The West Indies cricket team, CARICOM as a whole, and the University of the West Indies (UWI) all represent what is most visible about regionalism and Caribbean regionalism is always under watch and on trial. These past few days CARICOM heads have been holding another annual summit and the impact of the economic and fiscal crisis, climate change, and human and social development are central to the discussions.

This is precisely the time that regional institutions can be of the greatest help. After all, the simple principle and logic of 'all for one and one for all' should be most meaningful in times of crisis when our vulnerabilities are most exposed and threats to our ways of life are most dangerous.

Yet, none of the money from Jamaica's economic stimulus package announced in December last year has gone to the Mona campus. In fact, the budget announced in April chopped a big chunk from UWI's budget for this year and the campus is bracing for another big chop next year. This means that jobs will be cut back, courses will be pared down, research grants and fellowships will be harder to get, salaries will lose value and in fact, that the plans for expansion and transformation that had been worked on for years will be on hold.

valuable knowledge

UWI, Mona campus. - File

Much of this seems illogical. We want economic expansion, but we cut back the capacity of such an institution to produce the knowledge that can add value to our goods and services whether offered in the private, public or NGO sectors. We want a knowledge society, and we must have one if we are to be globally competitive, but we are incapacitating our only international university.

We want science and technology to underline development, but the same national budget that tabled the 2030 Vision for national development is the same one that has chopped the budget for an institution that is the premier institution of both the science and art of energy, agriculture, governance, health, education, technology, languages and all those other things that can make Jamaica a developed country by 2030. No other university in CARICOM can replicate UWI's work in these areas.

Danny Roberts, president of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions, made the incontrovertible case in April that the Government should not only restore the $700 million it planned to cut from UWI, but to add more to its budget. Education was not a cost, he said, but an investment in the future of the Jamaican economy. I thought that was why the Government was insistent on tuition-free primary and secondary education. Barack Obama has used his economic stimulus plan to make access to colleges more affordable. Access to UWI is now less affordable.

This brings me to my point. The UWI itself is not in crisis. At least, I don't believe so. But the Jamaican and regional societies are. This is precisely the time to build capacity at UWI and mandate it to play a role in sustainable economic recovery and human development. UWI for a start needs a strategic plan to complement the 2030 Vision plan, one informed by its faculties and UWI-wide capacity to engage with public, private and social sectors.

UWI should create a plan for social stability, safety and security; economic sustainability and growth; human resources and human development; governance and democracy; infrastructure, science and technology; and international partnerships and cooperation. It should have targets, a financial plan, and a working strategy for partners to work together.

inseparable

The possibilities for energy alternatives, industrial products and services, governance and the democratic process, engagements with the diaspora, and global trade and competitiveness, should be developed for the region and for individual territories.

When governments are stimulating the private sector they will realise that this is inseparable from stimulating UWI. When governments are budgeting for

their ministries they will see that UWI's strategic plan for Vision 2030 are bound up with the policies of those ministries. They will realise that when they talk with foreign governments and international agencies they should always take UWI personnel on their delegations to establish cooperation agreements that would build UWI's capacity to pursue its 2030 mission.

UWI can provide good offices, conferencing and consultations for trade disputes and, political understanding to smooth the process of regionalism. UWI can work on innovations to advance the Jagdeo Initiative on Agriculture for the region to reduce import dependence that cost Jamaica US$760 million for food imports last year and in other ways to reduce Jamaica's US$5 billion trade deficit. UWI could promote energy, science and technology, governance and other initiatives alone and with international partners.

UWI's Strategic Plan of 2007-2012 was a good start. By itself though, it is only an inward and introspective view. UWI needs a complementary plan that is more outward looking to see how it can facilitate, steer and even drive society and region-wide transformation.

CARICOM governments need to look again at the role of universities in development. Universities lie at the heart of successful, leading economies around the world in yielding scientific knowledge, discovering breakthrough ideas, fostering innovations, and seeding new initiatives. It is a retrograde step to chop their budgets when there is more need for them now than ever before.

Just last week, graduate students in the department of government held a two-day conference to present their research plans for the year ahead. There was a plan to study trade discrimination in CARICOM and others planned to study the Economic Partnership Agreement with Europe; a plan to study waste management and the difficulties that small societies like Jamaica face in disposing of it; another plan to study the possibility of off-shore investment centres and surveillance issues as they affect sovereignty.

Students want to study the new voting technologies, including their vulnerabilities, and how they might improve trust in voting processes. There was a plan to study community-based organisations and why some are more sustainable than others; and another plan to study the nature of communities and why some might be more governable than others. One student is studying a particular correctional centre and why there is such a high rate of repeat offence from its graduates. Students also want to study executive agencies to see how newer forms of governance are doing; and other agencies like the Child Development Agency; and they are studying tools of development like how information communication technology can improve revenue collection and governance processes generally.

This is just a sample of the exciting work that graduate students and staff are doing in one of many departments among our different faculties at just one campus at UWI. Michigan's three universities account for one in every US$50 that the state's economy earned in 2008. Energy is one of the fastest growing areas of research spending. Life sciences and biotechnology are growth areas. Governance and policy development are key complements. UWI needs impact studies to demonstrate its worth to society; what competitive advantages it provides to companies; and the value of investing in strategic innovations in energy alternatives, biomedicine, information technology, and new governance as a knowledge creator. The Caribbean needs these more than ever at this time of crisis.

Robert Buddan lectures at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm or columns@gleanerjm.com