Dr Bhoe Tewarie, former academic, minister and current opposition politician, foresaw and even warned about the global financial crisis of 2008–at least a decade before it happened–and blames it on an unfair global economic system that has not worked for many small developing countries.
The sustainability of the current, capitalist, globalising economic system is one of the central ideas in Tewarie's latest book, Sustainable Development, Thinking It Through; Making It Happen, which is a collection of his speeches and essays over the last 20 years.
"I raised the financial issue in 1997 and I said that the global financial system was not sustainable because it had to do with the crisis emerging in Asia at that time with Thailand and those countries. Before there was a crisis in Mexico. Shortly after, there was a crisis in Argentina. There was something disturbing about how the global financial system was emerging with globalisation," he told the Business Guardian last week Wednesday.
He referred to the work of British-born economist Hazel Henderson, who described the international system as a "global financial casino."
Tewarie's book was launched in October 2015 at the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business in Mt Hope and, in March this year, it was launched at Church House, Westminster in London.
He said the issue of development has been important to him since his student days at Queen's Royal College (QRC) when he read two books on development which led him to begin critically thinking of the development of small, poor societies.
One book is by Barbara Mary Ward, a British economist who specialised in the issues of developing countries, and the other is called the The Problem of India.
"I was turned off by both books because of the idea that countries are poor because they have no resources."
After that, Tewarie began to develop his own ideas on development issues, which led him to writing several books including Higher Education Governance in the Twenty First Century University (with Dennis Gayle, A Quinton White & Eric Ashe, 2003) and in 2007 he published another on Trade, Investment, and Development in the Contemporary Caribbean with Dr Roger Hosein.
In that same year 2007, Tewarie also published VS Naipaul Revisited: Ethnicity, Marginality and the Triumph of Individual Will.
His most recent book, Sustainable Development, Making It Trough; Making It Happen covers speeches and essays from 1997 to 2015.
It covers a wide span of ideas developed during the Asian economic crisis in the late 1990s.
"Contained in the book are thoughts on the financial issues that started evolving then and have since become critical in the world. The real challenge today is that the financial system is not stable and it has not been stable since 2008. Up to now, no solution has been found worldwide."
Development strategies
To survive the complex, international environment and the changing world, Tewarie said new strategies must be developed by small-island developing states.
"Development is not a project that you can put a timeline to and have set of things to be done and it will happen. Involved is a process a lot of uncertainties," he said.
The last chapter covers some of the policies in the People's Partnership Government of which he was a part.
"This chapter was based on a presentation I gave–organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)–at the Hyatt. I revised it into a write up."
Policy implementation
When Tewarie became Minister of Planning in 2011, after Mary King was fired from the position, he said he had already made his contribution on the topic of sustainable development because of work he did in the People's Partnership (PP) manifesto.
Tewarie said as Minister of Planning he was able to implement some of those ideas.
"I would say I did not implement enough and not in keeping with my own expectations. I would have liked to achieve more to take the country on a sustainable development path. I think the problem is bringing people along if you want your ideas to work."
He pointed to the National Spatial Strategy as one of his accomplishments and this was laid in Parliament in 2013.
The previous administration brought the Planning and Facilitation of Development Bill which he said was "languishing" for nearly two decades.
They also completed a Chaguaramas Master Plan which he said was PP's vision for Chaguaramas.
Tewarie added that the Government he was part of needed more time but, unfortunately, it was not given a second mandate by the population.
"People do not know how short five years is," adding that a top/down, dictatorial approach to development is outdated in the modern world.
"Anyone who thinks like that is anachronistic. It has to be now development from below whether you like it or not."
A book for policymakers
Tewarie's book covers ideas over a span of 18 years: from the late 1990s to 2015.
Professor RK Khandal, vice chancellor, Gautam Buddha Technical University, wrote the introduction to the book and points out that the chapters can be divided into four main categories: globalisation, manufacturing capability, education and collaboration co-operation.
Khandal recommends the book for policymakers at the UN, countries of Latin America and the Caribbean and advised them to use the book as a reference document and guide on how to apply important ideas to alter existing reality.
The book's first chapter derives from a paper presented at a conference on the theme, The Caribbean Quest: Directions for the Reform Process in Port-of-Spain, 1997. Its focus is on the role of people and people's organisations in the development approach to the building of a society.
Chapter three includes a speech Tewarie made in 1998 and was a response to Claudio Loser, then International Monetary Fund (IMF) director for the Western Hemisphere.
Loser had spoken about second-generation economic reforms in the Caribbean at an event organised by the Central Bank of T&T and Tewarie, in responding to him, discussed the small-island economies and how they could develop strategies to survive in the global economy.
A decade before the 2008 financial crisis, Tewarie had already warned about consequences of a market that is not regulated.
In chapters four and five, Tewarie deals with the role of the University of the West Indies (UWI) in developing Caribbean societies. Tewarie is a former principal of UWI and pro vice chancellor of UWI.
Chapter eight is based on a speech he made at the 30th anniversary of Caricom in Belize and it takes a look at strategies the Caribbean countries can use for success in a globalised world and the following chapter deals with strategies for regional integration.
Other highlights in the book includes the importance of regulated markets and the "morality in capitalism" in having a sustainable global economic system.
Also included is a speech Tewarie gave in 2014 as then Planning Minister at the VIII American Competitiveness Forum, arguing that ethical foundations had collapsed and the need for free market economy to take a fresh look at their social responsibilities.
The final chapter, based on a speech Tewarie made in May 2015 at the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business, discussed T&T's long-term sustainability.
The book costs TT $300 and can be sourced at Nigel R Khan, UWI Bookstore, the Normandie Book Shop and also on Amazon.