Economic Future, Role of IMF Top Caribbean Students' Concerns

IMF meets with Caribbean youth to discuss economy, policy options

Students challenge role of IMF in the Caribbean

Call for more efforts to protect the poor

“The Caribbean region faces economic and social challenges that call for fresh ideas from the younger generation,” said Nicolás Eyzaguirre, Director of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department during a town hall-style dialogue with students from the Caribbean organized by the University of the West Indies and the Caribbean Media Corporation on January 27.

Even before the crisis, economic growth had lagged other regions because of weak productivity growth and limited integration with the new global “growth poles” like Brazil and China. Countries in the Caribbean, saddled with high debt levels, need to reduce public debt and develop new sources of growth to enhance their prospects.

“The IMF wants to support countries in the region in their own efforts to raise and improve the quality of growth, but you―the younger generation―need to create the future for yourselves,” Eyzaguirre added.

Reaching out to future leaders

The televised town hall event was held at UWI’s Cave Hill Campus in Bridgetown, Barbados. With campuses throughout the region, the UWI brings together students from across the Caribbean and provides a good example of regional integration and cooperation that can promote economies of scale and networking to benefit individuals and the Caribbean as a whole.

The town hall meeting followed an outreach campaign—“Caribbean Leaders of Tomorrow: Ask the IMF”—that invited students from the region to submit questions to the UWI on any economic issue of importance to them and also on the role of the IMF. The UWI received many excellent and probing questions from students representing 12 countries around the region. Live questions were also taken from the floor.

“This is why we have come here, to listen to your views and concerns, to exchange ideas about the best policy options for the Caribbean, and to explain more clearly what the IMF does, and what it aims to do,” said Eyzaguirre, as he welcomed more than 60 students to the town hall.

The IMF’s role in the region

Asked about the mission of the IMF, Eyzaguirre replied that the Fund is best known for providing financial resources and technical support when countries are hit by external shocks such as natural disasters, something this region knows well, and, more recently, from the fallout from the global economic and financial...