Caribbean

Topic: The immigration of East Indian indentured workers to the Caribbean in the 19th century could be regarded as a new system of slavery. Slavery was the initial labour system used by Europeans on their plantations in the Caribbean. It was implemented in the 1600`s, the Europeans forcefully took people from the African continent to the Caribbean on various trips. The path in which the slaves were carried between Africa and the Caribbean is known to historians as the Triangular Trade. These Africans and those from the African lineage became slaves on the plantations where they were not seen as humans and were treated as animals or property.

After the freedom of the enslaved population in the 1830`s, the planters were faced with irregularity of labour on the estates. This was because many of the slaves had left plantation to go start a new life. In addition, the remaining population had cultivated land of their own; often when it was harvesting time instead of harvesting the crops on the estates, the freed people would harvest their own crops which posed a problem to planters. As a result of this major problem, planters now had to develop new strategies to regulate the labour force on the estates.

A major to the inconsistency of the labour on the estates was importation of indentured workers namely; Chinese, Surinam’s and the East Indians. However the researcher`s focus in this IA will be on the East Indian indentured workers. There are various factors that made the strategy of importing East Indians a success. These factors are commonly referred to as push and pull factors. In the East Indies at that time, specifically in India, there was a large population. The large population was not being utalized hence there being a large number of unemployed people. Many of the East Indian people had nothing tying them down in India.

Other reason for success of the importation of the East Indians was that India experienced similar climatic conditions to that of the Caribbean. Indian labourers who had already proved successful in Mauritius; they were then considered to be a good bet for survival in Jamaica. In 1837 John Gladstone, father of Prime Minister W. E Gladstone and owner of two plantations In British Guiana, applied to the secretary of state for the colonies, to get permission to import Indian labourers. In 1838 with the arrival of 396 Indians,the great flood of Indian immigration had begun(Tinker H).

This meant that the indentured workers were imported between the periods of 1838 and 1885. West Indians were imported aswell to British Guiana and Trinidad, with 238,909 and 143,939 respectively while countries like Jamaica received 38,681 because the labour shortage was not as devastating as it was in Trinidad and British Guiana. These indentured workers that were now being imported into the Caribbean came under contracts. These contracts played a vital role in the working conditions of the Indians on the plantations,or should have. The conditions applied to all immigration schemes.

The contracts were not drawn up by a mutual person or an East indian or a planter, the contracts were drawn up by West Indian planters, who wrote up the contracts to their own likings. Therefore the contracts tended to the employers benefit rather than to the benefit of the employees (East Indians). The conditions of the contract varied according to the scheme and colony involved. Before they could sign the contract they were to appear in the magistrates court and were to be fully informed about the conditions of the contract so that they were aware of what they were getting themselves into.

This was however not the case; first and fore most the contract was written in English which posed a problem to the Indians wh were not familiar with the language, this created a language barrier , so basically the Indians signed (thumb marks) the contracts ignorant to what they would face on arriving at the new world. The British government in the beginning would only allow contracts for a one year period, gradually this changed in 1848 and in 1863 changed from three years to five years respectively.

Many historians will say that the immigration of East Indian indentured workers to the Caribbean in the 19th century could be regarded as a new system of slavery. There are several factors which might have caused them to come to this conclusion. These factors can be divided into two groups: transportation process and the life on the plantation. The transportation process starts off with the potential travellers gaining documents and passes from officials in India to travel. There were many persons who wanted to come on this economic endeavour because of the poor working conditions and high unemployment rate in India.

On the ship itself, the experience was similar to that of the slaves. There were tight spaces and little to no moving space for the passengers. There were also many deaths during the long voyage despite the presence of a surgeon on each ship. Life on the plantation was similar in that the Indians were illtreated just like the slaves. Investigations by the Anti-slavery Society revealed that many of the immigrants had died quickly (Tinker H). They were badly beaten, wrongly imprisoned and many of the Indian women raped.

In addition to the physical abuse of the indentured servants, the plantation owners were not paying them the money they agreed to, which is a breach in contract and it constitutes criminal acts on the planters part. The indentured workers were paid less than the slaves and were initially placed at the bottom of the socio-economic scale. However ,owing to the culture of the Indians, when they arrived on the plantation they considered themselves at a higher social status than the slaves due to the skin colour difference while in reality some of the slaves were at a higher economic status than they were.

In conjunction both groups were forced to abandon their way of life and subscribe to that of their masters and employers. It went to the extent where any union outside of Christian marriage was not recognised. The indentured servants also lived in poor health conditions. Several individuals who came from various family groups had to live in small, three to four rooms in housing called barracks. Also, they thrived off a monotonous, disproportionate and poor diet consisting of rice, flour, dried fish or goat, peas and seasonings which were served as rations.

There were also differences which can arguably be considered not compromising the support of the view being presented. There is the point that the Indians chose to come to the Caribbean while the Africans were forced and coerced. Africans were being converted from Muslim and other indigenous beliefs to Christianity and the Indians were converted from Hinduism. However, both through secrecy retained some of their beliefs systems which is openly being practiced today.

Also, children got the opportunity to get quarterly checked by a doctor as it was a strict policy stipulated by the Indian government. These minor differences were not enough to propose that the Indians were treated better than the slaves. Joseph Beaumont, Chief Justice of British Guiano published a pamphlet in England in 1871 emitted “the New Slavery” because he saw that in practice, immigration labour schemes were slavery under different name. though the emigrant from India entered into the contract voluntarily, he was often ignorant to the conditions that he was agreeing to.

The system depended on the officials in charge. They could check the abuses, and there were cases of colonial officials who did their utmost to secure fairness for the immigrant. Sir John Peter Grant in Jamaica and Sir Arthur Gordon in Trinidad worked on behalf of the immigrants during their governorships. In general, there was a lack of good will on the part of the planters and authorities towards immigrants. In concluding by definition, immigrant labour was not slavery because it was entered into voluntarily.

The contract gave nights to the immigrant who was paid for his labour, however, language created a barrier so the Indians often misunderstood the contract and they got paid less than what was promised to them. The Indians were denied the natural freedoms of humans being outside their hours of labour. Immigrants were also subject to arbitrary treatment and various inducements were trying to persuade them to extend the contract after the five years but most wanted their freedom. Hence, my view that the Immigration of East Indian in ventured workers to the Caribbean in the nineteenth century could be regarded as a new system of slavery.

INTRODUCTION

This paper seeks to identify and discuss the predicament of Development Administration as it relates to public administration in the Commonwealth Caribbean. It will seek to elucidate thought and provoke discussion on the topic by first of all taking a journey back to the period of colonial rule and the historical antecedents that impacted administration during that period.

It will take a cursory glance at the independence period and the course of development taken by some of the Commonwealth Caribbean, utilizing mainly the Trinidad and Tobago experience (because of the exigencies of time and space). The exercise will attempt to look briefly at the origin of Development Administration and examine the thinking and writings of some of the leading theorists on subject. Additionally, it will focus on some of the reasons for the seeming failure of development administration in addressing some of the key problems and challenges of administration in the Commonwealth Caribbean.

Further, it will look at some of the new approaches to public and finally it will attempt to provide some solutions and recommendations on the way forward. i

BACKGROUND

In looking at the predicament of development administration in the Commonwealth Caribbean, this paper will examine the topic under two (2) broad themes. These are: 1. The theoretical inadequacy of Development Administration; and 2. The inability of development bureaucracies to realise development goals, particularly the region under review i. . the Commonwealth Caribbean. Jamal Khan writing in 1982 probably encapsulates it best. He said “the Caribbean region with a visage all its own and located at the gateway the American continents, is a grouping of thirty-three (33) English, Dutch, French and Spanish speaking countries, all islands except the four (4) mainland countries Guyana and Suriname in the South America, Cayenne and Belize in Central America.

