Senator the Honourable Dr. Bhoendradatt Tewarie, Minister of

Address by Senator the Honourable Dr. Bhoendradatt Tewarie, Minister of
Planning and Sustainable Development
“A New Approach to Sustainable Development Governance: Is it
Happening?”
This is the topic that I have been asked to speak on and if the question that I need
to answer is - is it happening in Trinidad and Tobago?, then I think that the answer
is- yes. How can I say that? I can say that because we have been taking sustainable
development seriously, striving for a balance between economic progress,
environmental conservation and socio-cultural harmony and we have crafted
governance institutions and mechanisms to achieve sustainable outcomes.
Let me say that sustainable development is a disruptive idea which our
Government has embraced since 2010. The sustainable development idea has
gained currency because there is a worldwide rebellion against privilege, because
there is a strong movement rethinking corporate behaviour and a new framework
for a multi-stake holder benefits approach to capitalism and because green thinking
to save our plant has gained significant momentum.
Our Manifesto of 2010 established a Sustainable Development Framework and
was adopted as Government policy. The Medium Term Policy Framework
2011-2014 derived from this and has guided budgetary allocation for the 2011-12/
2012-13/ 2013-14 and 2014-15 budgets on five (5) priorities;
•
Crime, Law and Order
•
Agriculture and Food Security
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Health Care Services and Hospitals
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Economic Growth, Job Creation, Diversification, Competitiveness and
Innovation
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Poverty Reduction and Human Capital Development
Our Manifesto made a commitment to “Prosperity for All” and our Medium Term
Policy Framework envisioned that “through creativity, innovation and
collaboration, we shall prosper together.”
A Sustainable Development Report (Working for Sustainable Development in
Trinidad and Tobago) aligned to the Medium Term Policy Framework was
developed to guide Trinidad and Tobago’s participation at the Rio +20 Conference
on Sustainable Development in 2012. Three pillars of sustainable development –
Economic Sustainability, Social Sustainability and Environmental Sustainability
are highlighted in this document and 12 challenges to confront through action are
identified.
Over the last five years, therefore, we have been guided by lofty ideas, we have
budgeted for identified priorities, implemented through Ministries and other State
institutions and collaborated with the private business sector and the NGO sector to
achieve objectives and to deliver results.
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Plans and projects are meaningful only if implemented and implementation or
execution is what makes development happen. To strengthen the disposition to
implementation, actions need to be measured and evaluated.
We have, therefore, established a Monitoring and Evaluation Unit to do this, a
Performance Framework to guide us (one of only a handful of countries in the
world to do so) and a Performance Report to record actual performance on forty
eight (48) indicators linked to the five priorities financed by the budget every year.
These Annual Reports on Performance are duly laid in Parliament.
Over the last five years and especially over the last four there has been good
alignment between philosophy, strategy policy, plan, execution and monitoring and
evaluation.
This has been made possible because of the focus and orientation of the Ministry
of Planning and Sustainable Development, the support of the Honourable Prime
Minister and Cabinet, key structures within the same Ministry which have been
strengthened and new structures and/or institutions created to support Ministerial
action.
How does this work? First of all there is a division in the Ministry responsible for
Socio-Economic Planning which leads the socio economic development planning
process through the formulation, coordination and continuous review of medium
and long-term strategies and policies for national development in consultation with
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other government agencies and stakeholders. At the present time they are preparing
an action agenda 2015-2025.
This Division, in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also handles
Government’s relationship with the United Nations (UN) and Trinidad and
Tobago’s participation in the post-2015 process.
Complementing the SEPPD is the Project Planning and Reconstruction Division
(PPRD). They prepare the Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP) which is
the capital expenditure component of the National Budget consisting generally of
an amalgamation of individual projects and programmes that are linked to the five
priorities and which strives for geographical spread.
The PSIP is the instrument available to the Government to translate its plans,
objectives and strategies into tangible projects and programmes with a view to
accelerating growth and development within the country and therefore the
transformation agenda of the Government. This PSIP programme has, since 2012
been operating on a three year rolling plan basis.
While both the SEPPD and PPRD deal with socio-economic development issues,
spatial planning, an ingredient for overall national development, is handled by the
Town and Country Planning Division (TCPD).
