WHY JAMAICA MUST PUT ITS WEALTH TO WORK!
By Norris R. McDonald, DIJ, Author
Caribbean Political Analysis,
SULFABITTAS NEWS, July 3, 2026 (Updated July 13, 2026).
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| Norris R. McDonald, DIJ, Author, Human Rights Advocate. |
At first light in rural St. Mary, Jamaica, a mother prepares breakfast over a coal stove because cooking gas has slipped beyond her reach.
This is the lived economy of the Caribbean in 2026, and it bears little resemblance to the optimistic economic statistics celebrated by governments and international financial institutions.
Official reports speak confidently of economic recovery, pointing to modest tourism growth across much of the region and spectacular GDP expansion in oil-rich Guyana. Yet beneath these encouraging numbers lies a harsher reality of declining purchasing power, widening inequality, insecure employment, unaffordable housing, and rising food insecurity. For ordinary Caribbean citizens, growth exists largely on paper.
This is the Caribbean's growth illusion.
When Growth Does Not Reach the People
Economic growth has become increasingly disconnected from human well-being. Hotels are filled, cruise ships arrive daily, and foreign investors continue to extract profits, yet many Caribbean families struggle to buy groceries, pay utility bills, or keep their children in school.
This disconnect represents far more than an economic anomaly. It is a profound failure of development policy.
From the standpoint of human justice, the illusion of prosperity amounts to a form of structural economic violence. Wealth continues to circulate outward through imported goods, foreign ownership, debt servicing, and profit repatriation rather than accumulating within Caribbean societies.
The late Jamaican economist George Beckford described this decades ago in his analysis of the plantation economy. Colonial production systems were designed to enrich external powers while leaving local populations economically dependent. Although political independence has been achieved, much of that economic architecture remains intact.
The plantation has changed its appearance, but not necessarily its purpose.
The Land Question and the Cycle of Hunger
Nowhere is this contradiction more visible than in agriculture.
Across Jamaica and much of the Caribbean, countless rural families continue farming without secure land titles. Generations have cultivated the same plots while remaining excluded from formal credit, agricultural financing, and modern investment because they cannot prove ownership.
This is not simply administrative inefficiency. It is a development failure.
The Caribbean imports billions of dollars in food annually despite possessing fertile agricultural land and a long farming tradition. Governments frequently borrow foreign currency to finance imported food that could, with proper investment, be produced domestically.
The result is a vicious cycle—a dependence that resembles a permanent debt trap.
Food insecurity therefore becomes less a consequence of limited resources than of misplaced policy priorities.
Investing in Farmers Instead of Dependence
Breaking this cycle requires more than speeches about food security.
It requires secure land tenure, expanded agricultural extension services, affordable financing, irrigation infrastructure, climate-resilient farming, storage facilities, agro-processing industries, and properly maintained feeder roads linking rural communities to markets.
Economic transformation
cannot simply be legislated.
It must be cultivated.
Every irrigated field, every rehabilitated farm road, every farmer receiving affordable credit becomes another step toward genuine national sovereignty.
Without these investments, food security remains a slogan rather than a strategy.
Dead Money and Jamaica's Idle Wealth
Perhaps the greatest contradiction within Jamaica's economic model is not its debt but its idle wealth.
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| Dead money is national foreign exchange earnings lies idle in foreign banks at low interest rate and is not being used to invest in local industries, agriculture to develop national economies and human resources. |
Jamaica currently holds approximately US$6.9 billion in foreign exchange reserves—an amount approaching nearly one-third of annual GDP.
Strong reserves certainly provide protection against external shocks and currency instability. Every responsible central bank requires adequate reserves.
The larger question, however, is whether excessive reserves become "dead money" when they remain parked in low-yield foreign financial instruments while productive sectors at home remain chronically undercapitalized.
Ironically, much of this capital ultimately supports the financial system of the United States, whose national debt now exceeds US$39 trillion, while Jamaica continues borrowing to finance infrastructure, agricultural development, and industrial expansion.
At the very least, policymakers should examine whether a carefully managed portion of these reserves could capitalize a national sovereign wealth or development investment fund dedicated to strategic sectors such as:
- climate-resilient agriculture;
- renewable energy;
- advanced manufacturing;
- digital technology;
- water infrastructure;
- food processing; and
- export-oriented industries.