The region is divided into three (3) main geographic groups: the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles consisting of the largest islands lying between Puerto Rico and the South American mainland and the Bahamas off the Florida coast is a string of islands, small cays and rocks of which a greater many are barren and uninhabited. ” In looking at the region in its historical context, Khan notes that “the region born out of the conquest, settlement and colonisation had sustained numerous racial migrations, protracted imperial subjugations and enormous human tragedies.

Historical forces have created a diversity of ethnicities, cultures, religions, traditions and loyalties. While parts of the region have moved through the process of de-colonisation other segments still retain ii dependency status. The Eastern Caribbean in particular is facing not only the usually problems of post-independence national development and transition from colonial status to independence but also the special problems created by geographic, political and economic fragmentation”.

The paper attempts to look at this region and its unique history and examines some of the approaches that have been employed to treat with the thrust towards development. It reviews the work and pronouncements of the some of the leading thinkers and authors in areas of public administration and development administration and the effectiveness or lack thereof of these systems of governance. Development Administration emerged in the 1960s with the field of comparative public administration. It is a general theory of development and was esigned as a possible agent of change. The term represented those aspects of public administration that were needed to execute politics, programs and projects to improve social and economic conditions. Some countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean sought to adopt the model as a point of departure from the rigid, hierarchical and bureaucratic forms of public administration that existed after Independence. It was viewed as a “best fit” for the efficient running and functioning of the public service. iii

But, as will be developed later in the paper, it was the history and culture of the public administration environment that made the adaptation to the model of development administration difficult, and contributed to the factors that accounted for the predicaments it faced. The analysis part of the paper will look at what attempts have been taken and the approaches to development administration in the Commonwealth Caribbean and the factors that accounted for the predicament and the eventual failure of the process in the region.

In this context, it will cite briefly the experience of successive administrations in the case of Trinidad and Tobago and their approaches to development administration in the country. iv CASE A cursory glance at some of the definitions proffered by some of the leading thinkers and writers in the field of public administration may prove instructive and useful in placing the discussion on the predicament of development administration in its proper perspective as repeated reference will be made to the work of these during the course of the paper.

Fred Riggs (1970) described development administration as “the methods used by large scale organisations, particularly government, to implement policies and plans designed to meet development objectives”. In his “Frontiers of Development Administration”, Riggs identified two (2) areas of focus in his approach to the subject: a. The development of administration and b. The administration of development Hope (1987) and Jean Claude Zamor (1973:422) examined development administration both from a conceptual and an operational point of view.

They wrote that “development administration in this context is the bureaucratic process that facilitates or stimulates the achievement of socio-economic progress through the utilisation of the talents and expertise of bureaucrats. It involves the mobilisation of bureaucratic skills for speeding up the development process”. Hope (1987) also added that “development administration or the public administration of economic development applies to the activities of governments to achieve development or 1 modernisation.

The administration of development in developing countries is effected primarily through politicians and the civil service operating within a ministerial system or government agency and is characterised by its purpose, its loyalties and its attitudes”. In his definition of development administration, Gant (1979) said that “the term development administration came into use in the 1950s to represent those aspects of public administration which are needed to carry out the policies, projects and programs to improve economic conditions”.

In 1887, in his famous essay “The Study of Administration”, Woodrow Wilson states that “public administration is the detailed and systematic execution of the public law”. Wilson looked at public administration in one specific perspective and that is the ability of the bureaucracy to implement the policies of the legislator without political interference. Waldo proffered two (2) definitions. He saw public administration as “the organisation and management of men and materials to achieve the purposes of the state” and public administration as “the art and science of administration as applied to the affairs of the state”.

Schaffer, in defining the concept, noted that “development administration is about programs, policies and projects in which there are unusually wide and new demands and in which there are peculiarly low capacities and severe obstacles in meeting them”. Schaffer’s specification of a “particular set of conditions and the particular task of development” 2 distinguished development administration from administration’s other forms, particularly generic administration.

Edwin Jones defined administration as the model that places strong accent on change and opines that is primarily concerned with action oriented administration and places such administration at the centre of the attainments of development objectives. For Jones, development administration constitutes a progression of guiding public organisations towards the achievement of such objectives. It is a concept, he says, that places a strong emphasis on carrying out planned changes in the total system.

He also outlined that a central concern of development administration aims at improving the capability of the public administration sector to manage change processes and innovation. The model, Jones add, places high value on the injection of relevant new ideas, procedures and structures and as such development administration as an activity must always challenge control centred management and centralised decision making. F. A. Nigro and L. G.

Nigro in their book “Modern Public Administration” identified public administration as “a cooperative group effort in a public setting” and “covers all three (3) branches: executive, legislative and judicial” and identifies the inter relationships as having a critical and significant role in formulating public policy and as such is part of the political process. For his part, Nicholas Henry, another writer on the subject offered his view of public administration by noting that “it is a broad ranging and amorphous combination of theory and practice, with its purpose to promote a superior understanding of government and its 3 elationship with the society. It governs as well as facilitates the creation of public policies more responsive to the social needs and to institute managerial practices attuned to effectiveness, efficiency and the deeper requisites of the citizenry”. Turner and Hulme said that “bureaucracy is another way of saying public administration”. They said whether one looks at the OECD countries, former and present communist countries of the nations of the third world, bureaucratisation is ubiquitous. They noted “that in many cases, the public service is blamed for poor developmental performance”.

They concluded that despite this, “bureaucracy is an essential and vitally important instrument of development”. Their perspective on the particular problems of the colonial legacy of administration which was largely adopted by the Commonwealth Caribbean was probably summed up best in their observation that the colonial state is best characterised as “an administration unit, a bureaucratic state” and that bureaucracy has often been the strongest institutional inheritance of the post-colonial state.

They noted however that “in the ideal Weberian model, bureaucracy is an efficient instrument of policy implementation, but in many developing countries the practice of implementation had been disappointing”. This they attributed to poor administrative capacity. Looking at the colony legacy, Mills had his take when he noted that “the Crown Colony systems which existed in the Caribbean before the fourth decade of this century, governors exercised executive powers with advice from councils of committees consisting entirely of officials and nominated embers (only in Barbados which retained elements of the old 4 representative system, did elected members of the legislative to sit in the executive committees). There were no well organised political parties and although labour organisations had existed for a number of years, trade unions had not yet become the important pressure groups”. Mills showed that the colonial overloads were primarily concerned with the maintenance of law and order and with tax collections. He noted that the colonial secretaries/governors were esponsible for the overall administration functions and were accountable only to the imperial governments or monarchies and were primarily concerned with their future careers than with the business of administration for development. Mills continues, following the social and political disturbances throughout the British Caribbean during the latter part of the 1930s and the report of the Moyne Commission, far reaching social, economical and constitutional reforms were introduced.

He said the Commission recommended the institution of a semi ministerial form of government which would bring elected members into direct association with the work of departments, the old colonial secretariat to be divided into sections or departments with responsibility for areas such as health and education. Mills said the public now looked to the elected members as persons responsible for providing and maintaining services. But these members had no real power and authority as executive power continued to reside in the governor and senior civil servants.

Mills showed that the sub dividing of the colonial secretariat did not effect any real de-centralisation of decision making. He said the structures remained un-wielding and cumbersome centralised agencies. 5 Mills observed that after a while, West Indian governments began to adopt a different posture as they began expressing increasing concern of the need to modernise their societies and to undertake social economic programmes for providing employment and raising the living standards of their peoples.

