By Marlon Bute
Imagine the IMF advising against a development bank. And this is an irony that cannot be ignored.
A country like St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), still grappling with the long shadows of slavery, colonialism, and structural underdevelopment, is being advised against establishing a development bank.
Yet the great wealth of Europe and North America was not built in isolation. It was accumulated, in no small part, through systems of extraction, including the enslavement of African peoples and the exploitation of the Caribbean. Walter Rodney captured this powerfully in “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”, and the logic extends to our region.
So, we must ask: what, then, are we to do?
We are a small, developing country with limited capital but abundant potential. Our people are enterprising. Our farmers, fishers, builders, and entrepreneurs are ready to produce, to create, to expand. What we lack is not ambition. It is access to capital.
That is precisely what a development bank is designed to address.
A properly structured development bank would finance productive sectors, stimulate local industry, create jobs, expand the tax base, and reduce our dependence on imports. It would allow us to build from within rather than remain perpetually dependent from without.
Of course, such an institution must be governed with discipline, transparency, and competence. That is not optional. But the possibility of mismanagement cannot be the reason to avoid progress altogether.
We should not be dissuaded from pursuing what is clearly in our national interest.
The question is not whether SVG should have a development bank.
The question is whether we are prepared to build one properly, and to use it as a tool for real and lasting development.
But let us come down from theory and speak of people.
Consider a fisherman with a modest boat. His two sons work with him, and sometimes a neighbour’s son, Stephen, joins them as well. Four men go out to sea with skill, courage, and hope. They know the waters. They know the trade. They know how to work. But there is only so much they can do with an old engine, limited range, inadequate gear, and a vessel that cannot safely or efficiently carry them as far as they need to go.
So sometimes they return with little. Not because they are lazy. Not because the sea has nothing to offer. But because the means of production are too weak.
Now imagine that same fisherman having access to a properly functioning development bank. He goes there not merely to borrow, but to be assessed, advised, and financed for productive expansion. He upgrades the engine. He improves the boat. He gets better fishing gear, better storage, and better safety equipment. Suddenly, the same four men can go farther, stay out longer, preserve more of what they catch, and return with a stronger haul.
Income rises. The household improves. The sons have steadier work. Stephen has regular earnings. Vendors have more fish to sell. Restaurants and supermarkets have more local supply. Benefits begin to spread through the economy.
And because success builds on success, perhaps that small operation eventually grows into a larger one. A bigger boat becomes possible. Even a fishing trawler is bought in time. Now these men are not merely scraping by from trip to trip. They are spending days at sea in season, returning with volume, building livelihoods, and contributing meaningfully to national production.
Consider also the carpenter with a small woodworking shop. He has skill in his hands and vision in his mind. But the workshop is cramped, the tools are worn, the machinery is old, and the physical conditions limit the scale and quality of the work he can undertake. He can produce, but only to a point. He can take on jobs, but only so many. He can train others, but not under those conditions.
Then a development bank enters the picture.
He gets access to financing to improve the physical conditions of the workshop, purchase better tools, modernise machinery, and expand production. Suddenly, the same carpenter is able to produce better cabinets, doors, furniture, trims, railings, stair parts, and other finished products. He takes on larger jobs. He hires more workers. He creates employment in the community.
And because real development is never just about one man, that same operation can be connected to a national apprenticeship programme. Young carpenters, male and female alike, can now learn and earn. Skills are passed on. Craft is deepened. Production is widened. A workshop becomes not just a place of work, but a place of training, upliftment, and community growth.
Then there is the farmer.
He has land. He has experience. He has the willingness to work. But he lacks irrigation, greenhouse infrastructure, proper storage, fencing, drainage, water systems, and the capital needed to transform what he has into what it could become. His land produces, but not to its full potential.
Now imagine that farmer being able to access a development bank where financing and technical expertise are coordinated in one place. He installs irrigation. He invests in greenhouses. He improves water storage and crop management. He gets support not just with money, but with the practical advice needed to make the investment succeed.
And the result? Land that once struggled now flourishes. Production rises. Waste falls. Output becomes more reliable. The farmer hires workers. He supplies more shops, markets, restaurants, and homes. The local food economy strengthens. Imports can begin to be reduced, not by slogans, but by actual production.