TCPD is charged with the responsibility for administering the Town and Country
Planning Act, Ch. 35:01 of the Laws of Trinidad and Tobago, on behalf of the
Minister responsible for town and country planning. The functions of the Division
are to secure consistency and continuity in the framing and execution of a
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comprehensive policy with respect to the use and development of all land in
Trinidad and Tobago. The Town and Country Planning Division has been
dramatically transformed to provide customer service, to be more responsive and
helpful to the citizen, and a collaborative framework via special committee has
been established to address larger projects.
Under my watch the Town and Country Planning Division out did itself by
working with the National Planning Task Force
(made up of volunteering
professionals) to complete the National Spatial Development Strategy (NSDS) and
to support the passage of the Planning and Facilitation Bill which actually
abolishes the Town and Country Planning Division and establishes in its place a
National Planning Authority and decentralizes the processing of simple
applications to Local Government Authorities and the THA. I thank the employees
of Town and Country Planning and the PSA for their cooperation and collaboration
and their trust in me and in this Government.
The National Transformation Unit (NTU) is the newest addition and its mandate
includes building assessment and evaluation capability for Trinidad and Tobago,
which includes building public sector capacity in Monitoring and Evaluation.
Additionally, the NTU is also required to monitor and evaluate the implementation
of National Policies and Plans on the basis of identified indicators. The NTU also
monitors performance on the basis of commitments made in the Manifesto in nine
(9) areas of policy shifts. The nine policy shifts emphasize the fact that the
management of policy over the last five years has involved continuity as well as
chage.
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Advisory Bodies
The Economic Development Board (EDB) and the Council for Competitiveness
and Innovation (CCI) were both established in 2011 by the Government of
Trinidad and Tobago to develop and implement comprehensive strategies to
accelerate sustainable economic growth and prosperity for the nation and its
citizens.
Both Bodies work under the direction of the Minister of Planning and Sustainable
Development. The role of the EDB is to “reshape our strategies for economic
development by facilitating diversification and achieving a diversified economy
within the framework of sustainable development”, whereas the role of the CCI is
to “take action to make our firms more competitive, expand exports and improve
our competitiveness ranking in the world”.
The roles of the Economic Development Board and Council for Competitiveness
and Innovation will naturally have some areas of commonality given the nature of
their mandates. While the EDB is tasked with issues regarding the overall objective
of economic development and the CCI with issues of business competitiveness,
there will not only be the necessity for collaboration between the two bodies, but
they will have instances of mutually reinforcing roles and activities. In practice
both Boards work closely together.
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Arising out of a 2012 National Diversification Conference, a National Committee
of Stakeholders was created and its primary role, as agreed to by Cabinet, is to
discuss and agree on a plan of action for stimulating investment expansion in
Trinidad and Tobago. This is a collaboration between business, labour, Ministerial
and public service to enhance the diversification performance in seven (7) areas.
In effect, the Committee will provide a forum through which the Government
could constructively and regularly engage leaders of industry and commerce, trade
unions and other key stakeholders involved in the economic diversification of
Trinidad and Tobago, with a view to creating a more conducive environment for
businesses to prosper and for the country to achieve sustainable economic growth.
The Economic Development Board also drives the development of five (5) growth
poles geographically spread and works with Town and Country Planning and other
institutions to identify local strategies for development as well as identifies new
growth poles.
Implementation is always a challenge. But we have achieved significant success.
In my view we have been successful because of leadership, clarity of purpose,
organizational capacity structured to achieve results, a climate of collaboration,
partnership and creativity and the setting of deadlines and targets. On policy issues
a swift turnaround is valued, the PSIP has timelines which need to be met during
the course of any year, NTU has to operate within a budgetary cycle and
collaborate with others to meet deadlines. Town and Country Planning was given
targets as part of a process of reform.
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In addition, the spirit of collaboration and teamwork has been infused in
traditionally rigid bureaucratic structure.
In addition, we have encouraged collaboration between public and private sector.
Buttressing all of this has been the statistical basis for evidence based decision
making. We inherited a lot of problems in the Central Statistical Office in 2010,
and problems continue but the CSO has also played a vital role in Policy making.
A Human Development Atlas was completed in 2012 which identified human
development challenges in 14 regions in Trinidad and Tobago.
This made is
possible to identify gaps.
The National Census was completed in early 2012. This made it possible to work
with contemporary data. The CSO has also serviced the country by provision of
GDP statistics every year for decades.