He noted that during the 1940s, the emphasis shifted with a tendency towards greater stress on economic development and the provision of facilities such as income tax and customs duty concession for creating a climate conducive to private enterprise development. He showed that all these activities resulted in a considerable growth of the public sector, a dramatic rise in public expenditure, the expansion of existing departments and creation of new public agencies, including public corporations and regulatory commissions.

Mills noted that since the introduction of ministerial systems, administrative and organisational evolution has continued with the process of what he termed “integration” of departments with ministries. He informed that both the larger and smallest countries have their own peculiar difficulties with respect to this. Mills identified three (3) broad inter related strands that have influenced the development of public administration and the operations of administrative systems in the region. 1. Westminster / Whitehall Heritage. 2.

Political and constitutional changes during the past three (3) to four (4) decades with the transition from Crown Colony status through the internal self-government stage towards independence, coupled with the introduction of universal adult suffrage and the subsequent development of strong political parties and trade unions. 6 3. The current concern with programmes for social and economic development. Mills points out that these changes have stimulated or accentuated conflict in a number of important areas and the public services are currently faced with challenges and demands which emphasises the need for reform and re-organisation.

He identified the three (3) areas of conflict as: 1. Relations between ministries and officials, noting that this atmosphere of conflict has seriously hampered the effective functioning of governments; 2. Relations between administrators and technical personnel. He notes that this rational dichotomy engenders resentment, friction and frustration leading to a lowering of staff morale and 3. The relations between Central Government and Statutory Corporations.

These are some of the key factors that have accounted for the predicament of Development Administration in the countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean and will be further discussed in the analysis. 7 ANALYSIS After the attainment of Independence by most countries during the 1960s and the early 1970s, the new administrations comprised inexperienced government officials and ill equipped bureaucracies. With Independence came responsibilities of charting one’s own course of development through elected executive authority which now were the primary decision making bodies in most instances.

All these responsibilities were previously the purview of the colonial administrators. These “new” governments were expected to give life and meaning to the demands of the new “free” societies. Such expectations were supposed to manifest themselves in policies, plans and programs designed to meet the needs of the people of the newly independent territories and raise their standards of living. With the attainment of Independence and a say in electing their own governments, the peoples of the Commonwealth Caribbean began to legitimately look forward to high levels of social and economic transformation.

In the case of Trinidad and Tobago, for example, such lofty ideals were expressed through the People’s Charter developed in the 1950s by the Williams’ administration and then through a series of five (5) year development plans conceived thereafter. One also recalls the process of nationalisation of several industries by the Burnham regime in Guyana during the 1970s and 1980s and Manley’s own experimentation with a form of democratic socialism in Jamaica. These may be viewed as the political directorate’s approach to effecting the process of development through attempts at economic reform. In most of the countries, development administration was seen to be viewed as the “ideal” model to achieve the expected outcomes and satisfy the demands of the newly independent nations. However, they were still steeped in the old systems and establishments of public administration which they inherited, systems that were not designed to be responsive to such demands for economic and social transformation now being demanded by the newly independent countries.

The major predicaments that came along with the inherited systems were a high degree of centralisations, a lack of high level manpower and planning, the sheer size of the countries themselves, economic growth or the lack of it within the societies themselves and the inability of government officials to successfully conduct the administration of development. Hope noted that “the lack of trained administrators in the less developed countries was a direct result of three (3) factors: 1.

Chronic brain drain 2. Poor government recruitment policies and 3. A lack of proper manpower planning and assessment. The last factor Hope notes produced haphazard recruitment policies, under employment and unemployment and inevitably frustration on the part of the dew skilled administrators present that forced them to emigrate”. The top-down bureaucratic public administration model is one major predicament for development administration process to be successfully implemented. 9 While public dministration requires a high degree of centralisation on the one hand, the concept of development administration boosts modernization and transformation where desirable or necessary to achieve development goals and discourages adherence to the old norms that constitute a more rigid bureaucratic system. The purposes of development administration are to encourage and enable defined programmes of economic and social progress. The model lends itself to the ideals of change modernization and movement as contrasted with a desire to maintain the status quo.

Additionally, development administration is designed to make the process of change desirable, attractive and possible through the application of policies and programs that evolve from creative, participative and democratic forms of decision making. It is also a process where at all levels, those involved feel a sense of belonging and ownership of the plans, policies and programs of the organisation and therefore are more highly motivated to work towards their achievement.

The altitudes of those involved in a process of development administration tend to be more positive than negative. In emphasising this point, Gant further expresses the view that the “manifestations of development administration, its unique purposes, loyalties and attitudes are found in new and reoriented agencies and in new management systems and processes”. He adds that “these agencies include planning Boards to facilitate decisions about development policies and the allocation of resources towards the accomplishment of those policies. These new 10 inds of agencies are often needed for development and stronger public and private enterprise management systems as called for”. Gant further stated that “development administration encompasses the innovations which strengthen the capacity of the bureaucracy to stimulate and facilitate development and for these purposes the process requires its own supporting institutions, chiefly in the forms of training, research and consulting agencies, but also in the form of an articulate and public expectation of good administrative behaviour and performance”.

One of the major predicaments that continue to affect the growth of development administration in the Commonwealth Caribbean is the bureaucratic structure of the civil service and the excessive centralisation of authority and control reflected in the exercise of power by government ministers. The government ministers in most Commonwealth Caribbean countries assume total control of their respective ministries and departments in terms of decision making and pay little attention or mere lip service and provide very little opportunity for lower level public servants to participate in the process.

This centralisation of decision strikes at the very heart of the purposes and ideas of development administration alluded to earlier in the discourse. This excessive centralisation also contributes to the destruction of the channels of communication in the organisation. It also creates an environment in which there is a lack of coordination of policies among departments, as well as a lack of effective dissemination of information required for effective decision making. A perfect example is the coordination of works between the Water and Sewerage Authority and the Ministry of Works on road improvement initiatives and pipeline installations.

There is absolutely no coordination between 11 the parties and this leads to road being paved today, and then pipelines being laid on the same road at a later date. This leads to wastage of time and resources and ineffective decisions resulting in an inconvenienced public. Hope notes that the “centralised nature of the civil service in most of the lesser developed countries has become an institution in which personal survival in terms of longevity of service sometimes depends on political affiliation, a situation that does not conform to the regulations governing the non-political nature of the civil service”.

Hope further analyses this phenomenon when he notes that “there exists a great deal of friction and mutual suspicion between government ministers and career officials. Both the ministers and the career officials have adopted an attitude towards the implementation of policy that has alienated the public and hampered the effective functioning of government. Career civil servants are in a position of great insecurity due to the erroneous powers of government ministers.

Most of the career civil servants, if not all of them are usually better educated than the ministers (who are appointed primarily on their politics), and find it difficult to abide by the decisions of the ministers, whom they regard as inadequately educated and not competent enough to make decisions pertaining to the administration of development. The ministers on the other hand, conscious of their newly acquired powers determined to dispel any suggestion of inferiority, are anxious to assert their authority and to make it clear beyond doubt who are the masters (United Nations 1982:49-40).

Inevitably then, for reasons of survival within the civil service, career civil servants have adopted a sycophantic and financial attitude toward their ministers; offering technical and administrative advice to these ministers and not in a firm and objective manner but by attempting to anticipate 12 what the minister want. The ultimate result of all these manifestations is a lack of coordination of policies among departments and a lack of dissemination of information for effective decision making.

