By definition, development policy must be broad encompassing social, economic, environmental and spatial phenomena. Practically, development policies articulated must be strategic and proactive rather than detailed and reactive.

In the context of the British Virgin Islands, in practice, development strategies have been chosen on the basis of "generic strategies" proposed in the development literature, or on the basis of what is thought to have worked elsewhere. In most cases, including the BVI, the development management efforts emphasized economic strategies; with not much attention being paid to the important task of designing complementary and mutually reinforcing sets of environmental, social and physical measures to address the strategic issues. As a consequence, our recent pattern of development was based on a deliberate strategy of fostering economic growth through the expansion of activities in the export services sector, namely tourism and offshore financial services. Complemented by supporting strategies in other areas in response to demands created by these leading activities, we achieved considerable development gains. We have experienced the benefits of deliberate and sustained polices favouring human resources, infrastructural development and export services. Details and an impact analysis of this policy are listed on this website.

As the Central Planning Agency responsible for co-ordinating integrated development, we recognize, national macroeconomic policies as well as global international economic forces are shaping the business environment in which the modern entrepreneur operates. If he/she is to survive and/or benefit from the impact of market globalization, the understanding and access to information on macroeconomic analyses and forecasts, short and long-term economic trends, monetary and financial developments, etc. are vital to his/her operations.

As a territory, however, we cannot afford to be complacent with the progress made. The Government believes that with the right approach, one that is multidimensional and encompasses integrated development, it is possible to consolidate the gains of the past decade, and to build on them to achieve a better future. In this section, therefore, we set out the broad policy framework of our integrated development strategy. This framework outlines the major policies, objectives, and targets that will pursued by the government up to the year 2003.

The ultimate and unquestioned goal of that strategy is the improvement of the human condition. This will be achieved through interventions geared to improve the quality of life in the society. The pursuit of that goal, and the basis of the interventions to achieve, together constitute the overall strategy of integrated development.

The schematic of our policy framework is intended to provide a logical view of our policy approach showing the overall objective and the broad areas of policy being pursued.

Figure 1
SUMMARY SCHEMATIC OF POLICY FRAMEWORK

Interested readers can find our policies grouped according to the categories in the schematic immediately above. Policies do change overtime and between governments: therefore, on this website we are displaying the published policies of the ruling political party over the past two parliamentary periods. Readers are simply required to click on the category of policy in which they are interested.