The East Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) in its continuing drive “to facilitate the balanced growth and development of member states”, of the Organisation of East Caribbean States (OECS) has been hosting ‘Economic Workshop’ for media practitioners throughout the region since last June.
One such workshop gathered six media practitioners at the local agency office in Brades, who joined their counterparts throughout the member states in a video-conference Economic Workshop on Tuesday, January 24, 2012.
The half day workshop was held to enhance media practitioners’ effectiveness in covering stories related to the economies of the ECCU member countries as well as economic events that are relevant to the Currency union. The workshop outline included such matters as what was meant by economic growth; measuring economic growth; sources of economic growth; what account for faster growth in some countries and economic growth trends in the Easter Caribbean Currency Union.
Senior Director of the ECCB Corporate Relations Department Mrs. Ingrid O’Loughlin opened the workshop by reminding the media practitioners of their important role in the current economic environment.
“Given the economic challenges that we confront as a region and as a people, the engagement of the media on the ECCU economy is not only very important but it is timely. What we want to achieve through this workshop is for you the media to develop a more informed understanding of the ECCU economic challenges, issues and opportunities so that you can strengthen your role as messenger, informer, advocator, spokesperson and educator,” she said.
ECCB Advisor, Sybil Welsh engaged the participants in an ‘icebreaker’ dramatic presentation entitled, “Economics is not a Foreign Language” The dramatic presentation was designed to demystify economic jargon, explain their meanings in transparent and unambiguous language and in so doing facilitate an understanding of economic concepts.
The main session, invited each country to assume the role of Government Cabinets which had to determine the priority investment for their particular country from among the requests of several communities, and covered three topics:
1. Government Macroeconomic Objectives and Policy Tradeoffs – Meeting Public Demands with Scarce Resources. – Introduced or facilitated by Sybil Welsh, Adviser, ECCB (The exercises in case study, engaged in an activity that facilitated critical analysis and learning towards a deeper understanding of some of the choices and trade-offs in governments’ allocation of scarce resources and the issues and considerations that impact their polices..
2. The ECCU Economic Outlook – searching for growth. – Introduced by Ronald James, Economist, ECCB. The aim was to enable discovery of the complexities of economic growth, what it means, how it is calculated and its implications, while noting that economics is not an exact science, meaning there is no ‘one size fits all’ strategy to achieving growth in the territories.
3. Understanding ECCU Governments Fiscal Situation and Debt Instruments. – Introduced by Azziza Trotter, Economic Statistician, ECCB. This was to study and explore the link between fiscal and debt, crucial, given their interdependency and is vial in today’s environment of weakening fiscal positions vis-à-vis debt levels. Participants were gain a deeper appreciation of what governments continue to grapple with on a day to day basis to ensure the welfare of its citizenry and future generations.
Mrs. Claudette Weekes facilitated at the local agency office. In attendance: Nerissa Golden of GIU; Rose Willock, freelancier; Tanisha Christopher of ZJB radio; and, Milykhia McKenzie, Rondell Grant, and Bennette Roach from The Montserrat Reporter.