Invariably then, the few individuals at the decision making pyramid, namely the ministers are hard pressed to cope with the range of decisions they have to make. The effect then is either procrastination and long delays or one of After Independence, the bureaucratic, colonial oriented inadequate of inept policies. administration was transformed into a bureaucratic organisation that emphasised the sovereignty of politics rather than the supremacy of administration.

Politics became the most important activity and the politicians came to occupy a position of supremacy in matters of decision making. (Duke 1964:233; United Nations 1982:49-50). Development Administration, therefore, put into a highly centralised environment will not work. This factor have accounted also for part of the model’s predicament in Commonwealth Caribbean countries, in that, after the attainment of Independence, the model was introduced holistically without consideration for other factors within the public environment which directly impact the development process.

Development Administration as noted previously encourages and acknowledges decision making from middle and lower level subordinates, and by its nature, command high levels of innovativeness and flexibility. However, public administration, after Independence, did not allow for such changes to be effected as it met with a most unresponsive public service. 13 Another factor which impacts the success of development administration is institutional building.

However, it must be noted that the sheer small size economy of some of the countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean means that they do not possess the resources to afford an adequate amount of specialists necessary for the effective and efficient operations of government organisations. Khan, in his work, pointed to some major problems that may occur due to small size. He says, “small size could indeed pose a problem for management system that is unwilling to keep abreast or is tardy in keeping pace with changing social conditions. Problems may accrue, inhibitory and unresponsive.

Problems may also arise should the system continue to dispense favour and patronage and disregard achievement factors. Problems may also persist if decision making is timid, incident prone, marginal and incidental to the extent that the system proves unable to impact on the client, population and target group and to modify or alter the existing structure to the degree that it considered necessary to accelerate social change in a certain direction”. The latter part of Khan’s statement points to a factor that can impede the development administration process.

Decisions made should reflect policies developed and as a result policies must be relevant to deal with the demands of a society. Development administration requires altering the existing structure to the degree that is considered necessary to accelerate social change in a certain direction and therefore decisions must be made to facilitate such change. It can be deduced that it is probably for this reason that administrations in the region are now looking outside the realm of the public service to seek alternative vehicles for the realisation of 14 evelopment goals and objectives. Case in point may cite the example of the move by the Trinidad and Tobago government over the last decade or so creating several special purpose State Enterprises such as the Urban Development Corporation (UDECOTT, the National Infrastructure Development Company, the Education Facilities Company and more recent the establishment of Export TT in a bid to accelerate the rate of development to realise some of the ideals purported to exist in model of development administration.

It could also account for the reason why the Trinidad and Tobago administration has also sought technical assistance through government to government arrangements, for example, that sought through a partnership with the Cuban, Filipino and Nigerian governments for doctors and nurses to provide effective and efficient health care services. Governments that seek to utilise such vehicles of development also hope that the ideal of greater accountability and transparency and a reduction in the levels of corruption that have beset other forms of development approaches in the Commonwealth Caribbean.

Another of the predicaments that have beset the process to move towards development administration has been the sometimes half-hearted support from some of the political directorates in the countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean. Administrative change inevitably involves a challenge to accepted modes of action and traditional value and prerogatives (Chikulo, 1981:56:57). Projects of administrative, reform if they are other than routine and minor must be backed fully by the chief executive of the nation and his or her Cabinet.

If political leaders are to inspire a population and to direct the bureaucracy to higher levels of performance and development, their words and action must carry 15 an aura of legitimacy. Historically, political leaders of the region have been primarily concerned with maintaining their own existence as politicians and this has resulted in much confusion between the administrative and political functions in the decision making process and in the creation of political elites who alone cannot execute the achieve developmental goals.

Functional reform of development administration can only be brought about through a derived effort and critical support of the political leadership. The foregoing have been some of the major problems and predicaments that have plagued the model of development administration and its implementation in the countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean. 16 Recommendations and Conclusions Although it was deemed at the time to be the “ideal” model for administrative reform, one can deduce from the study that this model of development encountered some major obstacles and problems which are still with us today.

It was thought that development administration would be the panacea that will solve all problems of public administration as inherited from a colonial system of governance, these being the top-down bureaucratic structure and a deep centralisation of authority and decision making. And as we have garnered from the study, these problems are still very much with the Commonwealth Caribbean today and very much a part of the system of public administration.

Even though several reform methods have been tried and tested, including new public management, administrative reform and programmes associated with structural adjustments policies, there seems to remain some difficulty with achieving radical change and much of those problems stems from the colonial legacy which still persists in the cultures of the countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean. Hope (1987) had offered some of his recommendations for development administration to achieve some level of success.

These were listed as: 1. Major administrative reforms minus the western concepts. 2. An urgent eradication of the remaining features and characteristics of the colonial civil service through processes and re-education and reorientation to bring civil servants in line with the current development thrust. 17 3. Manpower planning and training. 4. Decentralisation and communication. 5. Support of the political leadership. 6. Economic development.

Judith Walker writing in her book “Development Administration in the 21st Century” notes that “As Caribbean nations of the Commonwealth move into the 21st century, they do so in a context of economic restructuring, incorporation into the internalisation of criminality and considerably challenges to the nationhood project launched in the early 1960s. Given this context, it is imperative that the role and function of administration be re-examined and discussed”.

In her work, Walker, looking critically at the UNC government’s goal in the 1990s to create a total quality nation notes that “It was envisioned that a new type of public administration would set an example for civil society by becoming a symbol of patriotism and national pride. In short a total quality public administration is expected to lead a total quality nation. It was further envisioned that the public service and civil society will demonstrate a work ethic and organisational behaviour based on competence, performance, productivity, quality and high standards of service to the public and consumers”.

Bissessar in her book painted a somewhat bleak picture for reform of the public service in Trinidad and Tobago. In “the Forgotten Factor” she states that “if an evaluation of the entire reform effort was to be carried out, it would reveal that no one system of New Public 18 Management has been successfully implemented in the public service of Trinidad and Tobago”. She argues however that “for any reform to achieve success, one vital ingredient that must be included in the reform package is the attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of those who are required to introduce and implement such reforms, namely the public service themselves”.

Any meaningful change to the process of development administration must by necessity find ways of deepening the consultative process to make it more inclusive for those whose job it will be to eventually carry out such policies. That process must include ways to decentralise the process of decision making and public servants and other technocrats must be made to feel a sense of ownership of the plans, policies and programs of administration that they are called upon to discharge on behalf of their respective societies.

The political support must also be forthcoming from the political directorates and there should be structures in place that will treat with de politicising programmes of development so that they do not become the exclusive domain of any one political grouping. Tighter mechanisms of control and accountability need to be implemented to curb the tendency to corruption that so often beset programs of development. Perhaps Walker sums it up best when she noted that “Development Administration is not dead.

It may have had an un-expectant past, and it certainly has had a handicapped 19 present, but is maturity and future is to be found in a dynamic process of theory building around recurring themes pning from Fred Riggs to the World Bank”. 20 BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Khan, Jamal. The Eastern Caribbean Experience. Leiden, Netherlands: Dept. of Caribbean Studies, Royal Institute of Linguistics an Anthropology; The Hague: Smits, 1982 (P. 3, 4, 5) 2. Kempe, Hope. The Dynamics of Development and Development Administration. London: Greenwood Press, 1987 (p. 7, 68, 69) 3. Wilson, Woodrow. The Study of Administration 4. Nigro, F. A and Nigro, L. A. Modern Public Administration 5. Nicholas, Henry. Public Administration and Public Affairs. USA: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004 6. Gant, George, F. Development Administration, Concepts, Goals Methods: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979 7. Bissessar, Ann Marie. The Forgotten Factor. Trinidad: School of Continuing Studies, 2002 (p. 5, 6) 8. Walker, Judith. Development Administration into the 21st Century. USA: Mc Millan Press, 2000 (p. 211 and 212).

