; Jalil et al. 2021; Pham et al. 2021). Where recent work on resilience and the pandemic has examined STBs, the major concern has been on testing specific resilience responses, for example, adaptive, business/enterprise resilience and psychological resilience (Bhamra et al. 2011; Jalil et al. 2021; Lin and Wen 2021; Pham et al. 2021; Soliku et al. 2021), rather than an examination of the broad sweep of resilience responses that STBs are likely to employ. Further, within tourism, resilience studies have overwhelmingly concentrated on either the destination or local tourism communities as the site of analysis (Filimonau and De Coteau 2019; Orchiston 2013; Prayag et  al. 2019) thereby occluding the many small tourism businesses that enhance the overall tourist experience (Booyens et al. 2022). Finally, despite the ubiquity of the pandemic, research investigations have focused on large developed and emerging economies, failing to recognize that “the issues faced by smaller and vulnerable developing economies are equally profound” (Bai et  al. 2021, 1990). In this regard, the resilience responses to the

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COVID-19 pandemic of small tourism businesses (STBs) located in multiple sectors in islands remain sparsely researched. This study therefore aims to fill these gaps. Using resilience as the conceptual framework, this research examines the effects of the pandemic and the type and nature of resilience response strategies that have been employed by small tourism businesses (STBs) in the Caribbean islands of Tobago and St. Lucia. The chapter’s theoretical contribution is two-fold. One is that the analysis pertaining to STBs and resilience broadens the conceptual lens of resilience beyond adaptive, enterprise or business resilience through an examination of two other dimensions of resilience, namely absorptive and transformative. By expanding the discussion into these other resilience dimensions, it is likely that new insights can be obtained about STBs’ ability to survive, innovate, and transform during major disruptions. Secondly, the study adds to the growing body of work on island resilience by shifting the gaze away from islands’ need to build climate resilience to focus upon how small tourism businesses draw upon island resilience, described by Baldacchino and Bertram (2009, 144) as an “inherent flexibility, resourcefulness and strategic response to threats and opportunities” to craft pandemic resilience strategies. The ensuing discussion begins by providing a critical reflection on the concept of resilience including definitions, dimensions, and application to tourism. This is followed by a probe of current research on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on small tourism businesses and associated resilience strategies; the context of the research and the methods of data collection are then explained. The chapter ends with an analysis of the findings and summary reflections on STBs and resilience strategies, policy implications and future research directions.

Resilience: Towards an Understanding of the Concept The concept of resilience was popularized by Holling (1973) who defined it broadly as the ecological system’s ability to bounce back or regain equilibrium after an external shock. Later work on resilience has expanded the application and meaning of resilience to the social world, communities, organizations, disaster management, infrastructure, business enterprise, and tourism (Bhamra et al. 2011; Filimonau and De Coteau 2019; Hall 2018), where resilience goes beyond survival or maintaining system

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stability to adaptability (Gallopín 2006; Orchiston 2013), or even transformation (Folke 2006). The application and approaches (systems, people, organizations) to resilience across an array of disciplines, sectors, and industries have led to various critiques including allegations of ambiguity and consonant conceptual uselessness, and, on the other hand, too much flexibility (Bahadur et  al. 2010). Resilience has also been criticized for being portrayed as a normative concept, always with positive outcomes (Baldacchino 2020; Manyena 2006) so that its application fails to recognize the presence or absence of support systems, the level of trade-offs that might be incurred in strengthening business resilience and the distributional effects of resilience projects that might create winners and losers (Davidson 2010; Pain and Levine 2012). This critical assessment is particularly important for an analysis of STBs operating in an island context where tourism development policies tend to favour large, often foreign-owned, businesses. Confirming this, Buultjens et al. (2015) report that in Sri Lanka, discriminatory policies that favoured large resorts also worked to reduce the resilience of the many businesses operating in the informal sector despite the latter’s role in providing tourist services. Similarly, Booyens et al. (2022, 130) found that the financial assistance meted out by the South African government to assist tourism businesses in ‘bouncing back’ from the pandemic excluded “60% of the Eastern Cape sample who had applied … but had not received anything.” In a theoretical sense then, resilience is construed as apolitical and inclusive, but in practice it can have exclusionary outcomes. Despite the above critiques, authors agree on common characteristics underpinning resilience including “resistance, flexibility, diversity, transformation, inclusion and participation, acceptance of uncertainty and change, learning and innovation, governance, social processes such as community cohesion, good leadership and individual and collective action to cope with change” (Béné et al. 2014, 611-612; see also Bhamra et al. 2011; Biggs et al. 2012). Using these characteristics as a starting point, resilience in this study is defined as: “the capacity of a system (natural, business, societal, community) to absorb disturbances and sudden shocks or to re-organise through adaptive-transformative processes that might require new norms and networks or evolve into an entirely different regime” (Beech et al. 2020; Walker et al. 2004).

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Absorptive, Adaptive, and Transformative Resilience Irrespective of the typologies of resilience, responses can be broadly classified into three, namely absorptive resilience, adaptive resilience, and transformative resilience. Absorptive resilience pertains to a community’s or society’s ability to withstand the shocks of an event without any significant alteration to its state and functioning (Béné et  al. 2014). These authors argue that this ability is largely because of sound planning, community (re) education and infrastructural strengthening through design which prevent or minimize disruption. Adaptive resilience, on the other hand, refers to temporary or permanent adjustments made by businesses or communities to continue functioning (Béné et al. 2012; Cutter et al. 2008; Dahles and Susilowati 2015). Within the tourism literature, adaptive resilience seems to be the dominant discourse with elements of absorptive resilience (Hall et  al. 2020; Higgins-Desbiolles 2020). So that, after a major disruption—natural or man-made, tourism destinations and the attendant supply sectors are pressured by business and political interests to “re-organise so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, and identity” (Lin and Wen 2021, 2) or ‘bounce back’ as quickly as possible to welcome the return of visitors (Ibanescu et al. 2020). In this vein, Fuchs (2021) reports that during the early months of the pandemic food and beverage and accommodation establishments were able to take advantage of short-term opportunities through business adaptation. Other tourism research have articulated a similar conceptual understanding and application of resilience in relation to COVID-19 and other disruptors, focusing almost exclusively on the adaptive capacities of these entities (Dahles and Susilowati 2015; Lin and Wen 2021; Sobaih et al. 2021). This study therefore seeks to fill this gap by moving the gaze away from one dimension of resilience to ask questions about STBs’ other resilience capabilities and responses. Finally, transformative resilience is arguably associated with the most evidential and permanent changes to the business or whatever is the unit of analysis. Accordingly: the business concept changes drastically and in unplanned and uncontrollable ways, generating new methods of operations, new business partners and network relations, new markets, different products, and finally new sources and forms of leadership employed to deal with crisis situations. (Dahles and Susilowati 2015, 37)

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Folke (2006) has suggested that transformative resilience challenges the status quo as the changes invariably lead to a permanent disruption of the values, beliefs, institutions, and assumptions that were communally and formerly embraced. Writing about the transformative possibilities for a more sustainable approach to tourism in a post-COVID-19 world, Hall et al. (2020) argue that while transformation of travel behaviour is possible, for the tourism industry itself, the transformative possibilities might be limited due to the urgency of governments to resume business activity, the powerful business lobby and the reluctance of policy makers to do a volte-face and adopt new policy instruments that would reimagine a new sustainable path for tourism. Additionally, the transactional costs often associated with transformational shifts would more than likely steer governments towards the ‘business as usual’ path (Béné et al. 2014).

STBs’ Resilience Responses During the Pandemic Resilience responses of STBs have converged in two themes. On the one hand is the idea that these entities are financially fragile, under-resourced, have limited access to technology, possess poor management competencies, and therefore will not survive or struggle to survive the effects of the pandemic (Booyens et al. 2022; Giunipero et al. 2021; Pham et al. 2021; Sobaih et  al. 2021). On the other hand, STBs are viewed as  adaptable, flexible, and capable of innovating in crisis (Alves et al. 2020; Alonso et al. 2021; Bai et al. 2021; Bhamra et al. 2011). In reality though, some STBs are likely to straddle the gamut of resilience responses—absorption (survival), adaptation (flexibility to situation) to transformation (innovation and change)—depending upon the type of adaptive tools that the business possesses. Weak Resilient Responses Reasons suggested for STBs’ poor or delayed response to COVID-19 include limited time and financial resources, lack of preparation, inadequate support to develop crisis management skills and business continuity plans, and heavy reliance on government agencies for support (Dayour et al. 2020). However, these findings do not reflect the full reality as STBs located in the Global North were beneficiaries of substantial government support unlike those operating in the Global South (Booyens et al. 2022; Harchandani and Shome 2021; Hemmington and Neill 2022; Soliku

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et al. 2021). Complicating this was the fact that STB operators in both regions were of the view that it was the government’s responsibility to ensure that they recover from the economic fall-out of the pandemic (Dayour et al. 2020; Madeira et al. 2020). Some authors conclude that the heterogeneity of small tourism businesses, owner behaviours (e.g. staying power), differences in policy requirements, and location of the operations colluded to affect their resilience responses (Booyens et al. 2022; Chen et al. 2021; Dahles and Susilowati 2015; Rivera et al. 2021). The disparity in experiences between STBs in the different geographical region presents an opportunity for this study to investigate resilience responses in islands, where islands and island people are often cast into the vulnerability-­ resilience archetype with social and cultural capital as driving forces in building island resilience (Baldacchino and Bertram 2009; Cheer and Lew 2018; Scheyvens et al. 2021). Adaptive and Transformative Business Resilience Responses In contrast to the vulnerability perspective offered above, many STBs became active agents in their survival or transformation. For example, accommodation and food and beverage operators responded to the pandemic by changing opening times, adjusting menus, offering special promotions and increasing digital engagement (Fuchs 2021). The business model of some bars changed from primarily offering beverages to providing food services and in the accommodation sector, hotel rooms were transformed to sorting stations for postal delivery, and famous restaurants began selling hamburgers to survive (Dayour et  al. 2020; Lin and Wen 2021; Madeira et  al. 2020). In Yunnan, China, female family-run businesses turned to cooking, selling condiments online, making local crafts, and providing bird watching tours (Lin and Wen 2021). Similar findings were reported among accommodation sector operators in Europe, North and South America, Ghana, and Australia (Booyens et al. 2022; Dayour et al. 2020; Herédia-Colaço and Rodrigues 2021). The literature suggests that there are a number of factors that contribute to adaptive and transformative resilience including local ownership of business; possession of resources; tested emergency plans; business size; leadership; resource restructuring; owner/manager experience with disruptions; access to finance, formal and informal disaster plans; employee resilience enhanced through training and positive organizational culture; links to social, familial, and community networks; embeddedness; and

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psychological capital such as optimism, hope, and self-efficacy (Biggs et al. 2012; Buultjens et al. 2015; Dahles and Susilowati 2015; Filimonau and De Coteau 2019; Jalil et al. 2021; Lin and Wen 2021; Orchiston 2013; Sobaih et al. 2021; Prayag et al. 2019). Framed as adaptive capabilities, authors aver that these qualities are precursors to adaptive resilience, so that the businesses that demonstrate greater resilience are those that possess these resilience tools prior to the disruptive event.

Overview of Study Contexts The study was conducted among small tourism business owners and managers in the accommodation and attractions sectors in the Caribbean islands of Tobago and St. Lucia. These islands were chosen because they are highly dependent on tourism and were among some of the worst affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically in terms of visitor arrivals. Table  11.1 shows the decline in international arrivals from 2017 to 2020 for St. Lucia and Tobago. Unlike St. Lucia, the island of Tobago is part of a twin-island nation, constituted as the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. While Tobago has some level of autonomy through the Tobago House of Assembly, the centre of government resides in Trinidad. In terms of economic activity, oil and gas (contributing 45.3% of GDP), manufacturing, and agriculture dominate the economic landscape of Trinidad, whereas Tobago’s economy is underpinned by leisure tourism, which in 2017 accounted for 36.9% of the island’s overall earnings and 47.6% of total employment (World Travel and Tourism Council 2018). Outside of government, tourism is Tobago’s largest employer. Like all other countries, Trinidad and Tobago utilized a number of non-pharmaceutical interventions up until July 2022 when the country re-opened its borders to international tourist traffic (Khan 2022). The Table 11.1  International visitor arrivals to Tobago and St. Lucia 2017–2020 Country

2017

2018

2019

2020

Overall change

St. Lucia Tobago

386, 127 18,024

394,780 18,058

423, 736 19,542

130,695 6,670

-69.2% -65.9%

Source: Caribbean Tourism Organisation Annual statistical report 2021; Tobago Tourism Agency Limited 2021