Trade statistics were a problem after issues emerged with the installation of the
ASYCUDA system in Customs but trade statistics are now current.
In 2011,
Labour statistics were four quarters or one year behind. CSO has now caught up
but is still two (2) quarters behind. The normal expectation is one quarter and CSO
will be on par with other similar agencies worldwide with up to date statistics on
the labour market by June.
The inflation data has been provided on time every month for the last 18 months.
We have worked collaboratively with the IMF to make this possible.
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We have also now completed a Population Policy, an Innovation Policy and are
working on a Manpower policy to support our ten year plan going forward which
will strengthen and continue to develop the five priorities but will also, focus on (i)
intensifying the diversification process, (ii) infrastructure development, including
expanding the road network and building a post Panamax Port at one of the
existing sites but also rolling our Broadband (iii) an internationalization of Trinidad
and Tobago’s energy platform focused on down streaming natural gas, exporting
knowledge, experience and services, and on renewable energy and energy
efficiency solutions and (iv) strengthening governance and building institutions.
This articulation of policy for action over the period 2011-2014 has brought
development planning into focus and guided investment over the period. As the
timeframe of the MTPF 2011-2014 is at an end, a successor development policy
and plan, the National Development Plan (NDP) 2015-2025, is being prepared to
refine strategic interventions and focus future investments aimed at closing the
development gap, beating the middle income trap and fostering economic inclusion
and a better spread of equity.
The Government of Trinidad and Tobago (GOTT) strategic policy considerations
for the next ten years, 2015-2025, will build on the Medium Term Policy
Framework (MTPF) 2011-2014 and lay the foundation required for catapulting the
country on a path of sustained economic and social progress. The proposed new
National Development Plan 2015-2025 will be premised on:
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•
Principle of sustainable development i.e. maintaining a healthy environment
to sustain the desired socioeconomic transformation for citizens to enjoy a
high quality of life and for communities to flourish and prosper
•
National Spatial Development Strategy (NSDS) 2013-2033 which aims to
protect and enhance environmental assets, and where appropriate make
economic use of them, and to prudently use natural resources to guide the
nature and location of development and improvements at municipal and
local levels
•
Close alignment with the post-2015 global development agenda and the
Sustainable Development Goals
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Pursuit of high per capita income and sustained economic growth based on
innovative strategies to diversify the economy, disperse economic activity
throughout the country based on clustering of industries, leverage and build
on the competitive advantages of the country, increase exports and
investment, develop strategic partnerships regionally and globally to build
the critical mass needed for economies of scale, markets, skills and
innovation capacity, and facilitate enterprise development
•
Socio-economic inclusion of the most vulnerable in society by providing
opportunities for persons to access sustainable employment, education,
health care, housing, food, utilities, etc.
Some of the priority areas of investment will centre on: national and personal
security; health and wellbeing; youth and ageing; food security; diversification,
growth and employment; human capital development; applied research for
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enterprise development; infrastructural development; climate change and
environmental preservation (including alternative and renewable energy, disaster
risk reduction and water management); and governance and institutional reform.
The next National Development Plan will therefore attempt to continue the process
of ensuring that there is alignment with global sustainable development agenda and
seek to integrate the new set of Sustainable Development Goals within the strategic
priorities for the period 2015-2025.
To this end, the SDG goals and targets will form the backbone of the planning
horizon and would facilitate the ease of reporting to the international agencies
under the UN system as to the progress in the implementation of the post-2015
development agenda. At the same time it will sharpen the focus for action at home.
Already we have been able to rationalize our relationships with the multi-lateral
institutions, the European Union, the UN System. This has been systematically
done over the last three years or so.
In some cases we have an understanding of how we engage each other, in the case
of the UN, we have actually signed an agreement to bring programmes and
executing agencies under one umbrella for implementation.
In consultation to prepare Trinidad and Tobago’s post -2015 miscellaneous goals
we engaged a large number of collaborators from civil society who signed off on
what we sent to the UN as our country report.
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We have also begun an active process of promoting and nurturing an
entrepreneurial and innovation driven culture.
Actions include the creation of the Centre for Enterprise Development which
functions as a nurturing ground and hatchery for new business start-ups. The idea
to innovation which has supported 200 innovations with grants up to 200,000 TT
dollars to each recipient; Lumination which does the same for social innovators; an
Apps Centre for software design, a partnership with Microsoft to create an
Innovation Centre; a partnership with the World Bank to identify solution
entrepreneurs for Climate change problems.