The long-term economic multiplier from productive investment may far exceed the modest returns earned from passive foreign holdings.
Idle capital rarely builds prosperous nations.
Infrastructure Is Human Dignity
Economic development also requires something even more fundamental than investment.
It requires dignity.
More than sixty years after independence, many rural communities still struggle with unreliable water supplies, inadequate roads, poor sanitation, and inconsistent public services.
Such conditions are not merely development gaps.
They expose the unfinished project of Caribbean nation-building.
A truly sovereign society cannot celebrate macroeconomic stability while sections of its population continue living without dependable access to clean water.
Community wells, micro-dams, irrigation networks, rainwater harvesting systems, and resilient infrastructure should become national priorities rather than political afterthoughts.
My Father's Lesson in Ownership
Economic statistics rarely capture
what transforms families.
More than sixty years ago
my father Mass Lambert built
a modest two-room board house
on Brotherton Avenue
in Southwest St. Andrew.
We were poor.
We often survived
on simple meals of
steam crackers and callaloo.
But we possessed something
infinitely more valuable
than many modern
poverty programmes provide ---
We owned our home!
That modest house became
the foundation upon which
opportunity was built!
Ownership created stability.
Stability encouraged education.
Education produced
three generations
of university graduates.
Development begins
long before GDP figures
are published.
It begins
with security
ownership, and hope!
Caribbean Resilience Cannot Replace Good Government
The Caribbean people possess extraordinary resilience.
Forged through slavery, colonialism, economic hardship, and migration, that resilience remains one of the region's greatest strengths. It echoes the enduring spirit reflected in Bob Marley's music—a people constantly fighting for survival without surrendering their humanity.
Yet resilience should never become an excuse for governmental failure.
No society can permanently ask its citizens to compensate for weak institutions, poor planning, and ineffective leadership.
Resilience sustains people.
Good governance transforms nations.
"Chaka Chaka" Governance and the Cost of Political Short-Termism
Too much Caribbean governance remains trapped in what may be called "Chaka Chaka" politics—government by public relations, election giveaways, and short-term political calculations instead of coherent national development planning.
* Public accountability remains inconsistent.
* Corruption frequently escapes meaningful consequences.
Human justice requires institutions capable of holding every level of power accountable.
No sustainable economy can be built upon selective accountability.
Caribbean Sovereignty in a Changing World
The Caribbean's economic future cannot be separated from changing global geopolitics.
Cuba continues confronting severe energy shortages, inflationary pressures, and electricity disruptions under prolonged external sanctions. Venezuela remains central to regional energy security despite continuing geopolitical tensions.
Meanwhile, countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America increasingly diversify economic partnerships with China, Russia, India, and other emerging economies in pursuit of investment, energy security, and infrastructure financing.
The Caribbean must similarly preserve sufficient strategic flexibility to pursue development partnerships that best serve its own national interests.
Regional solidarity should never become conditional upon external approval.
Marcus Garvey understood that political freedom without economic independence remains incomplete. His vision remains unfinished.
Beyond the Growth Illusion
The Caribbean's growth illusion is ultimately structural rather than temporary.
It reflects an economic model that rewards circulation instead of production, consumption instead of manufacturing, dependence instead of self-reliance, and short-term stability instead of long-term transformation.
Breaking this cycle demands bold investment in productive agriculture, domestic industry, renewable energy, technological innovation, land reform, accountable governance, and regional economic cooperation.
Growth should never be measured solely by GDP.
It must be measured by whether families can afford nutritious food, own decent homes, educate their children, access quality healthcare, and live with dignity.
For the mother, Mrs. Linda, preparing breakfast in rural St. Mary—and for millions of Caribbean families—the real question is not whether the economy is growing.
The question is whether that growth belongs to them.
Until it does, Caribbean prosperity will remain largely statistical, and economic dignity will continue to be deferred.
That is the bitta truth.
About the Author
Norris R. McDonald is an author, respiratory therapist, and economic journalist whose work focuses on political economy, public health, healthcare systems, and global public policy. He is a regular contributor of public commentary and analysis for the Jamaica Gleaner, where he examines the intersection of economics, governance, social justice, and development in Jamaica, the Caribbean, and the Global South.
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