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distance between the island of Trinidad and that of Tobago, coupled with the closure of the national borders, created an environment for domestic tourism to flourish, despite the decrease in scheduled domestic air and sea traffic due to social distancing restrictions. For the period March to September 2020 when compared with the same period for 2021, total domestic air arrivals to Tobago increased by 5.9% from 72,693 in 2020 to 77,000 in 2021. Similarly, total domestic ferry arrivals also increased by 28.6% from 103,858  in 2020 to 133,584  in 2021 (Tobago Tourism Agency Limited 2021). To signal the importance of the industry to Tobago’s economic development, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago provided a TT$50 million (approx. US$7.1 million) grant facility to locally owned accommodation providers to undertake renovations and maintain their property in readiness for the reopening of domestic and international tourism, and TT$5 million (approx. US$714,285) to ancillary services such as attractions, restaurants, and tour services (Connelly 2020). To date, 124 properties, all small by this study’s definition, have benefitted from this grant. Notable is that Tobago was among the first fifty destinations to attain the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) Safe Travels stamp that certifies alignment and compliance with the WTTC hygiene protocols (Travel Bulletin 2020). Not specific to tourism but of significant benefit was the launch of WiPay in Trinidad and Tobago (Scott 2022). This digital payment platform “allowed visitors to the twin-island to make credit card purchases via mobile phones which benefitted countless tourist attractions and micro-entrepreneurs who cannot afford the monthly fees for credit or debit card processing” (UNDP 2021, 19). For the island of St. Lucia, tourism and agriculture are the main economic activities, and pre-COVID-19, tourism contributed almost 80% of total employment (Scott 2022). In contrast to 2019, where tourism contributed 68.1% to the island’s GDP, in 2020 this had fallen to 28.7%, with 21,800 job losses in travel and tourism, the majority of whom were women (UNDP, UNICEF and UN Women 2020; WTTC 2020). Similar to Trinidad and Tobago, a number of non-pharmaceutical interventions were made early in the pandemic, all air and seaports were closed to incoming international flights and vessels, and no one was permitted to enter and disembark, for any reason, including transiting through Saint Lucia (Government of Saint Lucia 2020a). From June 2020, the government of St. Lucia took a phased approach to the re-opening of its borders welcoming visitors back in a limited manner (Saint Lucia Tourism

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Authority 2020). To facilitate business activity, the curfew hours were adjusted and hosting and attending social activities were allowed in keeping with established public health protocols (Office of the Prime Minister 2021). To mitigate the effects of the first wave of the pandemic, the government of St. Lucia rolled out a Social Stabilization Plan which provided a subsistence allowance to persons who lost their jobs. The amount ranged from Eastern Caribbean Dollars (ECD) $500 to 1500 (US$185–555) based upon one’s last salary. Non-contributors to the National Insurance Scheme (e.g. taxi drivers, vendors, small business owners) who were displaced through loss of income were also given ECD$500 for three months (Government of St. Lucia 2020b). It is likely that persons and businesses operating in the tourism sector benefitted from these programmes. St. Lucia was among ten Caribbean islands that launched a remote work programme, the objective of which was to create a new tourism business model that has the potential to add more social and economic value. While the St. Lucia data for this digital nomad segment is still unknown, estimates related to Barbados show that 1918 applicants staying for 12 months could yield USD92 million in accommodation alone (United Nations Development Programme 2021). This shift in demand towards “connected isolation” (Baldacchino and Starc 2021), where the digital nomad benefits from the isolation and refuge from the pandemic, while still being able to remain connected to work and social groups, presents a smorgasbord of opportunities for small tourism businesses. Of related relevance is that in March 2021, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) launched a digital version of the Eastern Caribbean dollar (ECD), called Dcash which, according to a UNDP report, is “a potential game changer for many small businesses as they will be able to conduct transactions digitally using their mobile phones or website… and directly benefit from the millions of visitors to their region every year” (UNDP 2021, 19).

Method This study deployed semi-structured interviews to examine the effects of the pandemic on STBs in the accommodation and attraction sectors in St. Lucia and Tobago. The interview  also sought to uncover the extent to which STB owners’ and managers’ responses reflected the conceptual resilience approaches articulated above and the implications for the

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post-­pandemic future of these businesses. Semi-structured interviews were chosen over structured and un-structured interview techniques due to the knowledge of the themes emerging from the literature, but yet needing to more deeply understand the peculiarities and nuances of owner/manager experiences more deeply across the sectors. In addition, semi-structured interviews provided sufficient room to follow up interesting lines of enquiry (Blaxter et al. 2010; Woodhouse 1998). The sample for this study was drawn from two benchmark diagnostics on the state of small tourism businesses in the Caribbean during COVID-19, which were completed by the Organisation of American States (OAS) in collaboration with Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association  (CHTA) (2021) and the other one by the United Nations Development Programme (2021). The definition of small tourism business used in this study is “any business that caters primarily to tourists’ tastes and wants and that has fewer than fifty employees.” This definition is similar to that used by other authors (Orchiston 2013; Page et al. 1999; Thomas 2000) and represents a conflation of the European Commission’s micro enterprises (fewer than 10 employees) and small businesses (between 10 and 49 employees) (Thomas 2000), and the one proposed by the Green Enterprise Development Policy on small and micro enterprises (up to 50 employees) in Trinidad and Tobago (Government of Trinidad and Tobago 2013) and the Government of St. Lucia (Inland Revenue Department 2022). Drawing upon the two aforementioned data sources a total of 61 small tourism businesses in St. Lucia and Tobago were identified across both sectors. Table 11.2 provides a capsule of the population of small tourism businesses according to sector. While the use of these two sources ensured that data regarding most small tourism businesses in the Caribbean were captured, one of its main weaknesses was the tendency for repetition, so that some degree of cleaning and cross-checking was needed to eliminate duplication. Table 11.2 Population of small tourism businesses by sector

Sector Accommodation Attractions Total

UNDP Study OAS & CHTA Study 9 7 16

29 17 45

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Due to resource constraints, quota sampling was used to identify respondents. In this sampling method, respondents are conveniently chosen from targeted groups according to some predetermined number or quota (Sekeran and Bougie 2020). Quota sampling is regarded as a conflation of purposive and stratified sampling, in that it establishes certain categories which are considered vital for inclusion into the sample, but on a convenience basis (Denscombe 2017). The advantages are that it is cost effective in terms of time, and it ensures the representation of all crucial categories in population. Its main disadvantage is that the generalizability (if that is major concern of the study) of the findings are restricted. A quota of six businesses in each sector across each island was deemed adequate. Potential interviewees were sent an introductory email detailing the name of the researcher, the nature of the research, possible date and time slots for interviews, the assurance of business name anonymity, and an invitation to choose a date that owners would be willing to conduct the interview. Responses from the email invitation were very slow and had to be followed up with WhatsApp calls. Between March and June 2022, out of the 24 targeted interviews, a total of 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted comprising 3 attractions and 3 accommodation providers in Tobago, and in St. Lucia, 2 businesses in the attractions sector and 4 in accommodation. All interviewees met the definition of small tourism business used in this study and interviews were conducted via Google Meet. The interview schedule was divided into six sections and covered pre-­ pandemic business operations, pandemic effects, opportunities presented by the pandemic, government policies and institutional support, response strategies, and business characteristics. Interviews were all audio-recoded with informed consent and were later manually transcribed and thematically analysed producing elaborations on COVID-19 effects on business, and resilience strategies that were used by STBs. The responses were all read through to determine the range of responses and six main themes emerged. These themes have been analysed using the attributes associated with each level of resilience. A code was then assigned to each comment based upon its fit in one of the designated categories and used to inform the analysis.

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Findings and Discussion Interview results and discussion are organized in three themes by islands. These include the profile of the businesses, summary of the effects of COVID-19 on businesses, and resilience strategies employed by businesses. Profile of STBs in Tobago and St. Lucia Table 11.3 provides a snapshot of the profile of owners and managers across both sectors and each island. In Tobago, there was a high degree of heterogeneity in accommodation classification among businesses namely, villas, guesthouses, and room-­ only properties. Where room-only was the primary business, operators also owned and managed other businesses such restaurants and beach-­ related leisure shops at the same location. Of the three attractions surveyed, one was a natural attraction and owned by the sole female respondent, while the other two were man-made purpose built. All respondents had over ten years’ experience as owner/managers and had accumulated experience in other sectors of the industry. Businesses were generally located in coastal sub-urban areas which is consistent with the geographical concentration of the industry in Tobago. In terms of motivation for ownership/management, all respondents stated that they were driven by a mixture of profit and lifestyle reasons. This finding is not surprising as five of the six interviewees were born in Trinidad which is more Table 11.3  Profile of STB owners and managers Characteristics

Tobago

St. Lucia

Gender of owner/manager Business Location

5 males; 1 female Coastal sub-urban 1 family-owned 1 managed 4 sole ownership Profit & lifestyle 5 Trinidadian 1 Tobagonian

3 males; 3 females 5 Sub-urban ; 1 rural 3 family-owned 2 managed 1 sole ownership Profit 1 St. Lucian 3 dual-citizenship 1 Caribbean national Over 20 years

Ownership model

Motivation Country of origin of owner/manager

Average owner/manager experience in industry

Over 10 years

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urban and bustling than Tobago; and where migration to Tobago is often propelled by the need for a slower pace, as a refuge from crime and an exploration of business opportunities (Roberts 2022). In St. Lucia, the two STBs in the attraction sectors could be classified as natural and were owned and operated by women. Accommodation establishments comprised three small hotels and one cottage, the latter of which was also owned and managed by a female business owner. With the exception of one STB in the attraction sector that was rurally located, all establishments could be found in a sub-urban area which has the highest concentration of tourism activity on the island. All interviewees had over 20 years’ experience and while confirming their love for the industry, the profit motivation dominated; and similar to business owners in Tobago, all of the room-only properties operated some type of restaurant facility at the same location. Some of the more observable characteristics of the STB operators interviewed are their years of experience in the industry, the penchant of particular accommodation providers to have a diversified portfolio and the links to family networks. Cumulatively, these qualities suggest that operators possess to some level of adaptive capabilities that would have provided a buffer during the pandemic and strengthened their resilience approaches (Orchiston 2013; Prayag et al. 2019; Sobaih et al. 2021). Conversely, the fact that the majority of the STB operators straddle national and cultural identities raises questions about their level of embeddedness and, therefore, their ability to access bridging networks and social support systems which can strengthen resilience in crises (Dahles and Susilowati 2015; Lin and Wen 2021; Pham et al. 2021). Significantly as well is that motivations for ownership among St. Lucian operators, while tending towards profits, might not be as binary as initially appears and therefore, the need to maintain lifestyle might well propel STB owners to ensure that the businesses survive in some measure post-pandemic. STB Owners’ Reflection on Immediate Effects of the Pandemic In Tobago, all interviewees reported that prior to March 2020, business was doing well, in terms of occupancy, attraction visitation, spend, and advanced bookings. Interviewees attributed the growth to the marketing efforts of the Tobago Tourism Agency Limited (TTAL) in the key source markets of the UK, Germany, and Canada. Notwithstanding the other measures taken by the government of Trinidad and Tobago (GOTT) to

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mitigate the spread of the virus, such as stay-at-home public orders, for all STB owners the biggest impact on their business was the indefinite closure of the national borders from 22 March 2020 to international traffic, followed by the frequent policy changes to the closure and reopening of beaches. One villa manager suggested that there was a high level of insensitivity to the tourism industry in Tobago and the number of businesses that depend upon it: the rest of the Caribbean bread and butter is tourism. Whereas Trinidad has always had natural gas and petrochemicals, and so the government has never really cared about tourism like the rest of the islands. If oil and gas was tourism, they would have had a different priority.

When the borders re-opened on 17 July 2021 respondents indicated that it was difficult to obtain any positive responses from customers and overseas suppliers largely due to the protracted period of uncertainty and the schizophrenic messages around the re-opening of beaches. One attraction owner highlighted that the major tourism principals, such as airlines and tour operators, required advanced time to schedule planes and plan promotional strategies in concert with the local Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO) which could not be facilitated by the sudden announcements. Other respondents alluded to the lack of clarity around the re-opening protocols even as they observed other Caribbean neighbours had theirs in circulation since July 2020. The significance of the locus of decision-making residing in Trinidad again came to the fore by all interviewees. For example, one accommodation owner lamented: we were being bombarded with questions from our international partners. When are you going to open? What are your COVID protocols? Yet the government was saying nothing. And the attitude was when the storm pass we will start to look at how to clean up the mess. We were one of the last [islands] to reopen.

