Januray 2013


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“The perennial problem of how to diversify Trinidad and Tobago’s economy away from a hydrocarbon-based one can only be solved through a combined effort by the public sector, the private sector and research bodies such as The University of the West Indies,” says UWI Pro Vice-Chancellor and St Augustine Campus Principal Professor Clement Sankat. “As things stand, the few hundred researchers who are currently engaged in meaningful research in the country work on a wide range of disparate, unrelated projects. As to where and how their intellect should be engaged or harnessed to develop the country… well, we must build consensus among the population about the kind of development that the country should pursue.”

“There is no reason why we shouldn’t aspire to be like Singapore or even a South Korea,” says Professor Sankat. “Being small is a challenge for T&T but it also has its advantages. We should be able to manage and mobilise our people more easily than a larger country, for instance.”

To follow in the path of Asian tigers like South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, and make the leap from underdeveloped to almost developed, T&T must invest heavily in creating a fertile environment where research and development fuels creativity and innovation, with the aim of generating new infrastructure, products and services that can bring new value and support new policy formulation that enhances the quality of life of our citizens.

“Singapore has a population of five million but less than one-eighth the land area of T&T; yet it has managed to raise the standard of living of its population to almost that of a developed nation. Space being the one thing that it didn’t have, Singapore invested in creating an efficient transport system that minimises traffic and compensates for the prohibitively high cost of owning a personal vehicle. Wouldn’t that make sense in Trinidad, where every day thousands of people spend hours sitting – usually alone in their own car – in traffic? By now, with the proper empirical data, and the will to execute, we should have been able to come up with measures to solve the traffic situation across the country.”

“Research should focus not only on wealth creation, but on treating behavioural and social issues,” Professor Sankat pointed out. “We need to put in place policies that can move us along from where we are now to where we want to be.” In that vein, research should also be applied to governance issues – including local government and constitutional amendments that would, for example, safeguard developmental projects, so they cannot be shelved by successive governments without good cause. “Some think that constitutional change will be the be-all and end-all, that it will fix all our problems,” said Professor Sankat, “but while this is important as we move forward, there are deeper social and cultural issues that will have to be dealt with.”

“Social dependence on the State is one area that should be addressed and while social safety nets are important, and good criteria should be employed here, we should also be looking to build sustainable economies,” he says. “Resources ought to be channelled into creating an environment for private enterprise and entrepreneurial growth to flourish.”

“To this end, R&D must take in all aspects of our society – education, healthcare, crime, gender and discrimination, the creative sector – and provide our leaders with evidence-based ideas on how to make positive change, and create exciting opportunities for the next generation of Trinbagonians,” the Pro Vice-Chancellor says.

He believes T&T should focus on creating new products and services for a global market place. Indigenous products, such as our world-class cocoa, Scorpion peppers, chadon beni, spices and seasonings, can all be developed for export. “So should be our music, our musical instruments, our carnival and other national festivals.”

An engineer by profession, Professor Sankat gave Grenada the nutmeg cracker, which he invented as a young researcher at The UWI. T&T gave the world the first coconut dehusker, after all, and a young UWI engineer first developed the chataigne peeler. “We developed a pigeon pea harvester and a pigeon pea sheller a long time ago. Have we developed industries around these? He noted that many in the private sector remain content with simply dominating the manufacturing sector in the Caribbean region, and are not rising quickly to the challenge of innovating and creating goods and services that are globally competitive.” He noted the success of the SM Jaleel’s “Chubby” brand seen in many countries and an example of our possibilities.

“Even in the chemical and petrochemical industry, from which we produce methanol, ammonia and urea and are globally recognized, we are seen as primary producers,” he pointed out. “We must go deeper. We are not seen as a producer of high-tech goods. Meanwhile, Costa Rica, with a population of 4.3 million, is producing micro-processors for export.”

Our music and film industries are also potential revenue earners. “But are we doing enough to propel our creative industries to the top?” Professor Sankat asked. “Tourism in Tobago should be booming, not struggling. We must stay focused and determined to move these sectors”.

“While endless reports have been commissioned and written over the years, implementation has bedeviled us. We must first decide what we want Trinidad and Tobago to look like in ten years,” Professor Sankat stated firmly. “And once we agree on that vision and the projects that can get us there, let us rally around them and ensure long-term continuity in spite of leadership changes at the national and institutional levels. Otherwise this is going to significantly retard our development and hurt our pockets!”

He suggests that a social compact between political parties (and perhaps the unions) to do what is best for the country would go a long way to ensuring that policies regarding long-term development cannot be changed, including, for example, education, food and agriculture, industrial and infrastructural development. “We have to be building upon previous achievements for continuous improvement.”

In his view, transport and communications are two prerequisites for development. Building highways from San Fernando to Cedros and to Mayaro would open up the south of the island to investors, tourism and manufacturing, he suggested. “Industry and enterprises will follow these highways!” he insists. “In a recession you ought to spend money to create new opportunities for wealth creation. But importantly, we will also bring relief to these distant, frequently underserved communities.”

While he agrees that wetlands and watersheds must be protected and other countries have done this, there is a lot of land that can and should be developed. In deciding how this development should take place, the government should draw on evidence-based research from UWI and other research institutions. T&T must move forward using a framework of knowledge and innovation that is research driven. “Already we have some elements of the foundation that is needed to do this – the UWI, UTT, SFC, CARIRI, CARDI, NIHERST, MIC, etc – but these elements are not co-ordinated, directed or focused. If we could coordinate this group of 900 or so researchers, work with the private and other public sector agencies to address specific thematic areas, invest significantly in this, then we would make a lot more progress,” Professor Sankat concluded. “We need to put a National Commission on Science, Technology and Innovation in place to manage all of this beginning with NIHERST for which a relevant study was already done. This was best practice in many countries,” he said.