Cari­com, Wake up! What are you do­ing?

The im­ple­men­ta­tion deficit is an ob­sta­cle to progress. For years, Cari­com has been work­ing on a ser­vices sec­tor de­vel­op­ment strat­e­gy and ac­tion plan that in­cludes sport­ing ser­vices. Please, Cari­com! The lip ser­vice needs to stop. It is time for ac­tion.

​The Ser­vices Sec­tor is the en­gine of growth that will help the re­gion re­alise its Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs) by im­prov­ing liv­ing stan­dards, in­creas­ing wealth cre­ation, and at­tain­ing full em­ploy­ment.

​Sports play a key role in the cul­ture and make-up of Trinidad and To­ba­go and wider Caribbean so­ci­ety. Sports are a cen­tral part of our cul­ture.

Tim­o­thy Odle, Deputy Pro­gramme Man­ag­er, Ser­vices Sec­tor De­vel­op­ment, has worked tire­less­ly with re­gion­al ser­vices sec­tor stake­hold­ers for the past nine years.

​Cari­com mem­ber states agreed to pre­pare a re­gion­al strate­gic and im­ple­men­ta­tion plan for the Ser­vices Sec­tor De­vel­op­ment with fund­ing sup­port from the Eu­ro­pean Union un­der the tenth Eu­ro­pean De­vel­op­ment Fund. Since 2017, nu­mer­ous meet­ings have been held to pre­pare strate­gies and an im­ple­men­ta­tion plan. What is the prob­lem? What is caus­ing the road­block?

The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in the Caribbean have nev­er tripped over it­self in sup­port of sports from a busi­ness per­spec­tive. Re­gion­al Gov­ern­ments have not giv­en them fis­cal in­cen­tives to in­vest in sport­ing ser­vices.

For years, Caribbean sport has ar­tic­u­lat­ed big dreams but de­c­la­ra­tions of ex­cite­ment, en­thu­si­asm and sup­port have nev­er been ef­fu­sive.

Steeped in the old ways, the eco­nom­ic rel­e­vance of sport in mod­ern Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the Caribbean will not be ac­knowl­edged with­out the de­coloni­sa­tion of the mind in so­ci­eties where sport­ing ser­vices re­main trapped in a prison of so­ci­etal prej­u­dices.

Youth sports in USA is a $15 bil­lion in­dus­try. That's big mon­ey. But that is just one sub-sec­tor. What is Cari­com do­ing? Why is it tak­ing such a long time?

The lens through which Caribbean so­ci­ety looks at sport is deeply sub­con­scious. So it nev­er mat­ters - you can make a com­pelling case for the busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties with­in sport and most sport po­ten­tial in­vestors will not move past their prej­u­dices. So! Sport re­mains side­lined and ma­ligned. Think­ing it will be dif­fer­ent is more wish­ful think­ing than rig­or­ous analy­sis.

Recog­ni­tion of his­tor­i­cal short­com­ings should pro­vide the ba­sis for fun­da­men­tal shifts that will fos­ter cre­ativ­i­ty and a clar­i­ty of vi­sion. It is a com­plex geopo­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment en­velop­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean. With on­ly five years left to meet the 2030 Agen­da for SDGs. The rel­e­vance of sport and the part­ner­ship sport of­fers aligns with the 2030 SDG Agen­da. Sport can be a ma­jor con­trib­u­tor.

Cari­com, wake up! Part­ner with sport and help build a more re­silient fu­ture.

So­ci­etal change is need­ed to ac­cel­er­ate the trans­for­ma­tion. Con­crete steps are need­ed.

Not that there aren't ex­am­ples of dif­fer­ent ap­proach­es. In Ice­land, since the 1940s, swim­ming lessons have be­come manda­to­ry for school­child­ren in re­sponse to drown­ings.

In Ger­many, ath­letes of­ten com­bine their sports ca­reers with pro­fes­sions like the Ger­man Fed­er­al Po­lice, which pro­vides a struc­tured path­way for train­ing and com­pe­ti­tion. The US Mil­i­tary has a spe­cif­ic pro­gramme as well.

​Strate­gic man­age­ment re­quires on­go­ing eval­u­a­tion. Any strate­gic analy­sis re­quires an un­der­stand­ing of the en­vi­ron­ment and con­text with­in which sport or­gan­i­sa­tions op­er­ate. Orig­i­nal­ly, the Olympic Sys­tem (Chap­pelet 1991) com­prised non-prof­it sport or­gan­i­sa­tions. How­ev­er, sport has be­come an in­dus­try that is a sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic sec­tor.

Cari­com in 2022 stat­ed that Gov­ern­ments are be­ing asked to pri­ori­tise fund­ing for the Ser­vices Sec­tor in the na­tion­al bud­gets. Is it that Gov­ern­ments are not do­ing their part?