Similar to operators in Tobago, STB owners in St. Lucia reported that 2019 was a great year in terms of business profitability, so that the pandemic was seen as major disruption to marketing and operational plans. Unlike Trinidad and Tobago however, St. Lucia’s borders were closed for only three months, but the unexpected nature of the pandemic was still hugely impactful: “Oh gosh my business my thriving. I had about 19 staff

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until COVID came about. The pandemic caught us flat footed. There was no business, none whatsoever” (Attraction owner). Where the internal world of the STB operator is critical to building resilience, decisions made by government and related agencies can equally affect the resilience capabilities of these entities and their ability to respond positively to the effects of the pandemic (Jalil et al. 2021). Government policies geared towards strengthening national resilience, and often intended to be inclusive and apolitical, can sometimes inadvertently affect the most vulnerable (Buultjens et  al. 2015; Pain and Levine 2012). In Trinidad and Tobago for instance, in contrast to the manufacturing industry that was seen as essential and therefore operated during the peak of the pandemic, many small tourism businesses located at the base of the international tourism system were inoperable in the first six months of the pandemic, notwithstanding the growth in domestic tourism. Absorptive Resilience Responses Among all interviewees the most common of absorptive resilience response geared towards survival was reducing staff and operational costs: we had 6 months that we supported 2 of our staff and the rest you know…. Some guys we called in when we had business, so they kind of worked hourly. (Accommodation owner, Tobago)

Another operator in Tobago who had a restaurant as a support to his guest house completely closed that part of operations as “it was pointless to keep everybody on board because there was no way anybody was allowed to come and eat.” In St. Lucia, a family-owned hotel operator reported that they started a Go Fund Me campaign to assist employees who were severely affected. In Tobago in particular, a few accommodation providers used vaccination as the pretext under which they would rehire employees, suggesting that this action was taken to ensure that they are ready for ‘the bounce back’ when it does happen. In one attraction owner’s words, “You have to be ready to transition on a dime. Worry less about the formality of a plan and focus more on getting through.” Interview data also suggested that while some operators in St. Lucia had to cease operations completely due to a lack of business contingency funds, others in Tobago took the decision to draw upon personal funds to

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keep their business afloat. Commenting on this, one attraction owners stated: we literally had to cease all operations and use personal funds to keep business afloat … it’s a boat in the water and it would require maintenance continually. That put a huge dent on whatever business funds we had remaining, and then on personal funds after those were exhausted. (Attraction owner, Tobago)

The dominant strategy for these businesses was to direct efforts towards weathering the pandemic by managing and reorganizing resources. For many of the owners in both islands, the 2019 boom was still of very recent vintage and was likely to inform the survival and ‘we will get through this’ posture. For some owners in Tobago, employee vaccination which incurred no business costs was viewed as a necessary tool for industry post-­ pandemic recovery and was therefore requested. Among St. Lucian operators, there was no allusion to relying on government support to help them through this period. Accordingly, “their resilience was demonstrated in their capacity to wait for a return to the former state of normality” (Dahles and Susilowati 2015, 48). Adaptive Resilience Responses Interview results revealed that the majority of small tourism businesses in the accommodation sector employed adaptive resilience responses by making temporary or permanent adjustments to their businesses in the areas of product and market development, market penetration, diversification within the industry, and accessing private and public capital. Many STB operators also acknowledged the role of technological adoption and information and support provided by social and business networks. Table 11.4 provides a snapshot of adaptive resilience responses. Three interviewees in Tobago expressed disappointment that they were not able to access any of the grant funding provided by the GOTT which was aimed at assisting businesses in the accommodation and ancillary sectors. Many alluded to what they saw as bureaucracy and a lack of transparency in who received the grants, despite the publication of the criteria on the website of the TTAL as well as circulation of the same among the paying membership of the local tourism and hotel association. One attraction operator who received funding admitted that the grant was not used

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Table 11.4  Adaptive strategies employed by STBs in St. Lucia and Tobago Adaptive strategies

Interview responses

•  Borrow capital   We went after the staycation market in a big way which • • Access to government paid dividends up to now and really set ourselves in that funding market. (St. Lucia hotel owner) •  Expand into villa market •  We actually used the pandemic downtime to revamp and • Create packages for relaunch our new website which started breaking records digital nomads once border opened. We never stopped social media; I mean •  Offer takeaway dinners we were posting everyday positive messages like we can’t wait • Become a quarantine to welcome you back … showing the work we were doing in hotel the community. (Small hotel owner, St. Lucia) • Bring duty-free shopping •  We bought electric one-wheel devices and we were teaching to the hotel people basically how to surf on the streets … it’s something I • Diversify to land-based saw years ago and thought it was too expensive. But it’s been attraction a good earner in that time when we still didn’t have access • Digitalization to the ocean or when we did it was for 2 hours. We were able • The role of linking and to spend a lot of time marketing that and it did way better bridging networks than we thought it would. (Tobago attraction owner)

for the purpose stated in the application: “we got funds to upgrade our facility and instead we bought equipment so that we could advertise that we had new equipment.’ All operators in St. Lucia reported receiving no funding support from government outside of the national insurance payment for employees and therefore, had to chart their own path to recovery. One such path was the assistance from banks as elaborated by an owner/manager of a family-­ owned business in St. Lucia: “if it wasn’t for them and the moratorium and keeping in touch with them, showing them what things were going to be like, I don’t know how we would have gotten through it and how we would have supported our employees.” Experience as an adaptive capability was seen among mainly interviewees from St. Lucia, many of whom had suffered the effect of the global financial crisis and had subsequently developed a hardship fund. Still, in the absence of financial assistance from government, interviewees in St. Lucia were reflective about the need for a business continuity plan that involved longer term financial planning and management. Similar sentiments were expressed by some operators in Tobago. However, there were others who felt that simply being flexible

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and attentive to information was sufficient, given the reach and ravages of the pandemic and their inability to control it. In both islands, a variety of marketing strategies were employed by STBs to respond to the effects of the pandemic. In terms of market development strategies, both accommodation providers and a few attraction owners reached for the domestic market, by offering staycation packages. Elaborating on its benefits, one St. Lucian respondent stated: “we went after the staycation market in a big way which paid dividends up to now and really set ourselves in that market.” The need for social distancing and health protocols also produced an increased demand for villas from which one respondent in Tobago seemed to have derived significant benefits, especially when coupled with remote working conditions. Commenting on this: you couldn’t leave the island but you could travel in between Trinidad and Tobago to some extent. In the villa market we saw really, really good numbers of people coming over. Your job can be online and your kids are also doing online school, so once you have good internet then they could come and stay in a villa in Tobago. So we did see, all of a sudden, a lot more Trinis rediscovering Tobago and coming over. (Villa manager)

However, operators in the attractions sector in Tobago revealed that they made a deliberate choice not to pursue a domestic tourism strategy because of the low or non-existent profit margins involved. In this regard one noted: A lot of local people don’t see nature as a big attraction, as opposed to say a theme or water park. So theirs is not a big enough market for that here and my prices are not cheap but very competitive on the global market. Even at a reduced rate, some locals still do not want to pay. What I do I am very good at so I am not going to diminish my value for a local market just to say I’m busy and fortunately I didn’t have to, I wasn’t at a desperate situation.

A similar perspective was put forward by accommodation/restaurant operators with respect to offering takeaways. Four operators (two in Tobago and two in St. Lucia) actually attempted providing takeaway services but, based upon their high value inventory, found the service either cost ineffective or impractical. In general, attraction owners seemed to be less agile in adapting to the pandemic than accommodation providers when it came to new product

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development. However, one attraction owner in Tobago did diversify outside of his core water sport business by offering One-Wheel classes to the domestic market. One other accommodation operator in St. Lucia pivoted by bringing duty-free shopping to guests who were visiting the island but were unvaccinated and therefore prohibited from leaving the hotel premises. This personalized shopping experience provided residual income for the hotel but also augmented the guest experience. However, once the government opened the borders to vaccinated and unvaccinated visitors, this service was discontinued. The most significant commonality among STBs in both islands was the use of social media to remain in touch with previous guests and patrons. This strategy was seen as a way of showing care to customers as well as remaining top of mind in a complex marketplace. Some also used the pandemic period to upgrade their website and offer potential and repeat guests information on the frequently changing protocols on each island. Most reported that this engagement and investment have paid dividends. None of the sampled businesses indicated that they had embraced either of the newly available digital payment platforms such as WiPay or DCash or taken advantage of technology courses offered by Google through their local tourism and hotel associations. Surveyed STBs in St. Lucia revealed that support offered by their local hotel and tourism association and DMO was critical in helping them to survive the pandemic. Among operators in Tobago, this sentiment, while present, was not as pervasive as expressed by STB owners in St. Lucia. In general, though, all respondents stated that while they sometimes felt overwhelmed by the avalanche of information being shared daily through WhatsApp groups and emails, the network reinforced that they were not alone. Commenting on the support provided, one attraction owner in St. Lucia said: Everybody was leaning on each other’s shoulders. It wasn’t one distinct thing; it was just everybody pooling together to see how we could get out of this situation. The Tourism Authority too were playing their part in letting the world know that we were opened and we were ready for business. So, it was a very cohesive effort. a good coming together of all parties

A female STB owner also highlighted that she sought help in any and every online network, that might be offering advice, technical support or even funding, singling out Helen’s Daughter, a local non-governmental

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organization (NGO) in St. Lucia that provided capacity building support for female business owners, as having helped her business survive. STB operators in St. Lucia also spoke highly of the tourism association’s work in communities during the pandemic, especially the Recover St. Lucia initiative where hotels bought food from farmers and cooked meals in their own kitchens to help disadvantaged families. The extant literature on small tourism businesses often inform that these entities are seldom well-resourced financially and depend on external financial and technical assistance for their survival. These internal barriers to resilience were most evident among STBs in St. Lucia and undermined resilience responses. Where funding was available (in Tobago) STBs’ narrative was one of too much bureaucracy, the time and documentation required to make the application, and the focus of the grant (for refurbishment rather than recurring expenditure like water and electricity). In a sense, these findings are dissimilar to other studies (Booyens et al. 2022; Buultjens et al. 2015) given that in the case of Tobago the target of government support was small tourism businesses; however, the criteria required to ensure sound government fiduciary management were seen to be too onerous by these operators. Especially among accommodation owners, product and market development resilience strategies were similar to ones employed in previous studies (Booyens et  al. 2022; Herédia-Colaço and Rodrigues 2021). Adjusting business operations to exploit opportunities and market potential occasioned by COVID-19 meant that they were able to generate revenue albeit at a lower level. Temporary diversification into the one-wheel business reflected vision and creativity on the part of one operator and are fundamental to resilient businesses. Lin and Wen (2021) report similar diversification strategies utilized by female ethnic businesses in China. Among natural attractions owners, however, there was a greater reluctance to use market penetration or market development measures given the traditionally low domestic demand for their products. While it is difficult to assess whether some of these changes are shorter-term adaptations or long-term business changes, the evidence suggests that the majority of STBs in both islands showed flexibility in their bid to survive during and after the pandemic. In St. Lucia and, to a lesser extent, Tobago, the value of bridging networks (local hotel and tourism associations) offered significant stakeholder support and allowed businesses to withstand the effects of the pandemic. In St. Lucia in particular, island and business resilience collided to ensure

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that while these STBs remained afloat through support and linking networks (banks and other financial institutions) that they in turn used their position to strengthen the resilience of other local businesses and communities (Baldacchino and Bertram 2009; Scheyvens et al. 2021). Of note is that there was no distinction in the sense of embeddedness between indigenous business owners and those who had dual citizenships or were from other islands. This finding contradicts the claim that owners who are not from the local community find it more difficult to survive in crisis (Biggs et al. 2012; Dahles and Susilowati 2015). One possible reason for this contradiction is that the social and cultural capital found in islands that allow for cohesion and resilient responses in crisis is powerful enough to moderate any lack of local interactions due to owners’ dual identities. Transformative Resilience Responses Transformative resilience responses were the least evident amongst the sampled group, with only four STB owners (two in Tobago and two in St. Lucia) demonstrating any transformative possibilities. In one case, an operator in Tobago completely transitioned from renting a couple of villas on commission to pursuing management contracts where he would maintain properties, manage the bookings and any staff or special services needed by the guests in exchange for a monthly fee. In the other instance, an attraction owner indicated that the pandemic provided an opportunity for the operations to transition to paperless, where everything from registration to payment is processed online. Whether this decision was driven by a cost reduction strategy, consumer trends, or the environmental ethic of the operator, it presents a challenge to the status quo given that drivers to adopt green practices in Trinidad and Tobago are not always sufficiently compelling. In St. Lucia, two interviewees revealed that while they were not participants in the Live It long stay programme welcoming digital nomads to live and work on the island, they used their own creativity to offer a six-month package, which does not require a visa, to persons in St. Lucia’s key source markets. Other operators in St. Lucia considered options such as making and renting wedding gazebos and starting an agriculture-­ based cottage business, but no action seemed to have been taken. Possibilities for transformative resilience appear to be limited in Tobago where STBs operate in a petroleum-based national economy with government decision-making removed from the daily reality of efforts to grow a

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tourism economy on the island. In this regard, it is likely that the internal resources and capabilities of the owner/manager would need to be the driver of any real change. For STBs in St. Lucia, the adoption of the digital nomad or remote worker programme—Live It—presents a range of opportunities that small tourism businesses can leverage to diversify within and outside of tourism. The UNDP report (2021) provides a number of recommendations  to businesses and individuals including establishing brokerage companies, childcare services, traditional cooking classes, storytelling, and traditional folklore activities, to name a few. The report also points out that this market segment could be integral in helping Caribbean islands build out a knowledge-based economy leveraging the digital skills possessed by these workers. However, barriers to the growth of this market segment must be removed if these transformative possibilities are to be optimized. Overall, it is argued that transactional costs associated with pursuing permanent change are unlikely to appeal to STBs that are already faced with limited financial and technical resources. In the case of all transformative responses, the changes made are within the industry, and, therefore, an extension of the current business models.

Summary Reflections Small tourism businesses are vital to the destination amalgam as they deliver a wide range of services that enhance the visitor experience and create competitive destination advantage. In this regard, their resilience to natural and man-made disruptions becomes a critical focus of enquiry. This study has sought to examine the broadest range of resilience responses employed by STBs in islands during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this regard, the study has gone beyond previous studies which examined only adaptive resilience. The study has shown that while a few STBs straddled adaptive and transformative resilience the vast majority were more closely aligned to absorptive and adaptive resilience, making temporary or permanent adjustments to their operations in order to survive the winds of the pandemic, but, overall, maintaining the same structure, function, and identity. This ability to adapt was possible due to the adaptive capabilities or tools that they possessed pre-pandemic. The findings point to the fact that STBs in Caribbean tourism-­ dependent islands are intertwined in complex national systems that privilege the maintenance of the industry in its current form, notwithstanding master plans that point to the pursuit of more sustainable forms of

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tourism. In addition, the transactional costs associated with economic transformation or building more resilient economic systems are likely to act as a deterrent to national governments and axiomatically, to small tourism businesses that have limited resources. In the case of St. Lucia, transformative possibilities exist with the remote worker programme. Policy recommendations would include the establishment of a desk within ministries of Foreign Affairs and Immigration to fast-track these applications, as well as mandating businesses such as banks to create simplified processes to open accounts and to do international transactions. In the case of Tobago, resilience was weakened due to the gap between STBs’ articulated needs and the financial support provided by government. This asymmetry could be closed through ongoing collaboration between the local DMO and stakeholders with the view of arriving at win-win positions. Equally is that STB owners in both Tobago and St. Lucia need to avail themselves of resilience tools such as financial education, crisis planning, setting up digital payment platforms, and using alternative payment options that are currently available to them. The primary limitation of this study was the small sample; however, future research should consider a more longitudinal approach to this topic utilizing a broadened respondent base. Finally, the question of how business motivations (lifestyle or profit) affect resilience responses and the extent to which contextual and organizational factors circumscribe or facilitate resilience are other topics worthy of further exploration.

