Caribbean Development Bank News Release — June 15, 2021
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — The state should not be shy about taking a leading role in driving innovation, and the COVID-19 pandemic means now is the time for bold action by governments to make this happen. This was the call from Professor Mariana Mazzucato, Director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London, who delivered the Caribbean Development Bank’s William G. Demas Memorial Lecture on Tuesday 15th June at the curtain-raiser of CDB’s 51st Annual Meeting.
Professor Mazzucato called for a radical rethink of the role of the public sector, arguing that the prevailing framework has left governments merely “filling the gap of something that the private sector is not doing.” She stated: “We need co-creating and co-shaping of markets, not just fixing them.” The pandemic has been a “big wake-up moment” showing how much the capacity of many states had been outsourced and how critical it is to redevelop that capacity. However, she said the pandemic also presents “a chance to redesign the social contract between the public and the private sector,” pointing to governments that have placed bold conditionalities such as carbon reduction commitments at the centre of recovery and bailout schemes.
She advocated for a mission-oriented approach with clear, specific goals, using the Apollo Programme as a historical model. “President Kennedy said we have to do it because it’s hard, not because it’s easy. Many of the challenges that we face are harder than getting to the moon. But we have to at least admit they are hard. We will confront them in a way that will require us to welcome uncertainty, to be willing to experiment, to invest in our ability to learn by doing.”