Poverty & Social Development: A Caribbean Perspective

Juggling in the Web of Politics, and a Barbadian Definition about the ‘Cost-of-Living”
As treacherous as it can be, the involvement of political gamuts to define national agendas, and the creation of strategies to define poverty levels, can leave development practitioners with sour tastes in their mouths.
I read this article in the NationNews (Barbados) where from all accounts a race toward political strategizing is illuminating the definitions and interpretations of “Cost-of-Living”; “Housing Needs” and “Land Ownership”.

Come on Mr. Politicians! Try not to make things harder when it comes to the real assessments of poverty levels, and impacts of economic growth.

By engaging fully into this political apparatus, the problems are gonna be compounded, as to effectively grasp and gain information to reduce poverty through a broad spectrum of decisions and policies.
Inequalities and disparities are no mythical constructs, and the creation of practical actions to counter these ills, are before all pro-active processes where the contributions to the knowledge of policy-makers and national organizations require more than stiff rhetoric to address the needs of low-income people.

We know for sure that the determinants of poverty evolve over-time, and providing key resources and capacities to tackle such issues as employment, living wage laws could certainly help to narrow the economic divide, rather than the constructs of political and development fallacies.