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Sobaih, Abu Elnasr E., Ibrahim Elshaer, Ahmed M.  Hasanein, and Ahmed S. Abdelaziz. 2021. Responses to COVID-19: The Role of Performance in the Relationship between Small Hospitality Enterprises’ Resilience and Sustainable Tourism Development. International Journal of Hospitality Management 94 (April): 102824. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2020.102824. Soliku, Ophelia, Bona Kyiire, Ali Mahama, and Chrysantus Kubio. 2021. Tourism amid COVID-19 Pandemic: Impacts and Implications for Building Resilience in the Eco-Tourism Sector in Ghana’s Savannah Region. Heliyon 7 (9): e07892. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07892. Sekeran, Uma, and Roger Bougie. 2020. Research Methods for Business – A Skill-­ Building Approach. 8th ed. New York: John Wiley. Thomas, Rhodri. 2000. Small Firms in the Tourism Industry: Some Conceptual Issues. International Journal of Tourism Research 2 (5): 345–353. https://doi. org/10.1002/1522-­1970(200009/10)2:53.0.co;2-­9. Tobago Tourism Agency Limited. 2021. Research Reports on Domestic and International Arrivals 2000-2021. Scarborough, Tobago: Tobago Tourism Agency. Travel Bulletin. 2020. “Tobago receives WTTC’s Safe Travels stamp.” https:// www.travelbulletin.co.uk/news-­mainmenu/tobago-­gets-­wttc-­s-­safe-­travels-­ stamp. Accessed 28 July 2020. United Nations Development Programme. 2021. “Rethinking Tourism & MSMES in Times of Covid-19.” United Nations Development Programme. https://www.bb.undp.org/content/barbados/en/home/future-­tourism/ regional-­dialogues/Regional-­Dialogues-­Summary-­Report.html UNDP, UNICEF, and UN Women. 2020. Saint Lucia COVID-19 Report: Human and Economic Assessment of #impact. Barbados: UNDP. Walker, Brian, Crawford S. Holling, Stephen R. Carpenter, and Ann Kinzig. 2004. Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability in Social–Ecological Systems. Ecology and Society 9 (2): 24–36. Woodhouse, Philip. 1998. People as Informants. In Finding Out Fast – Investigative Skills for Policy and Development, ed. Alan Thomas et al., 127–146. London: Sage in association with the Open University. World Travel & Tourism Council. 2018. Travel and Tourism: Global Economic & Impact Update (Rep.). https://www.tourisminvest.co.nz/library/pdf/wttc-­ world2018.pdf World Travel and Tourism Council. 2020. WTTC reveals travel & tourism sector’s contribution to Caribbean GDP. https://wttc.org/Portals/0/Documents/ Press%20Releases/WTTC%20research%20reveals%20Travel%20Tourism%20 sectors%20contribution%20to%20Caribbean%20GDP%20dropped%20by%20 34%20billion%20in%202020.pdf?ver=2021-­05-­27-­121243-­767

CHAPTER 12

“Furloughed and Frustrated But I Am Fighting”: Women Hotel Workers and the Cost and Value of COVID-19 O’Neil Joseph

Introduction In July 2020, three months after she was furloughed from the hotel where she had worked for the past twenty years, Lexi James, a food and beverage manager, offered an account of the impact of COVID-19 on her and her family. She explained: At this point everything is just up in the air—everything is uncertain. I love the work I do but I just cannot deal with the ups and downs. I don’t have a cent anywhere, all my savings done, and I have my children who are depending on me. At this point, I am not even sure where to turn to get rent money for this month. Right now, I am babysitting two children for a neighbour who is a nurse, and it is a form of “helping out” because she prays with me, sometimes when she cooks, she will send over food and from time to time she will offer me a little money. The money is not a sure thing but I am

O. Joseph (*) Scarborough, Trinidad and Tobago © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Roberts et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30889-5_12

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grateful. She [neighbour] organized with a friend who let me babysit her children three days per week for three hundred dollars. I am asking around to see if I can get some other children because essential workers looking for caretakers for their children. It is a rough time for me and my family. So, I would say that I am furloughed and frustrated but I am fighting. (James 2020)

The above testimony by Lexi James highlights the economic and emotional impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on her family. In the three months after being furloughed (an unpaid leave of absence from work with the expectation to return at some time), Ms James had exhausted her savings. Confronted by the financial responsibilities associated with providing for her three children and keeping a roof over their heads, Ms James turned to caring labour as a strategy to ensure the sustenance and survival of her family. Although there was uncertainty about whether she would receive immediate monetary reward for the care provided for her neighbour’s children, Ms James envisioned childcare as a possible long-­ term strategy to overcome the financial distress that had beset her and her family. Historically, women in the Caribbean have performed varying forms of caring labour as a means to supplement their incomes or as their sole income, especially at times when they were unable to secure employment within the formal economy. Ms James was one of the many women hotel workers throughout the Caribbean who found themselves under severe economic and emotional hardship as a result of the pandemic and were in search of alternative income streams. Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted the hospitality industry in the Caribbean. According to the International Labour Organisation (2021), the loss of jobs in the hotel and restaurant sector in Latin America and the Caribbean totalled 44.7 percent. Given that women represent more than half of those employed in the accommodation and food services sector, they suffered a greater loss by the disruption to this sector. However, the conversation on the impact of COVID-19 on the tourism industry has been dominated by statistics highlighting financial losses. For instance, the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) publicised that COVID-19 resulted in the loss of over 680,000 jobs and wiped out US$33.9 billion from the Caribbean economy (Doughty 2021). Buried beneath these quantitative analyses are the testimonies of women hotel workers whose lives were disrupted by the pandemic. This chapter seeks to explore the lived realties of women hotel workers after being furloughed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilising

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oral testimonies, this work centres the voices of three Afro-Tobagonian women hotel workers who offer intimate narratives of the socio-economic and psychological impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on them and their families. Much of this chapter’s contribution to the existing literature lies in the fact that it moves beyond the statistical analyses and provides an intimate portrait of the people behind the figures; women whose voices have traditionally been ignored or trivialised. The oral testimonies captured in this chapter positions the voices of women as critical to framing the discourse on the impact of COVID-19 on Caribbean people and provides a lens through which the diverse experiences of Caribbean women during the COVID-19 pandemic can be historicised The raw and riveting testimonies offered by these women strongly suggest that while the economic fallout of COVID-19 rendered many women hotel workers unable to pay their bills and support their children, these women embraced and exploited the opportunities presented by cottage industries in an attempt to ensure the sustenance and survival of their families. This chapter begins by placing Tobago women and their labour in the hotel industry in historical context. Following this, the methodology employed in this study will be discussed and the core of the chapter will examine the testimonies provided by three Afro-Tobagonian women who were employed in the hotel industry and subsequently furloughed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Women’s Vulnerability and the Economy in Tobago: Historical Context Tobago, an island of 116 square miles, is part of the twin island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. The two islands were joined to form one state in 1889. However, Tobago, which maintained a largely agrarian economy from the nineteenth century into the twentieth century, continued to lag behind Trinidad in terms of infrastructural, educational, and economic development (Brereton 2008). The island’s agricultural industry collapsed in 1963 after the passing of Hurricane Flora which destroyed homes, crops, and livestock (Harewood 1963). Women, many of whom were small farmers, market and itinerant vendors, and inter-island food traders, were significantly imperilled and disadvantaged by this sudden and drastic decline in the island’s agricultural industry. As a result of falling victim to

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this environmental catastrophe, women’s participation in agriculture and related industries such as inter-island trafficking dwindled. In an effort to rebuild Tobago’s economy in the decades following the 1960s, tourism acquired renewed attention and investment. The tourism sector provided opportunities for employment, entrepreneurship, and income-generating community-based activities. By 1990, approximately 1395 women or 29.5 percent of women in the island’s workforce were employed in the hotel and restaurant sector (Craig-James 2008). Public administration and services employed 51.5 percent of women, while tourism was the second highest employer of women on the island (Craig-­ James 2008). However, from the onset, tourism development was heavily driven by interests beyond Tobago. D. B. Weaver explained that “Control over accommodation in Tobago was traditionally exercised by an interconnected plantocracy of Tobagonian, Trinidadian and foreign origin” (Weaver 1998, 299). In 1974 “expatriate ownership of Tobago’s hotel capacity was estimated at 80%” (Weaver 1998, 300). Nevertheless, larger foreign- or Trinidadian-owned hotels provided the most employment opportunities for women. Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century into the twenty-first century, managerial positions were filled by Trinidadians, but Tobagonian women found employment in housekeeping, laundry, food and beverage, maintenance, and, in a few instances, administration (Haider 1982). These women typically worked for low wages and were often trained on the job site. Thus, Tobagonian women, most of whom were of African descent, made up the lowest category of workers within the hotel industry. In a 1974 study on the social impact of tourism in Tobago, sixty black women hotel and guest house employees were surveyed alongside seventy-­ four males. Of all administrative positions, 75 percent were held by local women, all of whom had a secondary school education (Haider 1982). However, women were underrepresented in middle-management where 96 percent of heads of department were male, only three of whom were educated at the secondary level (Haider 1982). It was not surprising then, that the 1974 study of these hotel workers revealed that “job satisfaction was slightly higher among men than among women, probably associated with the tendency for men to hold higher status jobs and to derive greater income from their employment” (Abdullah et  al. 1974, 21). Given the disproportionately high number of women in low-paid and unskilled jobs in the hotel sector, they were most adversely affected by the seasonal nature of the tourism industry. The tourist or peak season (January-May)

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coincided with the harsh winter months in North America, and Tobago’s sunny climes, white sand, and blue seas were marketed as a tropical escape. The tropical escape branding, usually accompanied by images of white tourists being served by a black woman or man, were consistent with the construction of the region as offering “heaven on earth” and “a little bit of paradise” and “fantasies of sustenance without labour” (Sheller 2004, 170–171). The peak season was followed by slow months where hotel occupancy was far from maximum capacity, a situation that often resulted in significantly reduced incomes for many women who were forced to accept fewer working days or were furloughed for the period. While reliable statistics on the total number of women employed in this sector over the last decade are not readily available, the trends suggest that Tobago women still constitute the majority of persons in housekeeping, food and beverage preparation and service staff at hotels on the island. Tourism remains the main industry on the island and accounts for approximately 50 percent of the island’s GDP while also employing about 56 percent of the island’s workforce (Mohan 2021). Many of the larger hotels and villas are owned by Trinidadians or foreigners, while Tobagonians dominate ownership of small guest houses which cater for 2–20 guests and bed and breakfast Inns (Tobago House of Assembly 2019). Unfortunately, the island continues to face a marked decline in the number of tourist arrivals. For instance, net occupancy in 2013 was 44.8 percent but by 2017, had reached 32.1 percent (Tobago House of Assembly 2019). Taken together, whether in the agricultural or tourism sector, Tobago women continue to represent one of the most vulnerable groups in the island’s workforce. The COVID-19 pandemic was another catastrophe which magnified the vulnerability and day-to-day economic insecurity that women within the tourism sector continue to navigate.

A Note on Methodology This section adopts a relativist approach. Relativism speaks to the practice of refusing to accept “one set of ideas as revealing the whole truth,” and the willingness to acknowledge that “there is merit in the viewpoints of different groups” (Haralambos and Holborn 2008, 456). Expanding on this concept, poststructuralist Jacques Derrida posits that work on women supports relativism, not only in “denying that any one truth can be found [but understanding] that any particular text can be taken apart and shown to have contradictions within it” (Haralambos and Holborn 2008, 117).

