I had an interesting experience over the last week.
It was a bit like Amazing Race meets Celebrity Apprentice in many respects. The pace was hectic and the people I was with were all major heavyweights in their field.
For example, there was second-in-command of the British Army, there was a triple gold medallist from the Special Olympics, Catholic bishops, rabbis, former police commissioners, investment bankers, heads of this, that and the other. As one participant said, it was a meeting of Alphas.
Each team was tasked to come up with a solution to a challenge we were given and pitch it to what was called the dragon’s den. We were sent to different locations across Britain to interact with various communities as we sought to come up with our solution. At first, I was sceptical as to how such a diverse group of people – some of them, in my mind, with no clear connection with the issue we were trying to address – could come together with a common solution.
First lesson: diversity of opinions, views and expertise is the best thing next to sliced bread. The challenges of today’s society will not be solved by groups of specific experts; diversity produces magic.
I actually had little interest at the end in the challenge itself. My attention was caught by the experience in the community I was placed in and the learning which took place throughout the journey itself.
I met the mayor of a borough in London who, when faced with severe budget cuts as a result of the central government’s austerity programme, had to use innovative means to achieve his vision. He decided that anyone wanting to get a contract from his borough would have to agree to provide a portion of paid internships for young people to address the issue of youth employment.
Additionally, after some paid positions were made redundant because of the cuts, he developed a programme of incentivizing citizens to do work that was previously paid for. Interestingly, the more money the borough was able to save in some areas, the more chances it had of receiving increased funding. Innovation and efficiency were rewarded.
I visited a major corporation with branches in the Caribbean which had embarked upon a zero-to-waste-to-landfill policy. Every aspect of the company’s operations was completely based on recycling and reducing its carbon footprint. Right alongside maintaining its profit was being a good corporate citizen.
I learnt about this firm that developed a programme of internships for young people with an 83 per cent retention rate for participants. On the face of it, nothing spectacular; firms do this all the time. What made this stand out, though, was that they did not go for the brightest and best; they went into one of the most depressed areas in the community, took young people who were in children’s homes and made them stars. They introduced them to the world of business and provided opportunities which transformed the lives of these young people.
So what is the relevance of all of this and why I am taking time to write about it? From this experience, there are a couple of things I want to share.
This trip coincided with a discussion I had with a retired business executive in Barbados prior to leaving and therefore reinforced for me that one of the major issues affecting our development is that we have not yet clarified the role of the state. From the retired executive, I heard story after story of innovative business ideas which did not require much from Government except a facilitating policy environment and speedy response time.
From my trip I saw first-hand flourishing programmes and projects which were working on their own. The state set clear targets and criteria for the giving and maintenance of funding and people got on with the doing. Instead of maintaining a slumbering, inefficient and unaccountable bureaucracy, people were incentivized to develop programmes which the state then supported.
Is the context the same? No. Is the model perfect? Far from it.?But clearly, what we are doing now is not working – the model has to change.
We can give as much stimulus as we want, but until the state clarifies its role and begins to act like a 21st century mechanism, we will continue to spin top in mud.
• Shantal Munro Knight is a development specialist and executive coordinator at the Caribbean Policy Development Centre. Email shantalmunro@gmail.com