COMMENTARY: A vision for the Virgin Islands

By Dickson Igwe, Contributor

There can be no real economic recovery for the Virgin Islands without a clear vision, mission, and plan for a post-Irma future.

And post-Irma, in a highly competitive, predatory, scientifically driven, global economy, vision and strategic economic planning alone, will rescue the Virgin Islands from permanent underdevelopment.

Now, vision and purpose are synonyms. Both vision and purpose fuse together the various components of national effort.

The national effort is a combination of the individual, family, community, and society combined effort.

It is a complex mix of all of the exertions, energies, thinking, and enterprise, within a country. Vision, mission, and plan drive the national effort towards desired objectives and goals.

A country is organic. It is never static. Constant change is the result of human beings who coexist and attempt to live together in peace, harmony, and law.

Change is the only constant.

In an ever-changing environment, the absence of a vision results in waste, misdirection, and the dissipation of the combined effort.

The lack of a vision leads to poor outcomes, and even complete failure, for a community, society, or country.

Then vision drives the national mission. A country’s well-defined vision should drive the economy in the direction of that vision.

There can be no successful economy, and successful national outcomes, without a clear and well-defined vision.

Absence of vision leads to ambiguity, lack of clarity, poor planning, mismanagement, and ultimately poor governance. The national vision is the country’s ultimate destination: the national dream.

Then, the strategic plan or national strategy is the road map that takes the country to that dream, to the proverbial El Dorado: the place of milk and honey.

The strategic plan is the roadmap. The vision is the destination. Without the roadmap, or a GPS – global positioning system – and a clear destination, a country,

instead of heading to the lush and safe place, can easily end up on the rocks.  That is what happens when there is no vision, mission, and plan: ‘the people perish’. And daily effort is required, in adopting a strategy that leads to national goals that in turn reach the vision.

The goals are many if Virgin Islands society is to transform into a modern and developed scientific community.

A number of goals add up to one unique vision. Without a vision, there are no goals or objectives, only meaningless exertion and effort.

The vision is that unique national dream that rests in the heart of the visionary. It is the task of the visionary politician to define the vision.

National goals

Then he or she must design a plan to reach that vision. That plan contains the national goals.

Then the political leader must convince constituents that the vision is desirable and worth fighting for. Without wide acceptance, a vision cannot be realized, as it takes all hands on deck to get the ship to shore.

OK, as stated in the preceding article, I offer my vision for these Virgin Islands: ‘my own personal vision for the British Virgin Islands over the coming 30 years is

of a society that re-establishes a cohesive and compassionate community, based upon an eco-friendly and sustainable, vibrant and innovative, maritime and nautical sciences economy.

The vision will empower citizens through full employment in a maritime-oriented economy, and see the country fully developed, through a sustainable and eco-friendly economic model.

The country will build a sailing, boating, and shipping culture that becomes part of the communal DNA, and an economic type, that fully defines its maritime status as a world-class sailing and boating destination, sited in a pristine geography.

The country will foster an international maritime economy through learning, and collaboration with older shipping and boating oriented world economies, and global research.

That maritime culture will be one that attracts new skills and technologies.

Nautical and maritime sciences will become integral to the learning culture, and drive the wider economy.

The British Virgin Islands will further engineer a commercial environment that prioritizes renewable energy, recyclables, organic farming, and its own unique

and pristine ecosystem, as critical to its sustained medium and longer-term development.