Chief Economist in the Ministry of Economic Development, Charlin Louisy-Regis, says the initiative represents a deliberate shift toward deeper, more inclusive national engagement, ensuring that the country’s development agenda reflects not only institutional priorities, but the collective vision and aspirations of its people.
“This time around we have pursued a more participatory approach, ensuring that the Medium-Term Development Strategy is people-centric. We want to focus on not only line ministries but also on the communities and the country. We want to have a plan that will be integrated and cater to the needs of the entire country.”
She explained that central to building an integrated development agenda for Saint Lucia are three fundamental questions: Where are we now? Where do we want to go? And how do we close that gap? Supporting this national effort is Christian Crespo, Executive Director of the CLEAR Center for Latin America and the Caribbean, which is collaborating with the Caribbean Development Bank to strengthen monitoring and evaluation systems across the region.
Crespo notes that a structured action plan is currently being developed to reinforce Saint Lucia’s monitoring and evaluation framework. The plan outlines five strategic goals and ten priority initiatives, all aligned with the Medium-Term Development Strategy to ensure policies are effectively tracked, assessed, and refined to deliver measurable development outcomes.
“With monitoring and evaluation we learn, and with learning we improve the action of the government. So that’s why the role of what CLEAR LAC does is very important, right? Because we strengthen institutional capacities, we strengthen individual capacities through training, and we strengthen the enabling environment for monitoring and evaluation and evidence use across policies in the Saint Lucia government.”
Pivotal to the exercise is Lèvè Global, the Trinidad and Tobago-based consultancy leading the situational and gap analysis. Chief Operations Officer Kevon Wilson explains that the team is conducting a comprehensive review of between 15 and 20 sectors across the economy, spanning both productive and social areas. The process combines detailed desk research, policy and literature reviews, statistical trend analysis, and a series of in-depth stakeholder consultations. While previous development strategies are being examined for context and lessons learned, Wilson emphasizes that the primary focus is forward-looking, crafting a practical, future-ready roadmap that positions Saint Lucia to respond to emerging global trends and national priorities.
“So the focus really is on forward. Yes, we have reference to the past documents, but really and truly we’re in a new dispensation. At the beginning of the session, we spoke about the global trends, things that are happening. There’s unrest, there’s climate change, there’s digital disruption, AI. So, there are a lot of new things that would not have been considered in the previous strategy. So we really want to look forward, we want to consider not just Saint Lucia in isolation or in a vacuum, we want to consider what are some of the global trends, how can Saint Lucia prepare itself for it, how can Saint Lucia grab the opportunities that are out there, and what roadway we need to develop in order to get there.”
The outcome of these consultations will be synthesized into a comprehensive, integrated development framework designed to guide policy, investment, and national priorities through 2040.