The Government of Trinidad and Tobago continues to provide support to SMEs in order to enhance their
international competitiveness. The increasing effects of globalization and the reality of several trade
agreements require that local businesses attain and maintain a level of competitiveness which ensures
their continued survival and growth. This report examines in detail the policy environment within which
these enterprises operate. It also examines the role of the key implementing agencies such as the BDC and
NEDCO for government’s policy on the sector and also the role of the respective lin…
Health care migration is a large and global business. Recruitment is decentralized, involves both public and private sector entrepreneurs, and is difficult to regulate. The countries of the Western Hemisphere are important players in the global health market but, with the partial exception of the Islands of the Caribbean, there is little cooperation among their governments to manage migration patterns or combine forces in order to achieve economies of scale and cost effective training facilities. A related area of concern within the realm of health is care for the elderly. In wealthy countries…
This study examines the application of the flexicurity labour system in the Caribbean countries of Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The flexicurity system has its origins in Denmark and combines elements of labour market flexibility with social security for workers. After outlining the elements of the system, the study provides an overview of the labour market in the Caribbean and compares the performance of Denmark with the three Caribbean countries. The comparison shows that there is a much lower level of flexibility and security in the three Caribbean states than in Denmark. The d…
This study presents an analysis of factors related to selected Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in education, health and water and sanitation in Nicaragua. Using available household survey data, complemented with selected supply side data, empirical econometric models of education enrolment, child mortality and the provision of water and sanitation are employed to examine the relationship of individual, household and municipal factors to the achievement of these MDGs. The MDG formulation also provides for a comparison of two different modelling methodologies, the standard logit estimation f…
Abstract
This study consists of two substantive components that provide an overview of the different methodologies currently being applied to the measurement of multidimensional poverty for Mexico and Central America. In the first component a typology of different practical methodological concepts is organized according to how different methods deal with the two fundamental decisions in the measurement of poverty, identifying the poor and aggregating the groups into a single index value that is informative. The typology is able to encompass most different methods of multidimensio…
The energy debate has one dimension that is often sidelined: its relationship with poverty and development. This document attempts to shed some light on this aspect, overlooked when public policies are being formulated.The document describes the results of the joint effort of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Club de Madrid, which highlight the crucial role of access to energy services in the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.Access to energy services, as a basic factor for poverty reductio…
This manual contains information on the dataset compiled from the Survey of Living
Conditions and Household Budgets (SLC/HBS) conducted in Saint Lucia by the Kairi
Consultants Limited and National Assessment Team between 2005 and 2006. The
SLC/HBS is a sample survey which generates data on households and individuals in the
country.
This manual was developed by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean (ECLAC) – Subregional Headquarters in the Caribbean as a supplementary
document for the Caribbean Household Surveys Database (CHSD). It is sectioned out into
two main parts- sec…
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Subregional
Headquarters for the Caribbean presents its fourth edition of the Women in
Development Bibliography.
The online bibliography provides references on women, gender and development for
Caribbean and non-Caribbean publications, and documents that are less widely
disseminated, such as research and conference papers and technical reports. The
bibliography aims to be a reference guide to help stakeholders and international actors
involved in gender issues on the literature available and current research themes from
Caribb…
In the past two decades, Latin American countries reformed their pension systems focusing mainly on addressing the weaknesses of the contributory schemes - fiscal unsustainability, low coverage levels and a high degree of segmentation- and barely addressed the non-contributory element. The reform experiences show however that the intended reforms did not manage to meet their objectives. Firstly, to this day, a large proportion of the population remains inadequately covered by the contributory system. Secondly, the fiscal performance and outcome of the reform was worse than originally planned. …
La publicación del sexagésimo primer Estudio económico de América Latina y el Caribe, correspondiente al bienio 2008-2009, tiene lugar en un momento crítico del desarrollo económico de América Latina y el Caribe. Se interrumpió una fase de crecimiento de duración y características inéditas en la historia reciente y la región sufre una contracción de su producto, con efectos negativos en el bienestar de la población que inevitablemente se reflejarán en retrocesos de las variables sociales. Dos características diferencian la situación actual de los muchos episodios de crisis que afectaron a la r…