Point 9 of the CARICOM plan calls for technology transfer from European nations to Caribbean nations to address what the Commission describes as the technological gap created by colonialism’s prevention of Caribbean industrialisation.
The argument is that Caribbean nations were kept in a state of agricultural underdevelopment during the colonial period, denied access to the industrial technologies that transformed European economies, and entered independence without the technological base needed for modern economic development. This is a reasonable description of the colonial economic legacy.
Technology transfer and capacity building are established development policy tools with some track record of success. Vocational training, technology licensing arrangements, partnerships between European and Caribbean educational and research institutions, and targeted support for Caribbean adoption of modern agricultural and industrial technologies are all achievable through existing development cooperation frameworks.
Whether these should be framed as reparatory justice, with the implications of obligation and liability that framing carries, or simply as development cooperation between partners with a complex shared history, is partly a political question. The practical case for supporting Caribbean technological capacity is reasonable regardless of the framing. The question is whether the reparations framing adds anything to the practical case or simply introduces the legal and moral complications addressed elsewhere in this site.
