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By ROCHELLE DEAN

AS THE Bahamas heads into another election season, the country continues to experience many challenges to its key industries and economic growth.

The United Nations, along with many leading organisations that examine national economic policies, have openly criticised The Bahamas and its approach to reform in an effort to foster a structural shift in the country’s approach to sustainable economic growth and the reduction of poverty overall.

Recently, the UN development report revealed that the challenges faced by The Bahamas have contributed to a record rise in the poverty rate for the country as well as the Caribbean region collectively.

According to Helen Clarke, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), “vulnerabilities are increasing in the Caribbean; and the region faces growing multi-dimensional poverty”.

Outside these agencies’ reports and in light of the recent downgrade of The Bahamas’ credit rating, we are left to consider how the country will tackle low growth and the negative impacts on the state of the nation.

The Bahamas must now see the significance of human resilience beyond income and implement quality initiatives and innovative ideas that promote human development. The country must accept that sustainable development is more than Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and cannot be the only measure of its growth.

The country’s leaders have looked further at new ways to generate revenue through additional taxation after the implementation of Value-Added Tax (VAT). The prospect of a temporary taxation regimen applied to a developing country operating at a deficit speaks to the condition of the country’s fiscal status.

The country must now look towards how it will address eradicating poverty and encourage inclusive growth while determining new strategies and being guided by economic policies that direct fiscal policy which foster sustainable development, if not positive economics.

With the recent implementation of a National Development Plan it is important for The Bahamas to consider matters relating to its economic policies that drive further development.

As many countries produce strategies for sustainable development goals (SDGs) The Bahamas is in a perfect position to have offered itself as an effective participant of national voluntary reviews as it relates to these global goals. It would allow the nation to grow as well as learn new measures for sustainable development to position it for progressive growth.

The Bahamas must be interested in effecting proper measures that allow the country to capitalise on every opportunity for growth and, most importantly, the overall development of its people.

It must now seek to go beyond GDP and recognise that in order to have a prosperous nation, it must seek to transform the country into an “economically literate society”.

Moving forward, The Bahamas must consider the impact of the 2016 Caribbean Human Development Report, the outcomes of the State of the Nation Report and the approach the country’s leaders continue to take towards national sustainability.

Poverty alleviation begins with a new approach to positive sustainable growth.

Rochelle R Dean is a Bahamian scholar, research fellow and peer-reviewer and a theory writer of economics presently completing a Bachelors of Science dual degree in economics and public administration with Liberty University, Lynchburg, Virginia. Comments to dean_rochelle@yahoo.com