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The concept of relativism, the acknowledgement of multiple truths, and the appreciation of the multiplicity of meanings within text form the theoretical and methodological foundations of this study. This work is also feminist in its methodological approach. Scholars such as Abigail Brooks contend that the feminist standpoint grounds research in the realities of women’s lived experiences and seeks to explore and comprehend the heterogeneous characteristics of the human condition (Brooks 2007). In this way, this study which seeks to understand hotel workers experiences after being furloughed, through the eyes and experiences of women, implicitly adopts a feminist perspective. This feminist approach therefore informed the decision to centre women’s voices and allow their testimonies to form the core of this chapter. The arguments made in this study draws heavily on the oral testimonies of women hotel workers whose voices and experiences have been ignored, or at best, given a cursory glance by Caribbean scholars. Historian Bridget Brereton, in her discussion on using oral sources to understand the texture of women’s lives, highlighted that many written sources often cannot answer the questions that researchers seem to ask, especially as it relates to the lived realities of women (Brereton 2013). Oral history, oral testimonies, and life histories are all approaches to data collection that gives primacy to the voices of women and offers insight into their multi-layered life experiences that helps to shape scholarly discourses on women and gender issues, especially within the Caribbean context. Within the disciplines of History, Sociology, and Gender Studies, many Caribbean scholars have utilised oral testimonies. Oral testimonies significantly informed Susan Craig-James’ 2008 work on Tobago’s history, Rhoda Reddock’s 1994 monograph on the labour experiences of Trinidadian women, and Patricia Mohammed’s 2002 text which explored the gender dynamics among Indians in Trinidad (Brereton 2013). This study adopts a similar approach, centring the voices of three Afro-Tobagonian women who were furloughed as a result of the economic crisis brought about by COVID-19. Testimonies were recorded during the period July 2020 to August 2021. Pseudonyms were used to protect the interests of the participants in this study. Participants ranged in age from thirty-five to fifty-seven years old and they all self-identified as working class. The researcher knew of one woman hotel worker who was furloughed during this period, and she made referrals of other women in the industry who were also furloughed. The fieldwork was guided by two broad questions: In what ways, if any, has being furloughed impacted you and your family? Secondly, how did

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you respond to the effects/impacts of the pandemic? The methodological approach to these interviews was qualitative, interdisciplinary, and guided by the researcher’s training in oral history. While valid, extremely valuable, and empowering for marginalised groups, oral testimonies also have challenges. It has been argued that “memory is malleable, susceptible to confusion and conflation, to lapses and lying, to suggestion and sensation, and always to the role of the imagination” (Chamberlain 2021, 41). As a result, oral sources are not held in high regard in some academic circles. Moreover, oral testimonies are subjective or autobiographical and therefore, caution should be exhibited when scholars desire “to read them as assertions of a wider set of social relations” (Chamberlain 2021). However, Mary Chamberlain also explained that if memory is to be viewed as “shared consciousness and part of the process of social production, then oral sources offer the potential for entering into a wider cultural milieu … [thus] the individual voice may be representative of the collective voice and provide evidence of broader attitudes, values and patterns of behaviour” (Chamberlain 2021, 43). The oral testimonies provided are seen as both autobiographical and representative of some of the lived experiences of women hotel workers as a result of COVID-19. In terms of mitigating the challenges presented by oral sources, this researcher did not approach the details provided by the interviewees as true or false because “to pursue them as either is to pursue a chimera. [Rather, there was] an interrogation of oral sources to arrive at a different set of historical evidence” (Chamberlain 2021, 57). In this regard, the researcher worked towards establishing a relationship of mutual trust and respect with the interviewees and adopted a conversational approach which allowed for free-flowing dialogue. While the dialogue was unstructured, the conversational approach provided a complex and authentic expression of these women’s lived realities which contributes to writing a more rounded histories of the COVID-19 pandemic. Documentary sources such as official letters from employers, emails from landlords, and letters from furniture stores were also consulted to corroborate the testimonies provided. The research also draws upon newspaper articles, studies, and policy documents from the 1970s and 1980s which reveal that Afro-Tobagonian women have always fallen victim to the ebb and flow of the tourism industry. The value of this work lies in the fact that it adopts a micro lens to examine the tourism/hotel industry and the people whose labour is essential to the “production of paradise.” This approach offers us insight into

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how the pandemic impacted the lay people and not merely hotel corporations. This knowledge is critical to the ongoing conversations about island states repositioning themselves for the “post-pandemic” era.

Findings and Discussion Lexi James: “Furloughed and Frustrated” Ms James worked as a food and beverage manager at a three-star foreign-­ owned hotel in Tobago for the last ten years. Prior to those years she was employed as a kitchen assistant and then a chef. Her passion for food preparation and her mother’s career as a kitchen assistant in the hotel industry prompted her to pursue this line of work despite the precarious nature of the sector. Ms James explained: When I was growing up my mother was working at a hotel in the kitchen. This would have been in the 1970s and 1980s. She used to bring home samples of the food they prepared and when she had extra money, we would make some of the dishes at home. When I was finished with secondary school [early 1990s], I told her I wanted to work in a hotel kitchen. She was not in agreeance with that at all because she was accustomed to being laid off during slow season or in some instances, they would cut down the number of days you were working during slow season. She did not want that kind of uncertainty for me and the financial problems that it created. I remember her always looking for some other work, most times, a cleaning work whenever it was slow season and then always trying to keep a side work because you just never know what would happen in the hotel. She was always frustrated and worried and stress out. For years she always had some side work. However, I loved this area of work and I started as a kitchen assistant and then I went back to school to get my degree in hospitality and food service. Over the years, while I saw other people being laid off, it was never my experience. So, this virus is a shock for me, and I really do not know where to turn. I cry many nights because the uncertainty is just too much. I pray with a friend, and I started talking to someone because the thoughts in my mind very dangerous. (James 2020)

James’ testimony highlighted the vulnerability, economic insecurity, and emotional turmoil which she and her mother, who was employed in the hotel sector in the 1980s, faced as a result of the unstable nature of hotel work and the tourism sector in general. Based on James’ mother’s

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experiences and the testimonies of other retired women hotel workers such as Mary Blake and Pearl Samuel, being a woman hotel employee was an often frustrating, demanding, and uncertain endeavour which prompted women to secure other income streams to manage economic instability or fluctuations in tourist arrival. Occupational multiplicity was, therefore, a strategy adopted by many women. Despite having seen her mother endure this reality, Ms James followed her passion of being employed in the food and beverage sector and even acquired advanced training at the Tobago Hospitality and Tourism Institute which was established in 1997. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, represented the first occasion in her twenty-year career where she was furloughed. This reality, as she told it, brought about much emotional and mental turmoil which resulted in her making the decision to seek professional help. Indeed, the hidden cost of the pandemic was the mental toll it has had on people, especially those who lost their jobs and loved ones. Pappas (2020) argues that COVID-19 has impacted people in the service industry, disproportionately women, more than other sector of workers and therefore the mental toll would be greater among this group. For this category of workers, unemployment can indeed trigger anxiety, depression, loss of identity, loss of life satisfaction, prolonged periods of stress and sadness, and a general loss of purpose (Pappas 2020). While admitting that she is dealing with the psychological impact of the pandemic, for Ms James, the economic fallout was her greatest concern. She explained: When the government declared the stay-at-home order, we were obviously at home. After the first month past, the hotel offered me half salary. Other workers were not offered anything, only a promise that when things “pick back up” they would be contacted. Now, half salary for me was less than my most important financial commitment which was rent, but I accepted the half salary and then two months past, and nothing was on the table. The hotel said it was not feasible to keep paying workers. They had some cleaners come in two days per week to maintain the property but everybody else was at home without pay. I am a single mother of three daughters and I living in a rent house. In about a month and a half I spent everything I had. I don’t have a cent anywhere, all my savings done, and I have my children who are depending on me. For me that is the biggest impact of the pandemic. That is what keeps me up at night. That is what makes me cry. That is what I am usually thinking about. The inability to provide for myself and my children. (James 2020)

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For Ms James, the depletion of her savings and not having a steady income, threatened her ability to provide shelter for her family. As a single mother and sole provider for her family, her small savings was always seen as a safety net for the rainy day. However, COVID-19 was not just a rainy day but rather a lengthy rainy season. Indeed, some hotels in Tobago attempted to continue paying workers in the months following the March 2020 “lock down” period (Joseph 2020). Moreover, as the pandemic evolved and with restrictions on beach use, curfews, and reduced flights to Tobago on the inter-island air bridge, even domestic tourists could not keep the establishments open, and some hotels decided to close their doors indefinitely and offered no remuneration to employees by mid-2021 (McEachnie 2021b). In Trinidad, several international hotel chains such as Hyatt Regency also laid off workers as a cost-saving measure (Julien 2020). The cost of this decision weighed heavily on the many women hotel workers, like Ms James, whose survival and shelter depended on the wages acquired from these jobs. Michelle Trim: “Weathering the Storm” Mrs Trim was employed as a housekeeper at various hotels on the island for the last twenty-five years. She and her husband, a groundsman, were both furloughed in May 2020. She offered an account of their experiences: They sent home me and my husband at the same time. We were not surprised because it was happening all over. June and July [2020] we were very late on all our bills—electricity, tv, and internet but my major concern was our children because school shifted online, and we had to buy two devices. We were unable to get a loan from the credit union so they could not get to log into school for the first two months. So, for the last term in that 2019–2020 school year they were completely out of school. We pulled together all that we had to make sure they could get at least one device to access their schoolwork for the next term. When I realized what was really happening, I did not spend a lot of time sitting down crying and worrying. We just made up our mind that we have to survive and adapt. My husband and I talked, and we said we are weathering this storm. He started going fishing and started a small garden so that we could have food to eat. I started to make sweets, all sorts of baked products like coconut tarts, cakes and sweet potato pone to sell and also for us to eat at home. I would tell the neighbours what I was preparing, and I would walk the village with my basket and sell. In no time the word started spreading and I started to get

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orders and started supplying sweets like fudge for a shop right here in the village. We are now about eight months into this pandemic, and I have my own business. So, while I would have been sent home, the pandemic really pushed me into business and for that I am thankful. (Trim 2020)

Mrs Trim’s testimony underscored how the pandemic would have resulted in some financial setbacks where her bills were concerned and some challenges for her children to access school online. Due to the lack of finances and their inability to secure a loan, her children were unable to secure a device and, therefore, would have suffered some degree of learning loss in the months following the outbreak of the virus in Trinidad and Tobago. Indeed, by August 2020, the Ministry of Education revealed that 65,000 students were without digital access and therefore unable to attend classes (Rodriguez 2020). However, Mrs Trim and her husband were resolute in their commitment not to be defeated by the trials presented by COVID-19 and made every possible attempt to secure a device for their children to start the 2020/2021 academic year. In an effort to minimise the economic effects of the pandemic, Mrs Trim transformed her home into a space of economic activity and started preparing food items for sale. Traditional food preservation and preparation practices laid the foundation for her entrepreneurialism. Historically, women in Tobago have always embraced the opportunities presented by cottage industries (Craig-James 2008). Food and beverages were undeniably a major product category in the local cottage industry. Homemade confections and baked goods such as fudge, lime balls, sugar cakes, pone, sponge cakes, coconut-drops, stewed plums and cherries, souse, and coconut oil were some of the products women commonly made and sold throughout the twentieth century and well into the twenty-first century. In her study of micro-enterprises in Tobago, Cheryl Levine notes that: In Tobago, women have been consistently microentrepreneurial despite a tendency to downplay self-employment activities. Perhaps the quintessential characteristic of the Tobagonian women is the ability “to make ends meet” through creatively stretching limited resources. A woman might trade (sell) her surplus garden provisions at the Saturday market. Likewise, garden produce could be processed and sold at the market as commodities including sweet potato pone, souse, pudding, farine and other Tobago foods… A woman might take her tray of baked goods or surplus garden items to sell at the junction (crossroads) or villagers who knew her products might come to her home. Similarly, Hilary Beckles described that in Barbados “female

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hucksters could be found “at the corner of almost every street … sitting on little stools” with their goods neatly displayed on trays. (Levine 2003, 261)

Without a doubt, cottage industries have long been viewed as a survivalist strategy for working-class women in Caribbean societies. Cottage industries capitalise on the resourcefulness of women and nurture a sense of self-sufficiency among vulnerable groups. It is on this tradition that Mrs Trim built her business, a business which at the time of writing this chapter was supplying over ten shops and two supermarkets with well-packaged traditional Tobago sweets and delicacies. Mrs Trim, therefore, is part of the “small business boom” that was triggered by the pandemic. Indeed, small businesses, like hers, contribute to developing a more dynamic and resilient economy which is a goal of small-island Caribbean states. Paula Jackson: “Setback after Setback” Paula Jackson began her career as a housekeeper at a hotel in Port-of Spain Trinidad in 1991. However, three years later, management of the establishment changed, and she was laid off. She moved to Barbados where she worked in the food and beverage sector at a popular hotel chain. As a result of internal restructuring, she was laid off. She moved to Tobago in 2007, where she continued her career in the hotel sector, working as a housekeeper/general worker. Disruptions and setbacks, therefore, were not new to Ms Jackson. However, COVID-19, according to her, was the hardest pill she has had to swallow. Reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic, she explained: The place where I worked was a smaller resort, so they were struggling very early in the pandemic. We were paid half-salary for about two months into the first lockdown from about April to June 2020. Then we were invited to work one day per week, and we were given a day pay. That continued throughout 2020. So, it was a whole year of struggle with one day pay which was about $120.00 per week. So, you could say I survived on $500 per month for most of 2020. Early in 2021, we started getting visitors from Trinidad and we were back out in full until the second lockdown after Easter 2021. After that lock down everything stopped. My supervisor said they [management] just said they not paying us and when business is good again, they would be re-hire us. But that is when? People have bills and commitments! As soon as we went on lockdown my husband contracted the virus and died some weeks later. When I got sent home the first time, he was the

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one that had the security of a government job but after he died, I was left alone with nothing. I left the rent house and moved in with my mother because I had no money coming in. I am still grieving and dealing with everything. I am broken and what is also very hard, is that even during that time after my husband died, not even a phone call from management. All the managers are still receiving their salaries when we the regular workers were sent home without payment. When I realized that the hotel got a government grant, I said they would have given us something. Not a word! It was the lack of care and concern for me. We protested, we called in the media and then they sent some vague letter. Other hotel workers in other places protesting as well. That is the treatment of workers in the hotel industry. That is what needs to be documented. I have many co-workers who move out of their rent houses, their children don’t have devices to log into classes and furniture and appliance stores are calling to take back their stuff. When I tell you, this pandemic has really shaken me up. I feel like is setback after setback. (Jackson 2021)

