Whose solution is it? development ideology and the work of micro‐entrepreneurs in Caribbean context

Abstract

An economic leader in the Caribbean, the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago has incorporated micro‐business development as one of its main strategies to alleviate poverty and unemployment and to spawn economic growth since the late 1980s. Although the discovery of natural gas in the early nineties catapulted Trinidad’s economic growth rate to four per cent per annum, unemployment and poverty continue to affect a large portion of the population. The majority of the population has not benefited from Trinidad’s economic growth. Thus, the government has attempted to create “a nation of entrepreneurs” in order to relieve some of the inequality that defines the society (Ministry of Trade and Industry 1997).