Consider, too, the caterer who works from home. She is talented, hardworking, and has built a good name for herself, but her business is constrained by the limitations of her kitchen. It is a family kitchen first, and a business kitchen only as best as she can make it. She must juggle constantly between home use and commercial use. The space is small. There is one stove, one deep freezer, one fridge, and a few small appliances. She produces wholesome food, but not at the scale or with the efficiency that her ability and market demand would justify.
Then she is directed to the development bank. She is assessed, advised, and supported. With access to sensible development financing, she adds a room to her house and outfits it as a proper commercial kitchen. She installs commercial stoves, larger fridges, deep freezers, fryers, preparation counters, and improved storage. Suddenly, her business moves from limitation to possibility. She can cater for more people, take on larger events, improve consistency, and generate higher earnings.
But the benefits do not stop there.
Her business becomes part of a national apprenticeship programme. Students attached to culinary education are placed with her for periods of practical training. They learn not only how to cook, but how to plan, prepare, organise, and run a food business. She becomes, in effect, a centre of learning as well as enterprise. Her community looks up to her. Young people are motivated by her example. Others begin to see that small beginnings need not remain small forever.
And look at how one successful enterprise begins to pull others with it. She buys fish from that same fisher and his two sons, and Stephen. From the farmer she buys eddoes, potatoes, and other ground provisions. Another supplier brings fruits and vegetables: mangoes, soursops, passion fruit, limes, cabbage, carrots, and more. It is the same carpenter, along with a mason and two other skilled workers, who built the addition for her commercial kitchen. She buys her aprons and tablecloths from the seamstress who, by the way, also has a thriving business made possible by development bank financing.
That is how a real economy grows. One productive investment feeds another. One enterprise strengthens another. One woman’s expansion becomes work for fishers, farmers, builders, artisans, students, and suppliers. Capital, when properly directed, does not simply sit in an account. It circulates. It multiplies effort. It creates linkages. It builds confidence. It turns enterprise into a wider culture of production.
Then think of the seamstress and the designer. Think of the woman making sauces, juices, jams, soaps, baked goods, or beauty products from home. Think of the agro processor trying to move from small batches to commercial scale. Think of the young creative trying to build a studio. Think of the musician who needs proper recording equipment and space. Think of the countless Vincentians with skill, taste, ambition, discipline, and ideas, but without the financing needed to bridge the gap between talent and growth.
This is why the argument matters.
A development bank is not merely about lending money. It is about unlocking production. It is about bringing capital, technical support, and national purpose together in one place. It is about creating the conditions in which ordinary people can do more, make more, hire more, save more, and build more.
It is about helping the enterprising spirit in St Vincent and the Grenadines find fuller expression.
We do not suffer from a shortage of enterprise in this country. Too often, we suffer from a shortage of organised capital placed in the service of production.
That is what makes the argument against a development bank so difficult to accept. For what is really being said, perhaps not in so many words, is that people in countries like ours must continue trying to build with too little, borrow under terms that do not suit development, or remain trapped between undercapitalised effort and dependence on outside systems.
No serious person is saying that a development bank should be reckless. It must be governed with discipline, transparency, and competence. Loans must be assessed properly. Repayment must matter. Projects must be productive. Governance must be real. Political abuse must be guarded against firmly.
But the possibility of mismanagement cannot be the basis on which we reject one of the very tools that could help transform our productive sectors.
For if that is the standard, then no country would ever build anything of consequence.
And so, we return to the deeper irony.
Those whose societies accumulated immense wealth over centuries, often through slavery, empire, extraction, and exploitation, now lecture poorer societies about caution when we seek instruments of our own development. We may listen. But we must also think. And we must think considering our own reality.
Now, in all the conversations against a development bank, look who is talking. And consider where their wealth came from.
And so, the vision of the NDP, then in opposition, shared with the people the idea of a development bank, and that vision was felt by the people and embraced by the people. It was part of the reason, among other reasons of course, that the party received such an overwhelming mandate.
It therefore has a duty to bring that bank into reality and to help awaken the enterprising spirit of our people. Businesses appear. Businesses expand, employ, and create wealth. The tax base grows. Government has more with which to pay debt and to invest in education, healthcare, roads, and other urgent needs. We import less because we produce more. St Vincent and the Grenadines wins. The people win.
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