What I have described to you so far are, in our context in the Caribbean, bold
initiatives – bold for the public service, bold for accountability in government, bold
in terms of Trinidad and Tobago’s experience and bold in terms of policy action.
But this was a governance framework that we had to build to register our serious
commitment to the alignment of philosophy, strategy, plan, institutional capacity,
execution, monitoring and evaluation, account to Parliament and the People. These
bold but necessary actions disrupted the status quo of laissez-faire and allowed us
to achieve practical outcomes which could be measured.
But we are entering a difficult world now, not so much of disruptive thinking but
where, instead, disruptive changes are taking place and the meaning of these thing
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have yet to be fully absorbed and so perhaps our thinking on what is taking place
around us is not so clear. The world as we know it is under challenge.
What are some of these disruptive changes transforming the world we live in?
I.
The challenge of managing the global financial system.
II.
The transformation of the global production system and the shifts in Ocean
traffic and routes.
III.
The restructuring of the energy matrix and market.
IV.
The opportunity that most growth will take place in emerging and
developing countries.
V.
Authoritarian, militaristic terrorist interventionists that disrupt peace and
order, in a strategically arbitrary fashion.
Over the next decade the issues of how to manage, regulate and monitor a global
financial system which was severely tested in 2008/2009 and which some believe
to be fundamentally unsound will present a formidable challenge as the global
economy continues to transform and restructuring of the production system
intensifies.
The Schumpeterian changes now taking place in the global energy economy will
have serious implications for competitiveness, trade and investment. Moreover,
future growth in the world is predicted to occur overwhelmingly in emerging and
developing countries.
Least developed countries will therefore have an
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opportunity to move up and emerging and developing countries can seize the
opportunities to triumph over the middle income country trap and achieve stronger
success. The highly industrialized countries of the Commonwealth for instance
with whom we are partners will have new opportunities for investment, trade and
partnerships.
A glorious future awaits the countries of the Caribbean, consisting of middle
income and high human development countries in a transforming world economy.
Moreover, the thrust for sustainable development is also likely to yield positive
dividends for countries within the region as well as progressive partnerships
between some developing and emerging countries and other global players. With
this transformation and restructuring at the economic level, geopolitical shifts will
also present new opportunities.
The countries of the CARICOM are likely
beneficiaries of a changing world order that has already been set in motion.
In the coming decade the CARICOM will have a rare opportunity to shape its
partnerships in institutions such as the Commonwealth and the UN, and to play a
more meaningful role in the world’s decision making – including decisions that
will affect the multilateral system and development banking institutions.
What will be required will not be disruptive thinking as such, but strategic thinking
and critical and creative thinking that the disruptions already set in motion by
forces in the world will demand.
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How to take advantage of opportunities presented by these disruptions? How to
protect oneself from the vulnerabilities that these disruptions may bring? The time
for action on one’s own is long gone; this is the age of collaboration, partnerships,
and multiple alliances to achieve progress.
I could not close without proposing action solutions for the region to pursue- in the
context of this forum, I would describe these as bold, disruptive actions:
i.
Resolution of air and sea transport and security challenges in the Caribbean
region.
ii.
An action agenda for integration of the production system of the region for
development integration within a sustainable development framework.
iii.
Transformation of the energy matrix in the region to make the region
competitive and these small states, many of them islands, greener.
iv.
A broadband and internet based knowledge access and knowledge, creativity
and innovation strategy for the region linked to productivity,
entrepreneurship and applications for innovation.
v.
Active facilitation of private sector growth and involvement and public/
private partnerships across the region.
vi.
Set objectives and targets for the five above and stick doggedly to the task to
of achieving them, supporting these institutions with infrastructure, talent,
organizational capacity and political clout.
vii.
Work with global and regional financial sector to actualize plans and achieve
results by formulating programmes, projects and interventions that yield
results.
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The world is fast transforming and we must take the change in motion around us
seriously and act in response as well as proactively. The world is not going to wait
for the Caribbean region, we must summon the will to act in our best interest
seizing opportunities and building resilience for sustainability.
Bold action is
required in a world in which disruptive forces have already been set in motion by
others.
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