ILO Productivity Project for Saint Lucia

Contact: Rose Marie Harris

Thursday, September 6, 2001 - The Geneva-based International Labour Organization (ILO) has chosen Saint Lucia as one of three Caribbean countries where it is implementing a project which seeks to raise national productivity.

ILO consultant, Dr. Andre Vincent Henry, visited the island earlier this week for talks with Government on the project which is aimed at helping Caribbean countries to respond to the challenges of globalization.

 “The productivity programme that we are now undertaking is part of a wider programme that we started in January this year,” Henry said. “That’s the Programme for the Promotion of Management, Labour Cooperation or PROMALCO by its acronym.”

He added: “Essentially, PROMALCO is a comprehensive set of activities that we have developed in an effort to enable the Caribbean to respond more effectively to the challenges presented by the globalization of production and the liberalization of trade.”

Related to the project, the ILO currently is engaged in a comprehensive analysis of productivity performance in the Caribbean.

According to the ILO official, the project will develop an institutional framework which will set the stage for a series of targeted interventions across the work force to ensure that there is significant productivity enhancement in Saint Lucia.  

“…If we don’t address the issues of productivity and competitiveness, we are confining ourselves to fourth world status,” Dr. Henry said of Caribbean countries.

He added:  “We  are confining ourselves to a continuing cycle of poverty, spiralling downward, of being always dependent on what people can give us, and  what someone can give us they can take away.”

Dr Henry along with other ILO representatives will return to Saint Lucia next month to begin sensitising stakeholders ahead of the actual implementation of the project. 

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