This work focuses on four different areas for understanding the dynamics of Center America and the Caribbean. The first is the comparative evaluation of development policies in the region prior to neoliberalism. The second involves analytical work that combines the nature of the neoliberal model applied in the Caribbean and Central America. The third is the study of the role of migration and trading blocks in contemporary Caribbean and Central American development. The fourth considers the Cuban exception as a socialist state in a capitalist sea.

The republics of Central America and the Caribbean share many historical characteristics. All of these countries formed part of the Spanish colonial system for three centuries or more. However, both regions have inherited highly unequal distributions of agricultural land (Gwynne & Kay 104). Although the countries spun out of the Spanish colonial orbit at different times and in different contexts, Spanish colonialism established important elements of coherence that helped lay the foundations for the challenges of nation-state construction after independence. Furthermore, Central America and the Caribbean have shared, since the late nineteenth century, the strong political, social, and economic influence of the United States and the development of agro-export economies.

Either through the direct creation of classic enclave economies (mining, sugar, timber, bananas, and so on); the development of export infrastructures; or the less visible participation in the production and marketing of other products, such as coffee, cattle, or food, foreign -especially U.S., German, and English – entrepreneurs helped connect the region firmly to the North Atlantic economy.

Beginning at the end of the nineteenth century, national elites struggled to channel and contain social and political movements in order to promote the kind of order and progress they and foreign investors depended upon and also to construct memories, histories, and images of nations that were functional to their political and economic projects and their dreams of national power and stability. At the same time, foreign political and economic control and their own internal weaknesses and contradictions led them to seek, at least rhetorically, national unity and independence and to make strategic concessions to popular classes in an attempt to form nationalist or populist alliances. This kind of opening both influenced the ways popular struggles came to be defined and created situations in which popular forces could effectively make their voices heard in the national political arena.

CBI should be seen as a vanguard policy for a reconstituted US regional hegemony under neoliberalism (Gwynne & Kay 105). Caribbean governments in the context of their efforts at promoting economic and social development and with the external debt crisis hanging heavily over their heads had been stressing the need for a meaningful, coordinated program of emergency assistance in the form of aid and market and investment preferences. Indeed as early as 1979, Edward Seaga, then the opposition leader of Jamaica, proposed the need for a mini-Marshall Plan and a Puerto Rico-style relationship between the US and the Caribbean. CBI could therefore be regarded as a response to those appeals.

The most salient studies in Cuban history written in the 1970s and 1980s focused on the transition from slave labor to free labor in Cuba’s plantation economy and were led by the research of Manuel Moreno Fraginals into Cuba’s plantation sector and Rebecca Scott’s work on the abolition of slavery and its impact. Since then, studies have addressed issues of racial and ethnic formation and identity, immigration, and social banditry, as well as the women’s and labor movements.

Jorge Ibarra has begun a process of revision and reconsideration of the classic themes of Cuban historiography, including the island’s social structure. Since the nineteenth century Cuba has essentially had a one-crop (sugar cane) exporting economy with the concomitant vulnerabilities of output and price fluctuations and deteriorating terms of trade (Gwynne & Kay 118). Cuba is now almost totally isolated and potentially a source of future conflict and violence. Cuba has ceased to be the totalitarian state it once was as the state itself was severely weakened by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Spurred on by the international climate favoring regional trading blocs, Middle American countries have recently formed the Association of Caribbean States, but beyond several regional summits have taken no firm steps towards region-wide economic integration (Gwynne & Kay 100). The Association of Caribbean States (ACS) encompasses 200 million (plus) inhabitants of the region and, along with free trade arrangements between CARICOM and Venezuela, Colombia, and the Southern Cone countries, represents the consolidation of a Caribbean strategy to participate as fully as possible in the movement toward hemispheric free trade.

Ironically, the Caribbean is moving in the direction of the foreign conception of the region in that U.S., European, Japanese, and other external policy-makers have long dealt with the Caribbean programmatically as a seamless, if culturally diverse, unit. Regional academics and policy-makers, however, depart from this programmatic view in recognizing that certain aspects of sub-group uniqueness must still be maintained. For example, the existing Caribbean Community (CARICOM) integration area will for the foreseeable future co-exist with the ACS.

For both the Caribbean and Central America, the version of import substitution adopted to a large extent involved US multinational corporations (MNCs) relocating production facilities within the region to serve customers there, rather than a dramatic expansion of domestically-owned industries (Gwynne & Kay 100). Both liberal, free-market rhetoric and collective bodies of capitalists (domestic holding companies and multinational corporations) spearheaded the drive to enter foreign areas. The ideology praised individualism and free market values, but the actual agencies of penetration were collectivized planning organizations. U.S. businessmen and politicians looked first to Central America for markets because that region had long been expected to become a closer economic partner.

But U.S. officials conducted little study of the Central American economic situation and entered into no systematic consultation with Central American leaders because the U.S. vision expressed in the doctrines of Manifest Destiny and the Open Door was restricted to resolving U.S. domestic problems, not meeting Central American needs. The Americanism initiated in the 1880s, which was expected to create the market conditions necessary to assure U.S. commercial expansion, also exposed fundamental differences between the U.S. and Central American visions. While the United States proposed mainly commercial programs, the Central American delegates often struggled to include political, social, and cultural affairs.

Among the alternatives available, it seems that the neoliberal model has begun to prevail. This model, which is well known and well supported from outside, substantively modifies the structure of Central American countries. Its hallmark is the absence of attention to social aspects. In the case of Central America, it eliminates what little economic equilibrium had existed before, producing a growing concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, and a progressive pauperization of the rest of the population. Consequently, it will crumble democracy throughout the region.

Neoliberalism puts pressure on already highly-trade-dependent Middle America to export more (Gwynne & Kay 104). The progress or modernization pursued by the Latin American governments required increasing sums of money to import the machinery, railroads, luxuries, and technology that would be used to try to transform their nations into replicas of the European nations the elites and middle class so much admired. To earn that money, the Latin Americans increased their exports, the foods or minerals they traditionally had sold abroad. The export sector of their economies received the most attention.

In that sector, they increasingly concentrated investments, technology, and labor, leaving the domestic economy weak and increasingly inadequate. The number of those exports was limited. The highly prized railroads, built at staggering expense, opened new lands for exploitation but always were linked to the export sector, rushing the material products of the interior to the coastal ports where ships waited to transport them to Europe and the United States. Most of the modernization concentrated in the export sector. It contributed to some impressive growth but did little to develop Central America. In fact, modernization contributed to deepening dependency.

Central America and the Caribbean is a region of small, economically vulnerable and trade-dependent countries surrounded by larger and more industrialized countries that are moving more aggressively towards economic integration (Gwynne & Kay 99). From one perspective, global transformations create challenges and opportunities for policymakers who can adapt to changing environments and prudently recalculate basic questions of survival, viability, and effectiveness. There is reason to believe that this process is under way in Cuba, though the nature of these calculations and their long-term consequences are unknown. For example, Cuba must carefully calculate its interests in a context of rapidly changing balances and one in which its currency – defiance, moralism, anti-imperialism – has lost much of its value.

Systemic reasons rooted in a command model and a series of blunders and poor decisions by government largely explain Cuba’s economic predicament. It is increasingly recognized in Cuba itself that its substantial economic, financial, and trade dependence on the former communist world actually deprived it of the advantages that would have accrued to it had relations been expanded with more capitalist countries.

