cleviston haynes : civility, creativity and performance – building and sustaining smart partnerships for improved productivity speech by mr cleviston haynes, deputy governor of the central bank of barbados, at the opening of the 2010 week of excellence, bridgetown, 22 february 2010. * * * dr the hon. david estwick, minister of economic affairs & empowerment, innovation, trade, industry and commerce ; senator sir roy trotman, president of the congress of trade unions and staff associations ; mr. ben arrindel, chairman of the barbados private sector association ; specially invited guests and facilitators ; dr. tayo fashoyin, director, industrial & employment relations department ilo, other distinguished guests ; ladies and gentlemen. the central bank of barbados is again pleased to participate in this week of excellence organised by the social partners. it is appropriate that you should begin your week here in the grande salle of the central bank for the bank ’ s own strategic vision is to be a centre of excellence in all that it does. at the bank, we are acutely aware of the sustained effort, discipline, consistency and commitment required to attain this goal. we only have to look at our cricket icons who have led the way by demonstrating in their sphere of activity that excellence is attainable at the international level for citizens of this small country. one can say that in recent times we have also seen what indiscipline, inconsistency and lack of commitment can produce. we therefore commend the social partners on their on - going efforts to keep this objective at the forefront of national consciousness. this week takes place at a difficult period for the barbadian economy. as you are aware, the past year was challenging as the global financial crisis had a significant negative effect on economic activity, particularly in the tourism and construction sectors and on government ’ s finances. reduced tourism earnings and lower private sector capital inflows have contributed to an attendant loss of foreign exchange earnings. one unfortunate consequence of these developments has been increasing unemployment. however, it is fair to say that the social partners have responded to the challenge with more flexible labour arrangements that helped to contain job losses in some sectors. in its review in early january of the barbados economy for 2009 and prospects for 2010, the bank was cautious in its forecast, noting that the outlook for 2010 is “ clouded by uncertainty about the pace and robustness of the recovery in the north american and european markets on which the tourism and

delisle worrell : challenges to increase it efficiency address by dr delisle worrell, governor of the central bank of barbados, to the information society of barbados ( isb ), barbados hilton, bridgetown, 2 july 2010. * * * this dinner is an opportunity to revive the isb, at a time when there are important challenges facing us, which can be addressed only by an organization which is structured like the isb, bringing together it professionals and users. when we started the isb we were at the dawn of the era of personal computing, and today every adult and most children use sophisticated electronic communications devices as a matter of course. the simplest cell phone nowadays is capable of text messaging, and can be used for banking and financial transactions. so we are now past the stage we were at when isb started, when the main concern was to introduce users to the potential of the latest it products and services. the new challenge is to make it work for us as a tool to increase the efficiency with which we work, and to increase our productivity and effectiveness. this is a major challenge, and in order to meet it we must have effective interaction between it professionals who provide services, and the rest of us who consume them. going forward, i want to urge us all, through active participation in the society ’ s activities, to contribute actively and fully to this dialogue. i can best illustrate the problem by telling you about my recent experience as executive director of the ccmf. soon after i joined the centre we made the decision to deliver all our data and information services online, and to publish all our books and economics papers electronically. the ccmf publishes an academic journal, the jbf3e. as some of you will know, the publication of any journal or magazine is an onerous process, involving the collection, review and editing of all the material, written by several contributors. a huge problem in meeting publications deadlines is that you have to get all the material together, cleaned up and checked, before you can send the completed issue to the printers. a single tardy contributor can wreck your entire schedule, and prevent you from bringing the publication out on time. i ’ ve been in this business for decades, and this was the reality i ’ d always faced. it was only when we went to electronic publishing that it suddenly dawned on me that we didn ’ t have to wait until the last paper was ready to put out the issue of the journal