Dear Sir
The recently released preliminary figures for the 2022 Census revealed that Saint Lucia’s population is less by some eight percent than previously estimated.
This should be worrisome if indeed we are serious about achieving our mid to long-term developmental goals, for as it is often said, population is development. It will be interesting to find out what were the contributing factors.
Was it …
- Lower birth rate?
- Higher death rate including homicides?
- Increased migration? or
- All of the above.
Whatever it is or was, steps must be taken to reverse that trend or otherwise, we may see a dwindling workforce and slower economic growth over the next decade.
Already, we are seeing the reflection of that decline in our school population, thus forcing the closure and/or repurposing of some schools. So how do we reverse that trend?
Here are some suggestions:
- Provide greater incentives for childbearing as is done in many countries that are experiencing the same problem. For example, Russia did it 25 years ago and is now reaping the benefits of a young and thriving workforce.
- Engage in a process of managed or reverse migration to augment our workforce. The US and UK did it decades ago and now the likes of Canada and many European countries are doing the same. Many may not like this one, but that is the reality we will face or are already facing. We have lost thousands of our citizens to the above-named countries over the last few decades to their benefit and our current predicament. In fact, many are saying that there are more Saint Lucians living outside of Saint Lucia than inside.
- Provide much greater incentives for Saint Lucians to return home not only to live, but to invest. This also includes reducing the bureaucratic red tape currently compromising this process. I recently spoke to a potential Saint Lucian investor, who has virtually given up on trying to fulfil his lifelong dream. He spoke of agency hopping, inconsistency in information, tardy responses to messages among other systemic hurdles that has dogged us for decades. Years ago, I made recommendations on how we can streamline this process but who is Nigee? I also prepared a Diaspora Homeland Guide which was never fully paid for.
- What about encouraging our second-generation Saint Lucians to live and work here? Since the announcement by the prime minister and the relevant legislation to grant automatic naturalization, the process has been far from automatic according to some who have tried. Why do we like so much unnecessary red tape here? The same challenges mentioned in #3 are encountered in this case and others. We still insist on physical copies of documents for everything and the process takes forever to complete. COVID has taught us nothing here!
These are some of my thoughts and if anyone in authority is interested in pursuing any of these ideas, particularly # 3, I could share the recommendations I have made. But for now, our population is getting low, low, low, while de economy grow, grow, grow, but will eventually slow, slow, slow if indeed we don’t act now.