Unfortunately, Middle America denotes a region anxious about, and reacting somewhat defensively to, hemispheric movements towards trade alliances to its north and south. Spurred on by the international climate favoring regional trading blocs, Middle American countries have recently formed the Association of Caribbean States, but beyond several regional summits have taken no firm steps towards region-wide economic integration (Gwynne & Kay 100).

The revival of the integration movement has been encouraged by the perceived world wide trend to form trading blocks spearheaded by the European Community (EC). This development led to a perceived need in the United States, Canada, and some Latin American countries to form a hemispheric economic block in order to counterbalance the strengthened European integration movement. Once the NAFTA movement got underway, some LAC countries realized the need to participate in it to avoid the possible negative economic effects that NAFTA may have on their economies.

The Central American Common Market (CACM) consists of five countries with a long history of linkages: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica (Gwynne & Kay 121). Together, the original CACM members experimented with the development strategy known as Import Substitution Industrialization, or (ISI). This strategy called for a change in the nature and structure of demand – away from imported consumer goods and toward imported industrial goods, which could then be used to produce domestically the same goods that would formally have been imported. During its initial stages, ISI was considered quite successful and was often credited with the economic “boom” that swept the region at the time of its inception.

In reaction to neoliberalism, a growing number of people have tried to emigrate to North America and Europe, where about 5 million Caribbean islanders have gone since 1945 (Gwynne & Kay 120). For example, Salvadorans initially migrated to San Francisco, while Hondurans migrated to New Orleans. Migration has been such an integral part of the Eastern Caribbean culture that almost every Eastern Caribbean citizen has a relative or friend living in a major country.

This factor is significant when analyzing both the political and economic system of the Eastern Caribbean. Since 1979 there has been significant changes in migration patterns and, notably, in the volume of people leaving Central America. Not surprisingly, Nicaragua and El Salvador, both of which suffered tremendous damage from war and social unrest, witnessed one of the most dramatic migrations of their people to other Central American countries, Mexico, the United States, Canada, and elsewhere. To cite an extreme example, for every five people born in St Kitts and Nevis and alive today, two now reside in the United States (Gwynne & Kay 120).

Neoliberalism, in particular, has made a major contribution to the dynamic and contradictory processes of globalization in the Caribbean and Central America. One important conclusion that comes from this study is that the neoliberal structural adjustment programs are very limited. Although export agriculture has produced some wealth, it has also created massive structural problems of inequality, and it has not achieved self-sustained, modernizing growth over the long run.

In conclusion, a feature of Caribbean and Central American migration that deserves further exploration and research is the potential for continuous and circular migration, principally between the islands of the Caribbean and the United States. This phenomenon has important implications for labor markets in regions of origin and destination.  Many of the people now returning to their homelands are bringing with them the wealth of accumulated knowledge and experience. This should significantly enhance the level of human capital in these Central American economies and serve as an important element for the growth and development of the region.

Works Cited

Robert N. Gwynne, Cristóbal Kay. Latin America Transformed: Globalization and Modernity. Arnold: London, 1999.

Introduction

Fyffes are an Irish company founded in 1888 that specialise in fruit production. The company is said to be “world famous” according to the Fyffes website, one reason being that their bananas were the first branded fruit in the world (Fyffes, 2013). Fyffes are the oldest fruit brand in the world and are headquartered in Dublin. The company began in London, soon to become the most popular banana brand in the world, the organisation was born into the marketplace devoid of competition.

Their “blue label bananas” allowed them to become unique and furthermore dominators of the fruit market. Today, their main product is the banana, although they also produce other fruits including the Fyffes Gold Pineapples and Fyffes melons. Fyffes currently market their produce in Europe and the United States and are involved in the production, procurement, shipping, ripening, distribution and marketing of bananas, pineapples and melons.

SWOT Analysis of Fyffes.

Strengths

Fyffes have several strengths such as a large brand portfolio that is very well recognized. Furthermore they have a strong brand recognition among both customers and institutions, that allows them to penetrate new markets and also hold a large share in existing markets. They operate a vertically integrated supply chain that allow economies of scale in fruit in both sourcing and distribution. (Fyffes,2013) There strong market position allows them with a lot bargaining power in the market. They have a large number of supply chain activities that include ; Production, procurement, shipping, ripening and the distribution and marketing of bananas but also melons and pineapples.

Weaknesses

Fyffes lack in the scale of operations when compared to their competitors ; Chiquita Brands, Dole foods and Fresh Del Monte produce. They are somewhat dependent on european market, but this has greatly improved since 2008 when there 51% of their revenue came from the eurozone. There competitors have significantly bigger distribution and marketing channels along with greater financial resources. This can be seen in 2013 revenues were Fyffes is listed fourth behind Dole food, Fresh Del Monte, Chiquita and Total Produce. (Fyffes,2013)

Opportunities

A company acquisition may help enhance pineapple production. This would increase production and supply. Fyffes have identified their weakness of lack of scale and made progress by establishing a network(s) across Germany. This includes both distribution and ripening centres. Fyffes have been paying a tariff on bananas imported in to the european union since 2006 due to the European Union banana import regulation. This has given competitors importing from other regions the upper hand. However the EU have agreed to reduce this tariff on latin american bananas in stages, when this fully implemented this could reduce Fyffes’ operating costs significantly. (ibid)

Threats

Fyffes have strong competition across all their product lines, competition include global companies as listed previously but also agricultural cooperatives and foreign government sponsored producers. Further to this competitor companies have larger financial resources allowing them more purchasing power along with more capital to expand and improve. (ibid)

Target Country

As the huge demand for bananas and tropical fruits in Europe constantly increases Fyffes have found themselves sourcing throughout The Tropics,Caribbean and countries in Central America for example Costa Rica and Columbia. With the European Union being the largest consumer importer for bananas, it is Fyffes target market. In Britain alone over 5 billion bananas are consumed each year, hence why they are the 4th largest importer bananas in the world and one of Fyffes major target countries. They have a strong competitive advantage as the British market is one they know very well and can use this against other companies such as Chiquita who are a Latin American company.Another target country for Fyffes is Germany being the 2nd largest importer of bananas in the world.

Fyffes can easily trade with Germany as it is within the European Union.Although the United States are the number one largest importers for bananas it is unlikely that they would be able to compete with the firms from South America. Companies such as Del Monte,Dole Food Company and Bonita are the largest banana firms in the US and dominate the market.As bananas are only produced in countries with a very specific climate such as The Carribean or The Tropics they’re target countries are the places where the fruit cannot be readily grown and must be imported.

“Bananas and pineapples are grown in countries of the tropics – Africa, Latin America, Caribbean, Pacific etc. Many countries produce bananas as a staple food and only around 20% of all bananas that are produced are actually exported.

Most bananas and pineapples sold on the British market are exported from Latin America, and increasingly West Africa, as companies relocate in search of ever ‘cheaper’ fruit, pursuing a ‘Race to the Bottom’ in terms of social and environmental standards.” (www.Bananalink.org.uk 2013)

Products Selected to Go International

Headquartered in Dublin, Fyffes has expanded greatly and is now operating in several different regions including the United Kingdom, mainland Europe, U.S.A. along with Central and South America. With Fyffes being one of the largest fruit companies in the world, their internationally distributed products include bananas, melons, pineapples and the newly added product that is plantains.

