By Keithlin Caroo-Afrifa
During a conversation about why the Caribbean struggles to attract development funding for some of its biggest challenges, someone said something I haven’t forgotten: “When people see paradise, they assume everything is okay.”
I laughed; then I realised it might be one of the most honest things anyone had ever said about the Caribbean.
At first, it sounded almost absurd. What does a beach or a palm tree have to do with whether a country needs support?
But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that one sentence explained something I’d been struggling to understand for years.
Time and time again, I’ve found myself asking why so many opportunities to strengthen our communities, invest in climate resilience, improve food security and support civil society seem to pass the Caribbean by.
Sometimes it’s because we don’t meet the eligibility criteria. Sometimes we’re considered “too developed.” But increasingly, I wonder whether something else is happening.
Perhaps we’ve become victims of our own success at selling paradise.
That thought has stayed with me especially as across the Caribbean, Carnivals have come to an end and social media has erupted over a familiar debate.
Have we become a region of “party, party, party” while the real work of nation-building is left behind?
Some argued that we celebrate too much while our economies struggle. Others defended Carnival, pointing to the livelihoods it creates, the businesses it supports and the joy it brings. Before long, the conversation settled into familiar camps: those who saw celebration as a distraction, and those who saw it as an economic necessity.
I found myself thinking about something else entirely. What if neither side was asking the most important question?
The problem isn’t that we’ve sold paradise. The problem is that paradise has become the only story people know about us. And perhaps, over time, it has become the only story we’ve told about ourselves.
The Caribbean has built one of the strongest brands in the world. Paradise. Blue water. White sand. Carnival. Music. Hospitality. Warm weather. Escape.
It is an extraordinary achievement. Tourism has transformed our economies, created livelihoods and introduced millions of people to our islands. We should celebrate that.
But every successful story leaves something out. The better we become at selling paradise, the harder it becomes for people to imagine that paradise might also have problems.
When people picture the Caribbean, they rarely picture the farmer wondering whether there will be enough water to save this season’s crop.
They don’t picture the nonprofit trying to stretch limited resources because another family has fallen through the cracks.
They don’t picture the mother navigating an under-resourced health system while caring for an elderly parent.
They don’t picture the young graduate wondering whether opportunity exists anywhere but overseas.
Those realities don’t fit the image we’ve worked so hard to build and yet they are just as much a part of the Caribbean as our beaches and festivals.
Over the years, I’ve come to realise that narratives don’t just shape perception.
They shape investment. They shape policy. They shape media attention. They shape research. They shape philanthropy. They even shape empathy. People respond to the stories they understand.
The challenge for the Caribbean is that the story most people understand about us is one we’ve become incredibly good at telling – Paradise.
Visitors see record tourism arrivals, luxury developments and bustling festivals.
They don’t always see the institutions quietly holding communities together. The organisations building resilience between disasters. The farmers protecting our food systems. The educators shaping future generations. The community groups solving problems long before anyone declares an emergency. Or the thousands of ordinary Caribbean people doing extraordinary work with very ordinary resources. That’s the paradox.
The better we become at selling paradise, the harder it becomes to communicate vulnerability.
This isn’t a call to stop promoting tourism, nor is it an argument against Carnival.
Our culture is one of our greatest strengths. Tourism remains vital to our economies.
The question is whether we’ve allowed those stories to become our only stories because the Caribbean is also a place of extraordinary innovation.
Of women transforming agriculture. Of young entrepreneurs building businesses. Of communities restoring ecosystems. Of nonprofits strengthening democracy and social cohesion. Of researchers, artists, educators and changemakers quietly shaping the future.
Those stories deserve just as much attention.
Not because they replace paradise. But because they complete it.
A paradise that tells the truth about itself is ultimately stronger than one that hides its challenges. Because the world cannot invest in what it cannot see.
And if we want a Caribbean that is not only beautiful to visit, but resilient, equitable and prosperous to live in, then we must become just as intentional about telling the whole story as we have been about telling the story of paradise.
Keithlin Caroo-Afrifa is the Founder and Executive Director of Helen’s Daughters, a Caribbean-based organisation advancing women in agriculture, food security, climate resilience, and social development. Under her leadership, Helen’s Daughters has grown into a regional movement supporting women farmers and community-based agricultural innovation across multiple Caribbean countries.
In the EC$ we rely upon the ECB’s total independence from nation-based political influence and strict adherence to the US dollar for economic stability. This has worked well.
However, the international banking system has effectively shut down the Caribbean islands’ ability to participate in fiscal trade services with global money-markets. In turn, this increases the pressure on our economies to loose political standards, flexible law enforcement etc. towards the sorts of investments that seek refuge from the advanced economies of the US and Europe, which further estates us from their funding (including grants as well) markets.
We are in a vicious downward spiral that can only be broken by strong policial leadership to clean up governance and the rule of law.
Paradise or not… it is medium-term pain for long-term gain. We get what we demand of our leaders.
This is a well written piece of truthfulness.
Growing up, weekends had a very different rhythm—Saturdays and Sundays were dedicated to church depending on your faith, rather than the relentless party culture that now seems to start as early as 7 AM every single day. I completely agree with this article.
Well Singapore is also a paradise and yet it’s developed for its size. They produce high value items and are quite technologically advanced. The issue with Saint Lucia is not the Sun, sand, sea and sky, the problem with the Saint Lucia is that it fails to retain the hundreds of Citizens who go abroad to study and who can’t find a job in Saint Lucia after they have graduated. Imagine if jobs were available for the scientist or the engineer, or the criminal psychologist….we are not thinking broadly enough. Being a small Island in population size and geography does not mean we should limit the job pool in Saint Lucia. The government must open up the diversity of specialities on the island. We need scientists because climate change will affect the Caribbean more that it does the first world countries that already have all the expertise. We need criminal psychologists because as we become more inter-connected, the opportunities from cross border crime increases and therefore government must always be 2 steps ahead of the criminals. We need physicists and astrophysicists because space is the new frontier and all nations are looking after their own interests. And the same goes for other non traditional jobs. No on is coming to save us but we can save ourselves if we put our educated people to work in the specialities for which they are qualified. Otherwise, they will emigrate and give their expertise to the people who already have expertise in great numbers. So people don’t invest in Saint Lucia because they see it as paradise, cause in the end, investments are pursued with the intent of making a profit. Perhaps we don’t get the level of investment we deserve because others see us as not quite investable. Singapore gets the investment because it’s citizenry are highly educated in various specialities and industries and therefore it is a fertile ground for innovation and therefore investments.
Open new jobs in non traditional areas, show you can innovate and see how quick the investments roll in.
This article has highlighted some real issues however the receivers of grant funding has a responsibility to publish funding received and advertise results gained through these funds.
To often a significant percentage of grant funds are utilized at the project management level. Very often the people most deserving of aid/help become illegible because they don’t own the land or building from which they operate.
Sometimes politics plays a significant part in who can access resources, very often project manager operate from their office and have very limited knowledge of the challenges experienced by the benefactors.
Donors want reports, they want publicity, they want testimonies from the benefactors , they need to see how their contributions have positively impacted lives.
Donors are becoming more savvy. They need statistics, they need pictures and most of all they need accountability and transparency.
Issues like the SSDF saga and all the associated international publicity is bound to affect future grants and donations.