Good evening ladies and gentlemen. It is a great pleasure to be back in Jamaica. It has been almost exactly a year since I departed and I have missed the country and my friends here greatly. It reminds me of the Shakespeare sonnet in which the Bard in essence said: "We value not what we have until it is lost." I enjoyed my time in your country, and I thank all Jamaicans for their cordial welcome of my family and me.

I am pleased to see Vice-Chancellor Professor Nigel Harris, Pro-Vice Chancellor Professor Elsa Leo Rhynie, and Chairman of the Mona Campus Council, Mr. William Clark here tonight. Thank you for coming.

I want to thank Mr. Pereira and his team at the deputy principal's office for collaborating with the American Friends of Jamaica and the Cobb family and making this event possible. I will explain the AFJ/Cobb family award in a moment.

I would also like to thank Monica Ladd and the AFJ for the great work that they do and for their support in this effort. I am so proud to be a member of the AFJ organization and am pleased AFJ wanted to join Chuck and me and the University in developing this lecture series.

I also want to thank Dr. Winston De La Haye - Chairman of the Scholarship Committee of the Jamaican Fulbright-Humphry Alumni Association who has been very helpful to me in putting together the details of this event.

Additionally, we convey appreciation to the U.S. Embassy Office of Public Affairs, Mr. Glenn Guimond and Ms. Angela Harvey.

I do not want to miss the opportunity to extend respectful greetings - and - God Speed - to three of Jamaica's greatest leaders.

• The Most Honorable Edward Seaga
• The Most Honorable P.J. Patterson
• The Most Honorable Governor General Sir Howard Cooke and Lady Cooke

Also - of course - I wish to extend my warmest congratulations to Dr. The Honorable Kenneth Hall - one of UWI's own - Jamaica's next Governor General.

You are going to hear some familiar themes from me tonight. I don't think you will find any surprises. In many ways my comments on the AFJ/Cobb Family Lecture Series are - in and of themselves - my reflections as Ambassador. But let me just say this as a preface: You have affected me deeply. Living here had a real impact on my life. Much of it is personal, but in many ways I think it relates directly to what I am going to talk about tonight - the critical importance of the hard and constant debate of ideas and ideals.

First, just to quickly catch up on a personal note - since many of you have inquired about what I am doing now - after leaving your shores … Well … I have 7 grandchildren - so I decided I would not travel and live abroad again. (And besides, where was I going to find a place better to live and work than Jamaica?) So, when Florida's Governor Jeb Bush asked me to return to government in my home state - as Florida's Secretary of State - my husband Chuck and I decided the answer was yes.

This job as Secretary of State is not without its challenges. The Department of State in Florida does not conduct foreign policy - that is the province of the United States Department of State. However, Florida's Department of State involves a very broad portfolio of state interests covering corporations and other business associations, all statewide cultural affairs and historical resources, all state library facilities, the state's large information services division, and importantly - and most controversial - the Division of Elections. For better or worse, I am the Chief Elections Officer for the state. So that is what I am doing now, though I am still very much in a learning mode about my responsibilities and serving Florida's 17 million citizens in all of these diverse areas.

Be assured, however, that while we do not formulate foreign policy, the state has a very strong international outreach in which I will be involved, and as time permits, I intend to continue "Building Bridges" between the State of Florida and Jamaica. Let me explain to you exactly why I am here tonight; why we are launching a lecture series at UWI; and what the objective is. The other Ambassador Cobb - Chuck Cobb - and I have long been involved in educational endeavors in Florida at most every level. We did a little outreach in that area while I was here the last few years. When we left Jamaica we wanted to continue to support educational efforts. Toward that end, we created two scholarship funds that will support Jamaican students who meet the institutions' academic criteria. One is at the University of Miami, named by my husband: "The Ambassador Sue Cobb Scholarship," which is an endowed fund from which interest earnings will be available annually to supplement a Jamaican student's attendance at this excellent private university. Another fund was created here at the University of the West Indies. It is administered by the Office of Student Financing and also uses interest income to help offset a needy student's educational costs. Thirdly, we joined with AFJ and Mr. Pereira's office to establish a lecture series here at UWI.

The intent of the AFJ-Cobb Family Lecture Series is to provide a public forum for a talented UWI researcher - selected by his peers - to present his academic findings on an important topic relating to Jamaica's future. Specifically, we seek to reward creative and innovative research into leadership strategies for the future - - marinated here in the Jamaican context. We wish to encourage debate that will capture the imagination of Jamaica's youth as they look to the decades ahead living on this beautiful, resource-rich island. We want to encourage "thinking outside the box" and envisioning Jamaica's future.