Fyffes are renowned on a world stage for being the most notable distributor and seller of bananas. Operating in a vast amount of countries in the Caribbean and South America, as of 2012 Fyffes was the “largest importer of Fairtrade bananas into the European Union” (Fyffes, 2012). These bananas are sourced from countries such Ecuador, Costa Rica, Brazil, Peru and the Ivory Coast. After the bananas have been harvested and washed they are palletised for shipping in temperature controlled holds.

Fyffes have marketed their bananas from the standpoint that they are nutritionally beneficial to all. They preach the biological benefits of their products whether it is through their website, general advertising or through they’re labelling etc. They boast the fact that “bananas are known as the energy fruit because they provide a quick-but-sustained energy boost in a natural, nutritious and easily digestible form” as well as the rather low caloric count of just 95 kcal per banana. Much of the same marketing is used for their pineapples. Fyffes’ ‘Gold Pineapples’ are described as “Supersweet” (Fyffes.com, 2013) and is sourced mainly from Ecuador, Panama and Costa Rica. These are packaged and distributed around the world.

The pineapples are shipped in condition controlled vessels to ensure an appropriate balance of sugar and acidity is maintained. Once again Fyffes market their product based on the nutritional benefits. They declare that their “Supersweet” pineapples contain “three times more vitamin C than traditional pineapples” along with their low fat content and the presence of digestive enzymes (Fyffes.com, 2013). Fyffes third main product is their variety of melons. Fyffes’ selection includes a range of both summer and winter melons. The summer melons include galia, watermelons and cantaloupe.

The winter melons include watermelons, honeydew and cantaloupe. They are high in vitamins A and C and contain digestive fibre. The countries in which they are in grown in include Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica. As previously mentioned, Fyffes introduced what are known as ‘fruit snacks’ in the form of plantains chips. The plantain is a variation of the banana and is being marketed as a variation to potato chips

Entry Modes Utilised

Fyffes have been exporting to the UK for the last 120 years from its base in Ireland. The first step Fyffes took after exporting to the UK was to export to EU member states. This was a low risk natural progression for Fyffes as the EU operate a free trading policy within member states and many of the original member states have a similar demographic as that of Ireland and the UK.

These markets had similar demand as their climates were not susceptible to growing bananas and this proved to be a venture that increased the recognition of the blue label brand and maximised the use of current resources as well therefore proving highly profitable. In 1995 to expand on its European distribution channels Fyffes entered into a venture with the Windward Island Banana Development and Exporting Company (WIBDECO), and bought out Geest Bananas which were a major competitor in the British market (Bananalink, 2013). In 2005 the company entered into a strategic alliance with the Turbana Corporation in order to expand its market reach and develop its US market share.

As Fyffes grows and increases its market share larger economies of scale are allowed for. Fyffes buy most of their fruit from farms in Belize, Panama and Costa Rica, it does however own about 6,000 acres of land in Costa Rica as well as smaller farms in Panama and Belize (Carswell, 2013).

The company is hoping that by 2014 they will grow 60 per cent of the pineapples they sell. A recent development in the containers used to keep the fruit fresh while shipping means that the fruit could be kept fresh for 35 days of shipping, far longer than the current 23. Fyffes are hoping this will allow them to export their fruit from their Central American headquarters in Costa Rica to growing markets in Russia and the Middle East.

Resource Commitment

“Resource commitment refers to the level of dedicated assets – physical or human – that cannot be transferred from one country to another without loss of economic value”. An example of this may be that a firm adapt its product and resources to suit the needs of the host importing company (Petersen, 1999). This essentially may result in increased revenue in that specific area but may not help revenue figures as a whole for the firm. Fyffes has continuously shown resource commitment to several different foreign markets.

Due to the very nature of the fruit business Fyffes was technically always an import-export business. As an Irish company selling tropical fruit there was always a need for shipping the fruit from the likes of Costa Rica and Panama. Therefore these resources were already owned by the company. In order to grow their exports Fyffes had to expand on these resources. Fyffes were the first company to properly transport their fruit on their ships. They changed from just transporting the fruit in bunches to using proper containers on board, this was key to shipping the fruit further afield.

Alasdair MaCleod, head of Fyffes in their Central American base said that only once in his 20 years in the business had he lost an entire shipload of fruit as a result of a ripe box of bananas prematurely ripening others on board the ship. As mentioned previously Fyffes hope to further improve their shipping containers and therefore advance into more new markets. This is a resource commitment that is sure to pay off . (Carswell, 2013)

Environmental Factors Impacting on Internationalization

There are four main environmental factors that can impact the internationalization of a company. These are the competitive, legal, political and economic environments. It is imperative that a company must overcome these obstacles in the marketplace in order to establish internationalization of their firm. For fyffes, their competitive environment struck them first in the late 1920s.

Their first competitor, Jamaica Bananas Producers Ltd, began to sell their fruit in large amounts to the British market. Fyffes counteracted by branding their fruit to enable recognition of their bananas. The blue Fyffes label then became iconic, it was their major selling point. Henry Stockery CEO of Fyffes in 1929 said that, “today people are asking for the ‘Blue Label’ bananas”.

The popularity of their ‘blue labeled bananas’ allowed them to dominate the banana market and to wipe out all of their competitors.

With regards to the legal, political and economic aspect, according to Fyffes website, it states that,  “fyffes is aware of the social and environmental issues associated with the products that it sources and sells”. (Fyffes, 2013).

They follow a strict code of practices in order to produce their product at the highest quality and approved ethical standards. Furthermore, Fyffes is said to be “pro-active” with matters such as environmental impact and fair labour prices by heavily participating in industry forums on social, ethical, health and safety and environmental issues.

Success (or otherwise) Experienced

Being one of the worlds most prominent fruit distributors, Fyffes has enjoyed an overwhelming amount of success since its founding all those years ago in 1888. Not only are they still in existence, but they have still maintained their image as one of the fruit industry’s big guns. A huge contributing factor to their success was tapping into the retail supermarket area and producing at a large scale.“Our business has evolved to meet the needs of the big retailers and today, 90% of our produce is destined for supermarket.” (Barrett, 2013)

Fyffes is Europe’s biggest banana importer with estimated sales of about €1 billion annually, exporting up to 40 million boxes of bananas (roughly 4.5 billion bananas) and 8.5 million boxes of pineapples from farms in Costa Rica, Belize and Panama every year. Ireland accounts for 10 per cent of the company’s exports. They became the first company in their area to place a brand on their fruit in 1929. The company’s approach to business in todays market is structured by the same commitment to quality and confidence in the integrity of it’s fruit that prompted the introduction of the pioneering brand label idea.

As a company, Fyffes have pledged to carrying out the utmost of fair trade as well as environmentally sustainable production. Innovation is a highly influential factor in relation to Fyffes’ approach carrying out business. “Fyffes taps container technology to broaden market reach” (Carswell, 2013) This is a recent example of innovation where Fyffes propose the use of a new container system which can preserve fruit for as long as 35 days. This would allow the company to export more produce into Europe, better quality food into Russia and more fruit into the Middle East. Growth in business is something that Fyffes concentrate on every year and they are currently succeeding to do so according to a recent article on the dublin headquartered company.

“The Dublin-headquartered international banana exporter yesterday posted pre-tax profits of €22.2m for the first six months of 2013, a 1.1% increase on the same period last year.” (Percival, 2013) However in 2007, Fyffes suffered an 11% fall in first- half profits because of losses at its melon joint venture in Brazil. This is one of very few examples of occasions of misfired venture for the company, where they suffered a €2.8m loss from their share of a Brazil-based melon producer Nolem. This was an event which was uncharacteristic of the company and it wasn’t ignored, judging by a statement released at the time. “Significant internal resources have gone into addressing Nolem’s business in order to deliver an improved result in the forthcoming season” (Guider, 2007).