Mrs Jackson’s tearful account of her experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic captured the human and economic loss that many had to endure. Her survival on just $500.00 (TT) or approximately $74 USD per month for most of 2020 was only made possible because of the financial support of her husband whose employment was not interrupted by the pandemic. Indeed, in Trinidad and Tobago, government workers were one of the few categories of workers whose income was not impacted by the pandemic. Mrs Jackson’s testimony also reveals that Easter 2021 witnessed a boost in hotel occupancy which suggested that the sector was making a comeback. In fact, occupancy rate for villas was at 90 percent and occupancy for hotels was at 76 percent, the highest it had been since February 2020 (Connelly 2021). This boost provided a need for hotel workers to be back at work in full force and receiving full salaries. However, by May 3, 2021, the situation resembled that of March 2020; the country was once again on lockdown. The Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Keith Rowley, opined that “Our healthcare system is now in danger of (being) overrun because of the rate of infection we are experiencing” (Hutchinson-Jafar 2021, 3). As Mrs Jackson recalls, this meant a shutting/slowing down of hotel operations and women hotel workers being sent home, this time, without any remuneration. For Mrs Jackson, the death of her husband exacerbated this already distressing state of affairs. Mrs Jackson’s testimony also offered insight into the poor industrial relations and lack of consultation related to the termination of workers for

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a second time. Indeed, the perceived general lack of respect and concern prompted protests by hotel employees across the island who took advantage of the media attention to describe the harsh realities they were made to endure as a result of being sent home. One protestor explained: “I am just trying not to break down in tears, so I am putting my focus on God that He will see me through, I just have to continue liaising with my landlord to let her know what is what, because for the last few months I have not been able to pay my $2,000 rent (approximately $300 USD). Whatever I have, that is what I give” (Connelly 2021). When probed about the response of the management at one hotel to the protest action, a female hotel employee explained that they were called “troublemakers” and their concerns were trivialised by the hotel’s management team. As a result, many workers began clamouring for severance packages in an attempt to move on and rebuild their lives (Connelly 2021). Mrs Jackson was one such protestor. Commenting on her response to the pandemic and her intentions moving forward, she explained: Since December of 2020 I started a kitchen garden. I plant seasoning, ground provisions and vegetables and now I sell in the market. So, selling food and produce is what I believe has been helping me out financially and this is the type of work I will do moving forward. At this point I am not going back to do hotel work. I cannot keep putting myself through this, the ups and downs. I like planting food and selling in the market. It is not easy work but that is what my grandmother and mother did all the years and they made it. So, I now consider myself a former hotel worker. I am working on my own terms and I just acquired bottles to start processing my seasoning and distributing to shops to sell. (Jackson 2021)

Agriculture and agro processing have long been a strategy used by Tobagonian and, more broadly, Caribbean women in an attempt to feed themselves and their families and navigate unpredictable economic conditions. Caribbean markets are dominated by African-descended women who view the production and distribution of food as a viable means to generate income while simultaneously feeding their families (Anim-Addo 2018; Durant-Gonzalez 1976). In this way, food production blurs the lines between household and market, a key feature of cottage industries. Jackson’s decision to work on her own terms is a common step taken by many persons who were rendered jobless as a result of the pandemic. At

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the time of the writing of this chapter, according to Mrs Jacksons, bottled seasonings can be found on the shelves of numerous supermarkets on the island, and she has secured a spot in the local market.

Conclusion The testimonies highlighted in this chapter draw attention to the different ways in which COVID-19 has impacted women in the hotel sector and how these women responded to the impacts of the pandemic. These testimonies of loss and gain, resilience and defeat, sorrow and success revealed the complex ways in which this pandemic has impacted women whose livelihoods were affected. The chapter also captured how women continue to be a vulnerable group in the island’s economy. This reality should feature more prominently in discussions regarding labour force re-­ organisation and restructuring for the “post-pandemic” world. The findings also suggest that there is a dire need for trade union organising among hospitality workers in Tobago. At present there exists no collective bargaining and labour relations entity that speaks on behalf of hotel workers on the island. Thus, these workers are left without recourse or a collective voice in times of crisis. This reality may also account for the low wages (in many instances $22.00 per hour) that persist among employees in the industry, resulting in many women hotel workers living pay cheque to pay cheque with little to no savings. Two interviewees, Mrs Paula Jackson and Mrs Michelle Trim, revealed that although deductions were made from their wages as part of the national insurance system (NIS), they were unable to access the salary relief grants offered by the government of Trinidad and Tobago because there were no records of their NIS contributions. The salary relief grant was one of the strategies implemented by the Ministry of Finance which facilitated a grant of $1500 TT dollars (approximately US$220) to workers whose income was terminated or suspended before May 2021 (Government of Trinidad and Tobago 2021). The testimonies offered in this chapter indicate that the psychological contract of confidence and trust between employer and employee was breached. Many workers were unable to engage in meaningful discussions with hoteliers and it is clear that hotel owners mishandled labour-related issues that not only impacted workers emotionally but could potentially damage the employer’s brand and how people in Tobago perceive working in the hotel industry. These

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negative perceptions regarding labour relations would impact the industry’s recovery. Hoteliers must also consider savings and insurance policies for employees against global pandemics or pension funds in the wake of a pandemic. Managing employee trust and confidence is critical to the rebuilding and sustainability of the industry, especially in small islands such as Tobago. Despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles, in Tobago, the region, and globally, COVID-19 has also served as a catalyst for entrepreneurship. Certainly, while the economic fallout of COVID-19 rendered many women hotel workers unable to pay their bills and support their children, these women embraced and exploited the opportunities presented by cottage industries in an attempt to ensure the sustenance and survival of their families.

References Abdullah, Norma, N.J.  Cole, and C.  Sigurdsson. 1974. The Social Impact of Tourism on Tobago: A Report to the Government of Trinidad and Tobago. St. Augustine: Institute of Social and Economic Research. Anim-Addo, Anyaa. 2018. Reading Post-Emancipation In/Security: Negotiations of Everyday Freedom. Small Axe 22 (3): 105–114. Brereton, Bridget. 2008. Contesting the Past: Narratives of Trinidad & Tobago History. NWIG: New West Indian Guide/Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 81 (3/4): 169–196. https://doi.org/10.2307/43390667. ———. 2013. Women and Gender in Caribbean (English Speaking) Historiography: Sources and Methods. Caribbean Review of Gender Studies 7: 1–18. https://sta.uwi.edu/crgs/december2013/journals/CRGS_7_ Brereton.pdf. Brooks, Abigail. 2007. Feminist Standpoint Epistemology: Building Knowledge and Empowerment Through Women’s Lived Experience. In Feminist Research Practice: A Primer, ed. Sharlene Hesse-Biber and Patricia Leavy, 53–82. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications Inc. Chamberlain, Mary. 2021. Gender and Memory: Oral History and Women’s History. In Methodologies in Caribbean Research on Gender and Sexuality, ed. Kamala Kempadoo and Halimah DeShong. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers. Craig-James, Susan. 2008. The Changing Society of Tobago, 1838–1938: A Fractured Whole Vols. 1 and 11. Arima: Cornerstone Press. Connelly, Corey. 2021. Coco Reef Employee on Hotel Shutdown: God Alone Can Help Me. Newsday, August 18. Doughty, Melissa. 2021. World Tourism Body: Covid19 took US$33.9b out of Region. Newsday, May 27.

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Durant-Gonzalez, Victoria. 1976. Role and Status of Rural Jamaican Women: Higglering and Mothering. PhD. Diss., University of California, Berkeley. Government of Trinidad and Tobago. 2021. Submissions of Applications for the May/June 2021 Salary Relief Grant (SRG) Ended as of Midnight July 9th, 2021. Ministry of Finance, https://www.finance.gov.tt/2021/05/19/ covid-­19-­salary-­relief-­grant-­2021/. Haider, Wolfgang. 1982. Tourism in Tobago: The Case for Upgraded Guesthouses. M.A. diss., Carlton University. Haralambos, Mike, and Martin Holborn. 2008. Sociology Themes and Perspectives. 7th ed. London: Harper Collins Publishers. Harewood, Gerry.1963. Tobago Hurricane Death Toll 30. Trinidad Guardian, October 1. Hutchinson-Jafar, Linda. 2021. Trinidad and Tobago Tightens Lockdown as COVID-19 Surges. Reuters, May 3. International Labour Organisation. 2021. Tourism Recovery is Key to Overcoming COVID-19 Labour Crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean. Accessed March 5, 2022. https://www.ilo.org/caribbean/newsroom/WCMS_809331/ lang%2D%2Den/index.htm. Joseph, Kai. 2020. Tobago Tourism in Focus. Tobago News, September 14. Julien, Joel. 2020. Hyatt to Temporarily Lay-off Staff. Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, November 15. Levine, Cheryl. 2003. Mediating the Model: Women’s Microenterprise and Microcredit in Tobago. PhD diss., University of South Florida. Lexi James, in discussion with author, August 3, 2020 McEachnie, Camille. 2021a. Officials: CAL Flights, Hotels Full for Easter in Tobago. Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, March 30. ———. 2021b. Coco Reef Resort and Spa Tobago Closes Indefinitely. Trinidad and Tobago Guardian, August 7. Michelle Trim, in discussion with author, August 10, 2020 Mohammed, Patricia. 2002. Gender Negotiations Among Indians in Trinidad, 1917–1947. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Mohan, Preeya. 2021. Sustainable Tourism and the Sustainable Development Goals in Sub-national Island Jurisdictions: The case of Tobago. Island Studies Journal, October 1–22. https://islandstudiesjournal.org/files/ISJMohanSDG TourismTobago.pdf. Pappas, Stephanie. 2020. The Toll of Job Loss. Monitor on Psychology 51 (7) http://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/10/toll-­job-­loss. Paula Jackson, in discussion with author, July 26, 2021 Reddock, Rhoda. 1994. Women, Labour and Politics in Trinidad and Tobago. London: Zed Books. Rodriguez, Khamarie. 2020. 65,000 Pupils Have No Digital Access: Govt Appeals for Devices. Daily Express, August 28.

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Sheller, Mimi. 2004. Natural Hedonism: The Invention of Caribbean Islands as Tropical Playgrounds. In Beyond the Blood, the Beach and the Banana, ed. Sandra Courtman, 170–185. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers. Tobago House of Assembly. 2019. Tourism Statistics Provided to the Researcher by the Division of Tourism, Culture, Antiquities and Transportation. Weaver, D.B. 1998. Peripheries of the Periphery: Tourism in Tobago and Barbuda. Annals of Tourism Research 25 (2): 92–313. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0160-­ 7383(97)00094-­7.

CHAPTER 13

The Impact of Government Policies on Hotel Performance During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of Caribbean Countries Swechchha Subedi and Marketa Kubickova

Introduction Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which started as a pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, China, continues to dismantle the global economy, disrupting the international supply chain and creating distorted consumption patterns and market anomalies (Yu et al. 2021). There is no doubt that COVID-19 has triggered global uncertainty and has had serious shortand long-term effects on supply and demand at the aggregate and sectoral levels (ECLAC 2020a; Kizys et  al. 2021). Since travel and tourism are primarily based on mobility and close human interaction, it has been one of the largest recipients of the negative impact of COVID-19 compared to any other industry (Nicola et al. 2020).

S. Subedi (*) • M. Kubickova University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 S. Roberts et al. (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Covid-19 and the Caribbean, Volume 1, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30889-5_13

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According to World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC 2021), the travel and tourism industry suffered an estimated loss of USD 4.5 trillion and international visitors’ spending fell by 69.4% in 2020, bringing the industry back to the levels reported in 1990. During the same time, the Caribbean region’s GDP decreased by 9.0%, tourist arrivals plummeted by 70%, and total travel and tourism GDP decreased by 58% (WTTC 2021). Within the hospitality and tourism industry, hotels are usually the first ones to be affected by the pandemic as restrictions on movement have a direct impact on their core business (hotel stays) (García-Gómez et  al. 2021). For example, as pointed out by Pfalz (2022), due to the 2021 lockdown, the hotel industry in many European destinations was negatively impacted while destinations like Miami reported the highest levels of gross operating profits due to their restrictions being lifted. This is just one example of how different control measures implemented by a government can impact the performance of the hotel industry in a specific destination. There has been ample research on the impacts of COVID-19 on the hospitality and tourism industry (e.g., Hao et  al. 2020; Napierała et  al. 2020). Similarly, there are several studies focusing on the impact of COVID-19 on the Caribbean region, for example, the economy (ECLAC 2020a; Chaves et  al. 2022), healthcare (Cimerman et  al. 2022), labour markets (Beylis et  al. 2020; Cucagna and Romero 2021), and cruise industry (Ajagunna and Casanova 2022; Spencer and Spencer 2022). Yet, there are no studies focusing on the impact of COVID-19 on the hotel industry of the Caribbean Region or the role of government intervention in the recovery of the hotel industry. The current study is the first one to address this issue and was initiated based on the call by scholars urging the need for further understanding of the role of government policies in the recovery of the hotel industry (Salem et al. 2021). Therefore, the main premise of this study is to utilise the developmental system’s framework of resilience theory to understand the relationship between COVID-19, government response, and hotel performance. It is hypothesised that the level of COVID-19 cases will have a direct impact on hotel operations. In addition, COVID-19 cases will influence the policies that government will implement, indirectly impacting hotel operations. The theoretical foundation of this study is based on the resilience framework and the role of government.