Nobody in this universe has missed the fact that the world changed drastically as we moved into the first decade of the 21st Century. It could not have been made more clear to me than during the time I lived in Jamaica - starting with my first day on the job at the U.S. Embassy: September 11, 2001. Then over the course of the next few years watching the rapid growth of technological capability, reading and seeing real time reports from far off corners of the world that many people never knew existed; watching the development of security technology, financial systems, healthcare technology, medical advances, and all kinds of communication enhancements…while simultaneously watching rapidly changing political environments, nations undergoing fundamental changes, the future being melded. There is no doubt we live in a time of change. Speaking of political changes, both the United States and Jamaica have important elections on the horizon, so we can count on more change. Given all this, given the current political world and the current economic world, each country has to ask:

• How do we take advantage of the new technologies now available?
• What is going to be the next big technological change?
• How can we be the ones to develop the next new technology?
• How do we help leaders think about new and different ways to handle developmental issues?
• How do we ensure that our leaders have available in-depth analysis by our countries' brightest minds that will allow those leaders to look forward - around the corners - into our future, into Jamaica's future?
• How can Jamaica best join with its neighbors to ensure the success of the Caribbean Single Market Economy?
• Who is going to shape the research on a common agricultural policy? Who can and should be in the future the sugar producers for the region?
• How will jobs lost be replaced?
• What planning can be done for more efficient inter-Caribbean transport systems?
• How and who is going to develop an equitable tax policy for the CSME with its unique and disparate nations?
• Should there be centers for formulation of common policies in specific socio-economic areas? Which areas? Where will such centers be located?
• What will take the place of lost revenues in those countries that rely heavily on import duties?
• How can we best keep children in school and provide affordable options for their higher education that will ensure a vital economy?
• In your new and expanding regional context, how do you envision a Jamaica of 2010 or 2020 that will work for all Jamaicans?
  
  Simply put: how do you envision the Jamaica of the future?

Now we know that much thought and considerable research has been dedicated to several of these questions, but we still believe that the best minds at work at this University can further help to spark the dynamism of Jamaican youth and help inform the leaders of the future.

The AFJ-Cobb Lecture is not, I repeat not, a debate on politics - it is a quest to reward thoughtful, articulate, comprehensive options that can be debated and exercised by your elected leadership to positively affect the future of Jamaica.

There are thorny issues in our world. Our hope is that some of the research and some of the recommendations made are provocative enough to excite minds and to stir national debate.

We also hope the media will become involved and will share and encourage thoughtful comments on the research presented here by UWI academicians. Monica, maybe you can help on that!

U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton in a retrospective delivered at Hofstra University last November on two terms as leader of our country, effectively said that it is the debate of ideas and ideals in our societies that inform the proper exercise of government. The worst case scenario, he suggested, is to get people to stop thinking; to cling to the past; to hold to ideological rigidity; to avoid taking on the toughest new challenges; to stop debating the way forward to a nation's future. I know that President George W. Bush shares those same thoughts. In fact he made a statement to that exact effect just this morning in Washington at a White House briefing.

Let me go to just a couple of areas we might all be thinking about in this new and complex world. In making some suggestions, please understand that I no longer speak for the United States. These are purely personal thoughts.

Let's look at the economies of our hemisphere for a moment. There is much to study and much to learn. By most accounts the Western Hemisphere will see another year of solid growth. Regional economic growth totaled 4.3% in 2005 and is expected to approach 4.1% in 2006. Good growth should hold, too, in the United States - in fact, the same should largely be true globally.

However, much of the 2005 and 2006 growth in this hemisphere will properly be attributed, not to internal reforms creating growth or to foreign direct investment, but to the rising external demand for commodity exports such as copper and oil. If you were to back out the commodity figures, the GDP growth scenario in this hemisphere is less optimistic.

Nor should remittances be confused with economic growth. Remittances do not create jobs. Countries in this region should undoubtedly be looking for creative ways to spur economic development from remittances - which, I know Jamaica is already doing -- but surely provocative UWI research could bring forth new ideas relating to this important flow of funds.

In this relatively prosperous environment, if we look more closely, we see the huge economies of China, India, Brazil, and Russia developing rapidly and, of course, continued growth in South Korea, Malaysia and other Asian countries. All are advancing more rapidly than most countries in our own region.

If you have not heard this new acronym in the global economic lexicon, you soon will: It is BRIC, or it could be CIRB, or it could even be CRIB. It is China, India, Russia, and Brazil - the big economies that are growing rapidly and will dramatically change the world we live in.

Clearly, most of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean are moving more slowly. I think we can probably agree that most still need to address structural changes in their economic practices and in their government processes. Even more, some economists suggest, to face the challenges of the future will require changing the mindset of the people. As challenging as structural changes have been in former decades, the latter requires years of concentration and education. Perhaps this is an area worthy of further research.

Another area that everyone seems to agree on for development and wealth creation is continuing to encourage entrepreneurships and small business creation. This is an area where your neighbor to the north, Florida, excels. Florida leads the nation in new business entity filings and since I now head our division of corporations in Florida, I know that this last year Florida registered 278,576 new business entities. That is the highest in the nation by a significant factor -- more than the larger states of California, New York, and Texas. Florida also has the lowest unemployment rate in the United States at 3.3%. Moreover, Florida is recognized as the most commercially active state or province in North America. Each year we have almost a million business entity annual report filings covering corporations, limited liability companies, and limited partnerships. Now, I admit that Florida is a pretty good-sized economy. But I still ask: What can UWI researchers do to help in guiding development of sustainable small business growth and entrepreneurial success?

