Above: Antigua Prime Minister Dr Baldwin Spencer (CJ Photo)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Would a Marshall Plan-like programme help the Caribbean deal with its economic challenges?

That’s the proposal of Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Dr Baldwin Spencer, who said this week that “bold and innovative strategies must continue to be devised to safeguard the survival of our economies.”

The Marshall Plan was the wide-ranging aid programme on which the United States embarked in Europe in the aftermath of World War II.

And a regional, across-the-board strategy may be necessary to deal with what Spencer called “critical” problems for the Caribbean.

Spencer was speaking during an agenda item on a “Framework for Regional Growth and Development” during the Heads of Government conference in Port of Spain.

“Clearly, we have to see how the respective sectors can be modernized; the public sector transformed; more linkages between economic growth and investment; more attention to our debt burden and fiscal consolidation,” he told Heads of Government last week in Trinidad.

“Despite the challenges, the region has not done badly,” he said. “We have done our best and there have been marginal improvements.”