IN today’s globalised world, countries must compete like companies do. They must produce a good or service that’s in demand; do so more cost effectively and at a higher quality than the competition, and deliver the good or service to the place and at a cost that is satisfying to the consumer.

There are three options open to countries for waging competitive battle. They may compete in concepts, in manufacturing or trade. Concepts are the high-end services and knowledge products that create future consumer tastes and trends in areas such as information technology. Manufacturing is taking inputs and converting them to saleable outputs at a high level of efficiency and quality, and at a cost advantage. Trade is serving as the hub for the movement and distribution of goods and services between countries of origin and the final destination.

Jamaica is unable to compete at the level of concepts. Successive governments have failed to invest in the development of our human assets, so areas like research and development in a knowledge economy are out of our grasp for at least the next two to three decades. Likewise, large-scale manufacturing is not a viable strategy for Jamaica. We do not possess the critical mass of skilled labourers or abundance of cheap energy to make this a winning proposition.

But trade presents a viable option. Located in proximity to the richest markets in the world, North America, and some of the fastest emerging economies, South America, and blessed with a natural harbour to receive the largest container ships, Jamaica has a distinct advantage. I see tourism as an extension of this activity; moving people from their country of origin through modern airports, warehousing them in luxurious accommodation, giving them lifetime memories, then moving them onward to other destinations or to their home countries. So strong is Jamaica’s advantage in this area of what I have loosely termed trade (movement of people, goods and services), that with very little awareness shown by our governments that this is the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg, the Port of Kingston has developed into a sprawling economic zone of strategic regional importance and tourism into a world brand and the leading earner of foreign exchange, Jamaica having one of the world’s highest levels of murders notwithstanding.

Viewed in this way it is easy to see that with the right policies and incentives Jamaica does not have to discover oil to be a rich country. But there is something of a more urgent and immediate concern that’s keeping the majority of our people mired in poverty and hopelessness. In a word, that thing is joblessness.

Because we have squandered our assets, our backs are against the wall. As a government and a people we must find something to do at which our people are widely gifted; something that comes almost naturally; something that can in the short term create wealth among the masses, and that with minimal investment and levels of education we can excel at. What is that thing? Between First Street and Fifth Street in Trench Town, Jamaicans of modest education and even more modest means developed Reggae music and the artistes who took it to every corner of the world. We see this too with athletics. The world looks on in amazement, not being able to discern the basis for such excellence coming from a population that is smaller than that of many large cities.

There is a third activity at which we excel that is positive and which, if facilitated, has the potential to create wealth. That activity is entrepreneurship. Going back to 2005, every issue of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Report, which does comparative analysis among countries in the field of entrepreneurship, has placed Jamaica among the countries where entrepreneurship is most prevalent. In the 2009 GEM Report Jamaica ranks Number 4.

Two weeks ago, the newly formed Institute for Social Entrepreneurship and Equity (I-SEE) in partnership with the University College of the Caribbean (UCC) put on Jamaica’s first ever Social Entrepreneurship Conference and Awards Ceremony. Organised under the theme YOU can do WELL by doing GOOD – The role of the Social Entrepreneur in wealth creation at the base of the pyramid, the presentations and general discourse opened up possibilities of how this amazing potential among many Jamaicans can be tapped for wealth and job creation.

Wealth creation among poor, struggling but resourceful Jamaicans must be the platform on which the coming general election is fought. Wealth and jobs created through entrepreneurship, not bullets, are the armaments with which the war against poverty and violence will be ultimately won. It is the only effective strategy I know for dismantling the economic and social man-made zones of exclusion called political garrisons.

We need to stop sympathising and empathising with those who, like a dog chasing a car, attain the position of prime minister then know not what to do with it. The job is not impossible as some make it out to be. At a Gross Domestic Product of approximately US$15 billion, were Jamaica a company it would not make it on to the list of Fortune 500 companies. It is prudent that Jamaican people select the next government on the basis of the parties’ understanding of how to create wealth by releasing the entrepreneurial potential in our people. It is time we stop playing politics with our future by saying we will die PNP or JLP when it is the politics that’s killing us.

hmorgan@cwjamaica.com