Speaking of small businesses reminds me of the recent World Bank report called "Doing Business in 2006: Creating Jobs," which looks at the unrealistically high taxes and cumbersome payment procedures imposed by some countries. The statistics are rather startling. In one Western Hemisphere country, a domestic company with less than 100 employees would have to pay 148% of its annual profits to the state if it complied with all the tax laws. In a neighboring country, 98% of that company's profits would go to the state. China's take is 47%. In the US, it is 21%.

In Bolivia, according to the World Bank, accountants spend an average of 1,110 hours a year to pay taxes for a medium-size domestic firm. In Brazil it is 2,600 hours a year; in Venezuela - 900. In the US and South Korea it takes about 300 hours. That's still a lot. And listen to this: since 2001 when Russia enacted significant tax cuts and simplified payment procedures, the country has been increasing tax collection by an average of 14% a year. Amazing! Now, I know Jamaica is very much attuned to these facts and figures -- and I am definitely not advocating a specific government policy here -- but, it seems it would be a fascinating area of study.

Let's also look at some successful small countries. We know that several nations have extraordinary gross domestic products although their population is not large and they are not necessarily well endowed with natural resources. We can look at Iceland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Switzerland and Ireland - and some emerging nations like Estonia. What lesson should the rest of the world learn from these small states?

Richard W. Brahn in a September 2005 Washington Times article found common threads in obtaining rapid growth. He prioritized the factors - and this is not new to any of you - as establishing the rule of law; protecting private property, creating a sound currency, and liberalizing trade. Estonia, Brahn relates, removed most price controls, discarded old regulations, privatized most state owned enterprises and established a free trade regime. The result has been the largest percentage increase in per capita income of any of the former communist states.

Former Prime Minister and now current Foreign Minister, David Oddsson of Iceland, a country about which I know a great deal, essentially followed the same economic strategy in his country, resulting in an extraordinarily dynamic economy. Iceland engaged in a massive tax reduction (cutting corporate taxes from 50% to 18% and inheritance tax to a maximum of 5%). Yet government revenues have steadily increased and the national debt has been reduced from 50% of GDP to only 15%.

Switzerland's experience is different and interesting. It suggests that having most government power at the local level reduces friction among the various groups that make up that country's population. In a brief on the Swiss system presented by Professor Victoria Curzon-Price, at the University of Geneva, the argument was made that the splitting of political units into tiny elements provides a huge gain in terms of the legitimacy of the state. She postulates that a "state" obtains obedience in one of three ways: repression, bribery, or consent. Most modern democratic states end up using -- and abusing -- the second of these -- with the political class bribing marginal voters to maintain power. "Repression and bribery are costly," she continued, "but neither is needed if the government can obtain the willing consent of the governed which - in the Swiss context - is best obtained by direct democracy within small political units." The resulting competition among the cantons, she concluded, increased efficiency and productivity, thereby spurring growth.

We could also look technology. Many believe that fostering technological change will be the main driving force for long-term growth. Of course, this calls for sustained increases in expenditures for education and research. But growth examples abound in this field and research opportunities are limitless.

Let me just give you a couple of examples that I am aware of. These are in the security field. It is well known that the current generation of facial recognition technology, which has advantages over fingerprinting, has limitations. Several companies are now researching and preparing to come out with a new 3D version. They will make money.

There is tremendous growth in the area of Continuous Data Protection, which is critical to businesses surviving natural or man made disasters by backing up all data and applications so business can be resumed quickly.

Investment in voice verification biometrics has been growing steadily as investors have seen increasing returns on investment. Voice verification biometrics is expected -- according to one source -- to be growing at a rate of 50% a year for the next five years.

There is no reason in the world that an attentive Jamaican researcher can't identify and work on the next big tech break-through, or to help shape Jamaican's vision for the future in the field of technology.

Now I know that Jamaica has selected or is studying and is implementing several of the aforementioned approaches. Disturbingly though, I recently read in one of your two top newspapers - and this surprised me - that if you go back a few decades you would not find a comprehensive analysis of Jamaica's economy and that there is "academic silence" in this area. This has not, of course, prevented ideas from popping up and being touted, but, said the writer of the piece, the ideas are "like a doctor who prescribes a course of treatment without first conducting a diagnosis of the patient." Happily, I also recently read that a new initiative has been launched called the Target Growth Competitiveness Committee. A group of leading economists and social scientists are coming together to provide well-considered views that are reflective of careful, in-depth analysis of the state of the Jamaican economy and will identify trends and ideas that will take the country into its future. That sounds like a good idea to me, and it would seem to make sense that the scholars of the University of the West Indies watch carefully, and participate, and add to the research, the dialogue, and the vision.

Let me conclude with the definition of a word "vision." "Vision" is one's ability to "see" a plan for the future, to turn this plan in a direction which leads to action and this action ultimately provides a pathway to success. It has been said that "Man can only live by looking to the future and this is the salvation to his existence." And vision must be "end" related. It must be clearly detailed, positive, inspiring, and challenge people to grow. It must be worthy of support from a nation's citizens.

We hope to see AFJ/Cobb Family lectures with visions of Jamaica's future.

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