4 years, 9 months, 25 days, 22 hours
27 September 2024
Let’s put you in charge of a country for a while. What do you do?
Let’s put you in charge of a country for a while. Maybe a year or so, to give you time to make a difference. But not one of the big ones. One of the smaller countries in the world. Here is what you are facing:
Similar to almost every other country of the world, the birth rate is falling and is below the level that maintains the local population size. I wrote about this in March: Falling Global Birth Rates
There is a net emigration, mostly of the country’s most educated and talented individuals, driven by various factors including that the country is increasingly at risk of serious climate events
Your population is living longer, thanks to the better healthcare facilities in which your country invested, but adding to healthcare costs and the older population are in many cases no more economically active than before
Citizen’s expectations around the quantity, quality and consistency of public services continue to rise, partly because in a more connected world it is clear what great services look like
Your infrastructure gap (need v provision) is widening, partly for the infrastructure you want to build to deliver those services, but more urgently to protect the country from rising sea levels and other climate events
So, your earning population is falling in absolute terms, your dependent population is rising as a proportion of your total, and the whole population expects more money to be spent on the services they need today. Regardless of whether you meet those demands you have even less money than before to invest, to meet much greater investment demands.
What do you do?
Scenario inspired by the conversation I had earlier this week with a Minister from Barbados, in the margins of the Caribbean Infrastructure Forum. I don’t think it is impossible, but it is certainly very hard. I’ll share next week some of my thoughts.