Conclusion

Fyffes are an excellent example of a public quoted Irish company who have experienced success in international markets. Their innovative use of the blue label way back in 1929 made them the first fruit brand in the market. This was a huge development from Fyffes and has set them up to be the instantly recognisable brand they are today. This is a brand that has loyal customers who associate the Fyffes fruit with reliability, sustainability and most importantly a high quality product. It is this basis that has allowed them to grow into the flourishing business they are today along with their tactful low-risk foreign entry strategy.

4th Future Diplomats Essay Competition

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is celebrating 40 years of integration in 2013. Discuss the achievements of CARICOM in light of the statement and make suggestions for future development.

Kerri Mc Neil

Happy fortieth anniversary to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)! An establishment which has transgressed shared colonial history; propelling its fifteen member states and five associate member states to economic integration and social development. The achievements will be discussed in ascending order of importance (CDEMA, CCJ, CXC and CSME). Suggestions such as the introduction of art forms and history into the school curriculum will be elaborated on for future developmental reference. Regional leaders recognized how valuable the Caribbean is due to its rich history, which, was in itself an economic propeller and indirectly an agent of social development.

Notwithstanding the divisions that came along with it. It has presented a diverse community viable for exploration. The need for a Caribbean identity proved to be a goal worth meeting. As globalization aggressively pounced on the minds of Caribbean nationals, destabilizing the already broken cultural and economic foundation, the leaders of these Caribbean nations saw a challenge at hand and founded the CARICOM on the first of August 1973 to promote integration and unity in hopes of achieving international competitiveness and self-reliance. The survival of CARICOM for forty years is not qualified for inessential interrogation. The goal statement of the Secretariat consolidates this, “

To provide dynamic leadership and service, in partnership with Community institutions and groups toward the attainment of a viable, internationally competitive and sustainable community, with improved quality of life for all.” This is an engine for generating efficient performance from the twenty-three designated institutions of the Caribbean Community. For example, the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC). This institution is the functioning of the Caribbean’s educational successes. Need I expound by way of The Mighty Sparrow, “ Education, education, this is the foundation. Our rising population needs sound education!” Our standing committee members could attest to that! In addition to this, there are numerous achievements of the CARICOM, however this essay chooses to focus on the important ones through the institutions under CARICOM.

To begin with, the Caribbean region is prone to natural disasters. Under this observation, the Caribbean Community engaged in the implementation of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency(CDEMA) in the late twentieth century after reports of severe change of weather patterns. There were other agencies but the region needed a regionally centralized disaster preparedness and relief agency. As such one may understand the role of the CDEMA whose prime focus is to increase the level of assistance being lent to Caribbean nations. For example, the CDEMA exercised great efficiency in responding to the 2004 disasters of Grenada and Jamaica after the much pronounced visit of Hurricane Ivan.

In light of such implementations orchestrated by the CARICOM, it is clear that the life and safety of the Caribbean people are of grave importance to that bold goal of creating a Caribbean identity. Another accomplishment of the CARICOM was the introduction of an ‘assumed’ standardized justice agency. This was the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), established in 2001. Whilst it followed the format of a First World nation ( European Court of Justice) it sparked major controversies as it was offset by the decision of the then Privy Council to bar capital punishment which was practiced by the supreme European nations on persons convicted of murder. This was obviously ruled out by the Privy Council . The other issue might resonate with modern times ( the storm of globalization).

This issue lied within the government of Antigua and Barbuda where, again, the Privy Council gave a radio license, ironically, to a company without the consent of the government of Antigua and Barbuda. Any vacuity of the mind should be fed as it was clear that the CARICOM wanted to reduce the influence of the European powers. However, in the act of doing this, they only managed to establish an institution in the Caribbean rather than a Caribbean institution. Not straying from the intent of this essay, the Caribbean now has in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, a Caribbean Court of Justice. The CARICOM fails to stop there as the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) was implemented in 1972.

This council seeks to provide nationals with opportunities and qualifications to further their primary education by way of Caribbean Secondary Education Certification (CSEC) , along with the advantage of obtaining qualifications or even scholarships to universities through the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE). The University of the West Indies and the University of Guyana are direct providers for the council. It is quite notable of the CARICOM to have provided its people with the equal opportunities of any given advanced region internationally; an important one being, securing and providing sound education of its members. Through the educational system we have many aspiring career persons.

Their career may require them to move to another state or the successes of their business may allow them the opportunity to expand their business to other nations. Delighted to state, they can do so. However this is only in effect due to the implementation of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy which will be further discussed in the following paragraph. The CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) was put into order on the first of January 2006. The aim of this institution was to increase integration among member states. They did this by removing tariffs and restrictions so that both economic and human resources could be shared to promote sustainable development. The Caribbean peoples benefitted as there was free movement of goods and services, skilled persons and capital. Now nationals have the right to work in any of the member states.

Nurses, media workers, musicians, sportsmen and women, university graduates and artistes benefit from this (CSME) as there are a greater availability of opportunities for job creation. Goods and services could now be provided across the single market where the owners would also have access to land and property under rights of establishment. This created a greater framework for competitiveness and a variation of choice for consumers. Equality to buy stocks and shares and being a part of the regional stock exchange is now possible for better investment opportunities. The CSME was, out of many, the most important achievement of the CARICOM.

This gave way to consolidating the goal of self-reliance within the Caribbean region. No longer do nationals have to travel internationally to obtain jobs. They can stay within the region and do so gainfully. However it is optional. Business persons in the interest of creating enterprises and being investors now have the opportunity to do so as the market has widened to becoming intra-regional. From this increase in production, there are better quality goods on the market, and an increase in employment opportunities which may improve the standard of living. The CARICOM has created the Caribbean into a mecca. The Caribbean people now possess some sense of identity. However some adjustments can and should be made to improve the cooperation of the people who are indeed the prime target for such developmental changes.

I propose that the Caribbean Examination Council promote raw data of history from an earlier stage to arouse the curiosity of nationals. This will, hopefully create the desire within them to want to know from where they have come with relation to where they are going. A sense of self-respect and responsibility to self will be awarded by those who willingly and factually grasp the understanding from such historical awakenings. Like the process of any natural cycle, with an attachment to a particular identity, preferably and hopefully the West Indian identity, more allegiance will be paid to the country of their nativity.

Participating and contributing to the economic and social development of the nation will simply be a part of the person’s natural regime ; rather than becoming mentally enslaved by foreign music and their inapplicable doctrines to Caribbean life; physically enslaved by clothing that speaks little about our native heritage and spiritually detached from the land of conception. Also the CARICOM should consider the implementation of compulsory arts in the curriculum where the art forms will be based on that particular culture. Music, dance, theatre, jewelry making, painting and photography are popular art forms used by youth today. It will assist greatly in the learning process. Furthermore, the students who perform the best will have the opportunity to be a part of an exchange program where they can go to other member states and learn about the culture of that nation.

From this, we have the promotion of equality amongst nations of CARICOM in shared cultural diversity. With such activities the Caribbean culture can perforate the globe much like the Europeans and Americans. Many things have been done to create a distinction between the then society of colonialism and the modern society today and many more things can still be done. The Caribbean is of the most diverse regions in the world, attracting much attention, however the internal affairs must be efficient to maintain positive attention. To do this, a mode by which strong bonds can be developed has been created through the use of the Caribbean Community. In all our endeavors, I wish the CARICOM many more successful years with a plethora of developmental introductions!