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Theoretical Background Resilience Theory The term ‘resilience’ was developed by ecologist C.S.  Holling and is defined as “a measure of the persistence of systems and of their ability to absorb change and disturbance and still maintain the same relationships” (Holling 1973, 14). The study’s theoretical background is based on the system framework of the resilience theory. According to this framework, resilience is best defined as a dynamic system arising from dynamic interactions of many processes across and between systems (Masten and Cicchetti 2016). In the system framework, the major focus is given to the mediating process that links adversity with outcomes (Calgaro et  al. 2014). Such mediating process could include social support structures (Brennan 2008), adaptive networks (such as economic development, information and communication, community competence, and social capital) (Norris et  al. 2008), government policy intervention, and planning alterations (Calgaro et al. 2014). The great insight of resilience theory is in recognising the importance of understanding the influence of mediating processes that promote positive adaptation or mitigate the effects of risk/adversity (Masten 2018). For the purpose of this chapter, the mediating processes include the policies implemented by the governments. Such interventions are divided into two types: (i) restrictive policies (e.g., border closures, restrictions on travel, workplace closing, restriction on gathering size) and (ii) economic support policies (e.g., stimulus payments, rent support, income support, debt relief). Role of Government During Crisis The level of government intervention accepted in the private market has been a subject of extensive debate. Some believe that the risk of market failure and the need to address market inefficiency legitimises government interventions (Vining and Weimer 1992; Zerbe and McCurty 1999) while others believe that the risk of market failure is not sufficient justification for government intervention (Wolf 1979). Nonetheless, the government’s involvement is a prerequisite for most modern economic development (Glaeser and Shleifer 2002) and the inability of the

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government to intervene during a crisis creates economic inefficiencies, puts the welfare of the citizens at risk, and hampers economic recovery (Karnani 2011). The level of government involvement in the tourism industry depends on a variety of factors including the contribution of tourism to the overall economy and the country’s political and economic philosophies (Baum and Szivas 2008). Over the years, government involvement in tourism has been reconstructed with progression from a traditional public administration model to a corporatist model (Hall and Jenkins 2010), gradually adopting the role of entrepreneurs and transferring the power and resources to the private sector (Zhao and Timothy 2015). However, government involvement in the tourism industry remains essential. Its primary purpose is to shape the economic framework, create and maintain the public asset, reduce negative externalities, establish the regulatory environment for business, and control and monitor the scope and pace of tourism development (Goeldner and Ritchie 2007; Hall 2000; Kubickova and Campbell 2020). At the time of crisis, the role of government becomes imperative in strategic tourism planning and recovery because of the inability of the private sector to undertake certain functions and reach the optimal level of development (Shone et al. 2016). Therefore, for effective control over the crisis and proper recovery of the hotel industry, a collaboration between the hotel industry and the government agencies is imperative (Singh et al. 2021; Salem et al. 2021). While government bailouts and relief packages to financial institutions (e.g., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac), manufacturers (e.g., General Motors, Chrysler), and airlines (e.g., Lufthansa, Air France) have been common, similar efforts geared specifically towards the hotel industry have been rather sparse. The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the first times when governments around the world actively intervened and provided major support to the hotel industry to ensure their survival during the time of crisis and to aid in the recovery process (Pavlatos et al. 2021; Salem et al. 2021). Not only financial assistance is important, having the right policies when it comes to travel is essential. Many governments have adopted travel restrictions and implemented self-isolation, social distancing, mask-­ wearing, and proper hygiene protocols which helped to slow down the spread of the virus; however, the type of restrictions also mattered as some policies were found to be more effective than others (Chinazzi et  al. 2020). Moreover, the timing also played a role as the earlier the policies

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were implemented in relation to the stage of the pandemic, the lower the number of COVID-19 cases (Oh et  al. 2021; Varghese and Xu 2020). This has been seen in the case of New Zealand, where contact tracking was implemented in January 2020 and by March travel restrictions were put in place, leading to the country having one of the lowest deaths from COVID-19 per capita (Howell 2022). Therefore, government decisiveness in taking early action is paramount to limiting the spread of COVID-19 and ultimately the number of deaths (Jamison et al. 2021). However, the effects of such policy intervention on the hotel performance in the Caribbean region have not been investigated and this chapter aims to shed light on that matter.

COVID-19 and the Caribbean: Effects and Government Responses Tourism in the Region According to World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC 2021), the Caribbean is described as the most tourism-reliant region in the world. The region is made up of dozens of sovereign nations, territories, and dependencies with limited voting rights. This study specifically addresses Dominica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Bahamas, and Jamaica due to data availability. Dominica, also known as the nature island, is one of the smaller islands in the Caribbean, characterised by three national parks. Unlike other islands in the region, it promotes outback and wild adventures and almost 33% of its GDP comes from tourism. Compared to countries like the Bahamas and Barbados, the tourism industry is still in its infancy. During COVID-19, Dominica is one of the countries that sustained the largest hit to its economy, decreasing its tourism contribution to GDP by 141% when comparing 2019 and 2020 (WTTC 2021). Trinidad and Tobago is known for its fossil-fuel wealth, with oil being the largest contributor to the GDP and tourism being the second-largest contributor. Barbados is the smallest of the five islands with 3.4 tourists per resident (WorldData, n.d.). The Bahamas has been historically the most dependent on tourism. In 2019, almost 44.4% of its GDP came from tourism, employing 5% of the total workforce, and receiving over 10% of the overall visitors to the Caribbean (WTTC 2021). Jamaica is similar to the Bahamas in terms of

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size, employing three times more residents in the travel and tourism industry, yet its contribution to GDP is lower than the Bahamas. Additional information on each country’s tourism contribution to their economy is provided in Table 13.1. As can be seen from Table 13.1, when it comes to the tourism contribution to GDP, the Bahamas (historically the most dependent on tourism) suffered the largest loss between 2019 and 2020, which is also reflected in the loss in employment and tourism receipts. Another country to note is Trinidad and Tobago. Even though tourism contributed only 7.4% to the GDP in 2019, the country lost over 77% of international tourism receipts, and domestic tourism receipts decreased by 61.6% during the same time period. Table 13.2 provides information on where these tourists came from (country of origin). As can be seen, the Bahamas has been heavily dependent on tourists from the United States (82% in 2019), while Dominica mainly depends on visitors from other parts of the world (36%), especially during the year 2020. On the other hand, Barbados has been mainly visited by tourists from the UK (32% in 2020) while the importance of visitors from Canada can’t be overlooked for Jamaica, Bahamas, and Trinidad and Tobago. It is also noteworthy to mention that Dominica is one of the few countries that have received visitors from nearby destinations, such as Guadeloupe and Martinique, while for the remaining four countries, the top three visitors come from developed destinations such as the United States, the UK, and Canada. COVID-19 and the Caribbean In the Caribbean region, the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was reported in the Dominican Republic on March 1, 2020. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic, and the tourism-reliant region of the Caribbean was put on high alert. As the situation in the United States and Europe worsened, strict restrictions on travel were also implemented in the region. Due to the lack of scientifically backed information, medications, and vaccination against the virus, the Caribbean followed the lead of other countries and implemented non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to combat the virus (Wood 2021; WTTC 2021). Such NPIs included contact tracing, isolation/quarantine, social distancing protocols, movement restrictions through border closures, ban on non-essential travels and

6.4% 13.5% 4.2%

17.9% 20.0% 11.9%

14.1% 32.6% 7.4%

29.6% 44.4% 28.2%

2020

46.3 101.8 365.6

2,760 12.6 54.1

2019

Source: WTTC (2021)

34.2 71.0 270.9

2,080 8.9 40.5

2020

−26.1% −30.3% −25.9%

−24.6% −29.4% −25.1%

%Δ

Travel and Tourism Employment (in thousands)

*2021 year not available at the time of publishing

Caribbean Dominica Trinidad & Tobago Barbados Bahamas Jamaica

2019

Tourism Contribution to GDP

Table 13.1  Tourism contribution to the economy

1,290 3,530 3,440

34,400 165.9 514.9

2019

545 848 1,150

11,400 50.8 117.6

2020

−57.7% −76.0% −66.6%

−66.9% −69.4% −77.2%

%Δ

International Tourism Receipts (USD) (in millions)

132.5 763.8 395.4

12,600 15.5 1,110

2019

79.8 435.6 246.1

6,300 9.6 425.9

2020

−39.8% −43.0% −37.8%

−50.0% −38.1% −61.6%

%Δ

Domestic Tourism Receipts (USD) (in millions)

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Table 13.2  Inbound tourist visitors by country of origin Destination

Year* Inbound country 1st

Dominica

Trinidad & Tobago

Barbados

Bahamas

Jamaica

2019 USA 25% 2020 USA 20% 2019 USA 47% 2020 USA 40% 2019 UK 32% 2020 UK 32% 2019 USA 82% 2020 USA 78% 2019 USA 69% 2020 USA 61%

Rest of the World

2nd

3rd

4th

Guadeloupe 16% Guadeloupe 18% UK 11%

France 9%

UK 8%

36%

Antigua & Barbuda 7% Canada 10%

Martinique 7%

42%

Guyana 4%

23%

Canada 11%

UK 7%

Thailand 6%

32%

USA 30%

Canada 12%

17%

USA 26%

Canada 13%

Canada 7%

UK 2%

Trinidad & Tobago 4% Trinidad & Tobago 6% France 1%

Canada 9%

UK 2%

Italy 1%

10%

Canada 15%

UK 8%

Germany 1%

7%

Canada 17%

UK 9%

Germany 1%

10%

22% 7%

*2021 year not available at the time of publishing Source: WTTC (2021)

work-from-­home orders, and suspension/lockdown of air and water travels. These interventions were expected to slow down the spread of the virus and prevent the cases from rising above the health system capacity. In many cases, the measures were carried out on a trial-and-error basis and have taken the form of a political crisis (ECLAC 2020b). In Dominica, on February 11, 2020, all international flights from China were suspended and on March 26, a border closure was put in place for all Dominican citizens and residents included. On March 31, the Ministry limited public gatherings, and a state of emergency were declared in April (ACAPS n.d.). The Dominican government also announced an extension of the deadline for filing and payment of personal tax, reduction of corporate income tax returns for companies maintaining 80% of employees, zero tax on imports, and no Value Added Tax (VAT) on disinfectants, cleaning supplies, protective gears, and face masks. Additionally, the

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government provided grants to individual crop farmers and income support for the unemployed until June 2021 (GCD n.d.). Borders for national travel were reopened in mid-July 2020 and by August the borders were completely opened for all non-national travellers (ACAPS n.d.). As of March 22, 2022, Dominica required a negative Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)/Antigen test for both vaccinated and unvaccinated travellers while unvaccinated travellers were subjected to a PCR test on the fifth day after arriving in Dominica (CHT 2022). As of January 2020, Trinidad and Tobago banned all travellers traveling from (or transiting through) mainland China. Later, the restriction was extended to travellers from South Korea, Italy, Iran, Japan, and Singapore, and a complete border closure was put in place in March 2020. School closure, stay-at-home orders for the non-essential workforce, and limiting public gatherings among others were also announced (ACAPS n.d.). Salary relief for unemployed workers or those with reduced income was implemented in March 2020. VAT and income tax refunds were provided to individuals and small business owners and loans at a reduced rate with extended pay periods were offered (IMF n.d.). In April, the government provided TT50 million dollars to the hotel sector for any upgrades and refurbishing prior to re-opening (Hohnholz 2020). In November 2020, the border was partially re-opened but strict quarantine protocols were implemented for both citizens and international travellers entering the country. As of March 22, 2022, Trinidad and Tobago required travellers to submit a travel pass prior to their arrival and a negative PCR test (CHT 2022). When it comes to Barbados, in January 2020 the government implemented health screening at all airports and seaports. The next month, travel bans on non-residents and quarantine protocols on Barbadians traveling from mainland China were imposed. In March, further travel restrictions were placed on travellers from Iran, Italy, and South Korea (ACAPS n.d.). Within the first few days of the confirmed case, strict measures were implemented to limit public gatherings, and supplementary medical facilities were established. In March, a state of emergency was declared, and shortly after, schools shifted online, and all non-essential travel was banned, extending to travellers coming from Europe. By the end of March, stay-at-home order for all non-essential employees was announced (ACAPS n.d.). In April 2020, Barbados slowly started to re-open its economy and loosen restrictions with beaches being opened by June and curfews lifted in July (ACAPS n.d.). Initial investments in health equipment

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and quarantine facilities were followed by expanded welfare payments to protect vulnerable households through the introduction of the Household Survival Program and Barbados Adopt Our Families Program (IMF n.d.). Government purchased bonds in the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) to ensure liquidity and availability of adequate resources to accommodate a surge in unemployment benefits and severance claims (IMF n.d.). Based on the Barbados Employment and Sustainable Transformation (BEST) programme, Barbados’ government committed to spending $150 million to help hospitality and tourism workers who lost their jobs because of the pandemic. The BEST programme is also aimed at saving hoteliers from possible bankruptcy and insolvency (Major 2020; Madden 2020). As of March 22, 2022, travellers are required to present a negative PCR/ Antigen taken prior to their entry. Unvaccinated travellers require three days of mandatory quarantine, taking a PCR test on the fourth day (CHT 2022). Similar to Barbados, in February 2020, the Bahamian government implemented quarantine protocols for travellers from China, and later in March, travellers returning from Italy, South Korea, China, or Iran were banned from entering the country (ACAPS n.d.). Large gatherings and public events were cancelled, all educational institutions closed, and a complete lockdown was put in place. In April, a partial re-opening of business was announced; however, after large community outbreaks, a complete lockdown was enforced (ACAPS n.d.). International travel reopened in June but because of the worsening situation in the United States, restrictions were placed on international commercial flights and vessels carrying passengers from the United States. The country entered a slow phase of reopening and, as cases fell, travel and lockdown restrictions were gradually rolled back. In August, hotels were allowed to operate with limited restrictions (e.g., no outdoor dining, gyms, pools, or spas) (ACAPS n.d.). Fully vaccinated international and domestic travellers were exempt from testing requirements and allowed to conduct business in the ‘new normal’. The government has implemented various support measures which include investment in health care, food programmes, income support for those who lost jobs or were self-employed, and supporting small businesses with loans, tax deferrals, and credits (IMF n.d.). As of March 22, 2022, travellers are required to register for the Bahamas Travel Health Visa prior to their arrival and present a negative PCR/Antigen test (CHT 2022).

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In Jamaica, as of February 2020, anyone with recent travel history to China, Iran, France, South Korea, Italy, Spain, and Singapore was subjected to immediate quarantine or denial of entry (ACAPS n.d.). All nonessential businesses (including educational institutions and tourism-­related businesses) were closed, and stay-at-home orders were put in place. In March, all airports and seaports were closed for two weeks, with further extensions until the end of May; in April, a daily curfew was put in place (ACAPS n.d.). The slow reopening did not start until June. Borders were reopened to international travel and to ensure a safe recovery, the Ministry of Tourism implemented health and safety protocols, such as a COVID-19 test for all visitors, mandatory mask-wearing, and a ban on large gatherings (IMF n.d.). As of March 22, 2022, travellers to Jamaica have to present a negative PCR/Antigen test. PCR tests upon arrival have been administered for business travellers and may be required for other travel categories. Unvaccinated travellers will be placed under quarantine for a period of 14 days (CHT 2022). Figure 13.1 represents the number of cumulative COVID-19 cases for each investigated destination. It is important to note that Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago had the largest number of COVID-19 cases among the countries with a continuous sharp increase in March 2021 for Jamaica,

Fig. 13.1  Cumulative COVID-19 cases (who 2021)

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Table 13.3  COVID-19 data

Population (In thousands) 1st Covid case 1st Covid death COVID cases COVID death COVID death per 1,000 Vaccination rate

Dominica

Trinidad & Tobago

Barbados

Bahamas

Jamaica

71. 99

1,390

287.37

393.24

2,960

3/22/2020 8/30/2021 11,643 62 0.86

3/12/2020 3/26/2020 134,000 3,695 0.003

3/17/2020 4/14/2020 57,348 326 1.13

3/15/2020 4/3/2020 33,206 773 1.96

3/10/2020 3/19/2020 128,000 2,855 0.96

41.40%

50.50%

52.40%

39.60%

22.5%

Source: The World Bank (2021a, b), World Health Organization (2021), Financial Times (2021)

and May 2021 for Trinidad and Tobago. Dominica, on the other hand, has shown the lowest level of COVID-19 cases during the period 2020 and 2021. Additional information on COVID-19 statistics can be found in Table 13.3.

Methodology In order to study the impact of COVID-19 on hotel performance, three key indicators were analysed. Specifically, hotel occupancy (Occ), average daily rate (ADR), and revenue per available room (RevPAR) were utilised. Occupancy represents the percentage of rooms sold each night. ADR is the average rate paid by the guest for each room sold (in USD). RevPAR assesses a hotel’s ability to fill its available rooms and allows hotels to compare their performance to other hotels/destinations. It is calculated by dividing room revenue by available rooms. The hotel performance indicators were provided by STR. As a mediating process, two types of policies used by the governments to combat COVID-19 were used, specifically, economic support policies and restrictive policies. Both policies are measured using the economic support index (ESI) and the stringency index (SI) adopted from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT), published by Oxford University, Blavatnik School of Government. ESI was calculated by utilising four variables: income support, debt/contract relief for

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Fig. 13.2  Conceptual model

households, fiscal policies, and giving international support. SI was calculated by utilising eight variables: school closing, workplace closing, cancel public events, restrictions on gathering size, closed public transport, stayat-­home requirements, restrictions on internal movement, restrictions on international travel, and public information campaigns. When it comes to COVID-19 cases (CD), CD was measured using daily new cases and the data was obtained from the World Health Organization. The data in the study span from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2021. The proposed model is represented by the given functional relationships as depicted in Fig. 13.2. Restrictive Policiesij   0  1 COVIDij   ij



Economic Support Policiesij   0  1 COVIDij   ij



RevPARij   0  1 Restrictiveij   2 Economic Supportij   3 COVIDij   ij

Findings and Discussion Impact of COVID-19 on Hotel Performance When analysing hotel occupancy for the five destinations (Fig.  13.3), it can be observed that Dominica and Trinidad and Tobago were the only two countries that were able to increase their occupancy levels between 2020 and 2021, however, being still far below the pre-pandemic levels (2019). Such shift may have been influenced by the type of travellers these two destinations received. As previously mentioned in Table 13.2, Dominica and Trinidad and Tobago are least dependent on tourists from the United States when compared to the other destinations in the region. In addition,

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Fig. 13.3  Yearly hotel occupancy (2019, 2020, 2021) (STR data)

tourists from Guadeloupe accounted for 18% of all visitors to Dominica while visitors from ‘the rest of the world’ accounted for 42%. Dominica has also seen shift a decrease in tourists from France and the UK, being replaced by visitors from nearby destinations such as Martinique and Antigua. When it comes to Trinidad and Tobago, even though visitors from the United States accounted for 40%, Canadians represented 11% and visitors from ‘the rest of the world’ accounted for 32%. Also, an increase in tourists from Thailand was seen. Similar results were found in study conducted by Kubickova et al. (2019) where tourists’ origin (their home country) and the accessibility played a role in crises recovery after 9/11 and 2008 financial crisis. Even though some destinations tried to implement their own targeted programmes to attract visitors, data does not provide enough evidence to confirm such theory. For example, Barbados was the first destination to announce a workcation plan called ‘Welcome Stamp’. This 12-month visa programme allowed tourists to relocate from other destinations and work in Barbados. Similar live-work programmes were implemented in Dominica and the Bahamas while Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago did not implement such formal workcation/extended visa programmes. Thus, additional research is deemed as it is not clear how many visitors have taken

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Fig. 13.4  Yearly average daily rate (2019, 2020, 2021) (STR data)

advantage of such programmes and if they stayed in extended-stay hotels or have rented long-term housing options utilising accommodations such as Airbnb. When it comes to ADR (Fig. 13.4), Dominica, Bahamas, and Jamaica are the only destinations being able to increase their daily rate in 2021, with Jamaica having the largest increase of almost USD50. A possible explanation may have to do with the reliance on the US market as previously mentioned and/or destination safety/familiarity. Dominica mainly depends on outdoor recreation and tourism has been in its infancy. However, during 2021, a shift was noticed in terms of where tourists come from with an increase of visitors from Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Antigua and Barbuda, with also heavy dependency on tourists from other parts of the world (42%). Thus, being able to maintain higher occupancy levels could create competition, leading to a price increase. On the other hand, Jamaica has been a very popular destination with visitors from the United States (61% in 2021) and Canada (17%). Because of the ‘familiarity’ and feeling ‘safe’, tourists were willing to pay a premium price to escape the lock-down environment of their home countries. In terms of Bahamas, it has always been known as an international centre for banking activities with the majority of visitors originating in

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highly developed countries such as the United States (78% in 2021), Canada (9%), and the UK (2%). Thus, the typical visitor visiting the Bahamas is willing (and able) to pay such a premium price for hotel accommodation, taking into consideration the destination’s familiarity, safety, and positive reputation. When looking at RevPAR (being influenced by occupancy and ADR), it is not surprising that Dominica came out on top, taking into consideration the previous discussion. Jamaica also performed well when comparing 2020 to 2021, however, Jamaica was not able to attract the number of visitors (occupancy level) when compared to Dominica. A possible explanation may have to do with the number of reported COVID-19 cases in Jamaica compared to the other Caribbean destinations (Fig.  13.1) and Jamaica’s heavy reliance on tourism as it has been one of the destinations with the highest number of arrivals. Additional information on RevPAR is provided in Fig. 13.5. Further confirming what was evident in Fig. 13.5, a one-way ANOVA test with Scheffe’s post hoc test was analysed for 2020 and 2021. The results indicate that significant differences in terms of RevPAR among the five countries exist (F = 265.213, p $20,000/month having increased their use of home delivery services for meals. Pandemic-Related Stockpiling and Food Wastage Like most other countries, in Trinidad and Tobago the pandemic brought with it questions about food security in the face of severe supply chain disruptions that have resulted in higher prices and more frequent occurrences of stockouts. In response to this, 43% of consumers reportedly engaged in stockpiling behaviour. The top five product categories that

% of Respondents

17  UNDERSTANDING THE PANDEMIC TRANSFORMED CONSUMER: WHAT… 

40.0% 35.0% 30.0% 25.0% 20.0% 15.0% 10.0% 5.0% 0.0%

36.0

379

32.4 28.1

It has become much less

It has become less

Has not changed

2.3

1.1

It has become more

It has become much more

Fig. 17.4  Food wastage during the COVID-19 pandemic

were stockpiled included cereals and their products (bread, rice, pasta, flour, etc.), canned food, meat and meat products, legumes (e.g., peas, beans, chickpeas), and fruits and vegetables. Not surprisingly, there were also noticeable differences in the degree of stockpiling based on the level of fear for COVID-19 in each category, where a slightly larger percentage (46%) of respondents expressing a high level of fear for COVID-19 engaged in stockpiling. This trend was most prevalent for cereals, legumes, meats, milk and dairy products, canned food, confectionary, and alcohol. The data also revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed positively to the reduction of food wastage habits among some consumers in Trinidad and Tobago. The majority of respondents (68%) indicated that food wastage has become less during the COVID-19 pandemic (Fig. 17.4). This reported behavioural change was more prevalent among persons more fearful of COVID-19 (73% of respondents) compared to the less fearful group (64% of respondents). Additionally, while there were no significant gender differences in stockpiling behaviour, a larger percentage of female respondents reported much less food wastage (39.3%) as compared to males (24.8%). Changes to Culinary Habits and Food Choices The pandemic has caused consumers to modify their culinary habits in terms of increased preparation of meals at home compared to eating out at restaurants and friends’ homes. Despite the gradual relaxation of public health measures, which facilitated a return to full in-house dining, approximately 80% of survey participants indicated that they have eaten out (e.g., restaurants/cafeteria/fast food) less than they used to. Similarly, 70% of

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B. G. PACHECO AND M. H. PACHECO

respondents have reduced the frequency of eating at someone else’s place (e.g., family, friends). This practice was observed more frequently among respondents highly fearful of COVID-19 (75% of fearful survey participants) compared to those less fearful (64% of less fearful respondents). In contrast, 75% of respondents have done more cooking and preparing food at home since the pandemic first started. This was particularly the case among 82% of respondents more fearful of COVID-19 compared to 68% of less fearful consumers. Consumer food choices have also been impacted by the pandemic to now favour the pursuit of healthier diet options in most cases. For example, 58% of respondents reported an increase in consumption of fruits and vegetables and 57% ate more of what they considered to be healthy food (Fig. 17.5). Additionally, perhaps out of an abundance of caution and in an attempt to stave off the effects of the virus, 65% of respondents increased their intake of vitamins and dietary supplements. Somewhat paradoxically, the apparent shift towards a healthier diet was not accompanied by a reduction in consumption of unhealthy food options. For example, 50% of survey participants consumed the same amount or more of fast food (e.g., pizza, fried chicken), 65% of respondents consumed the same amount or more of alcohol, and 63% consumed the same or more of what they considered unhealthy snacks (Fig. 17.6). Further examination of consumption patterns showed that respondents who expressed greater fear of infection and the impact of the pandemic demonstrated more significant adjustments to their food choices compared to respondents less fearful of COVID-19. For example, 63% of

% of Respondents

50.0%

41.3

40.0%

30.0

30.0%

16.1

20.0% 10.0% 0.0%

3.4

Much Less

9.2

Less

No Change

More

Much More

Fig. 17.5  Consumption of healthy food during the COVID-19 pandemic

17  UNDERSTANDING THE PANDEMIC TRANSFORMED CONSUMER: WHAT… 

% of Respondents

40.0%

35.3

30.0% 20.0%

23.8

22.7

13.3

10.0% 0.0%

381

4.9

Much Less

Less

No Change

More

Much More

Fig. 17.6  Consumption of unhealthy snacks during COVID-19

% of Respondents

50.0% 37.7%

40.0%

34.6%

38.2%

27.8%

30.0%

19.3%

20.0% 10.0% 0.0%

1.3%

3.3%

Much Less

7.0%

24.9%

5.8%

Less

No Change Low Fear

More

Much More

High Fear

Fig. 17.7  Consumption of fruits and vegetables during the COVID-19 pandemic

highly fearful consumers ate more fruits and vegetables compared to 54% of consumers who were less fearful of COVID-19 (Fig. 17.7). Similar differences were also observed for the consumption of healthy food and vitamins and dietary supplements. However, there were almost identical behavioural patterns observed for the uptake of perceived unhealthy snacks, where approximately 63% in each group reported consuming the same or more unhealthy snacks. The choice of less healthy snacks may therefore be less a function of the level of fear of COVID-19 and more a reflection of ingrained poor eating habits among the general population. Interestingly, 87% of respondents earning over $20,000/ month reported an increase in consumption of healthy food. This group also had the highest increase in consumption of alcohol, as reported by 43% of these respondents. Somewhat unexpectedly, 70% of persons belonging to the unemployed group increased their intake of dietary supplements, which represented the highest proportion of persons in any of the income groups (Fig. 17.8).

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Unemployed - No Income 2 5 >20,000 TTD

23

7 17

7

27

41

33

30

27

10%

20%

Much Less

7 50

27

5 1

0%

53 33

10,001-15,000 TTD 3 3 5,001-10,000 TTD 2

30

33

15,001-20,000 TTD